a great 'puzzle' for the IT type people among us

[electron]

The other thing which is rather strange is that it has no problems running an 18 hour memory test using memtest86, I forgot what OS the floppy uses (I think linux or freedos), but no problems what so ever! The bios shows the voltages are ok, unless you mean monitoring them using a multimeter.

 

[jwilson56]

Hey E did you try and boot up WinXp from a CD? That would eliminate the IDE interface.

John

 

[electron]

that's what I did with Linux, but you still use the IDE interface since the CDROM is IDE, and the bios doesn't support booting from USB-CDROM.

 

[deranged]

I had 3 of the Same model PC's go bad a couple of months ago within 2 weeks.

They passed all tests, Tried new memory, HD, Video card, etc. After a while I put in a IDE card and turned off the motherboard IDE. This cured 2 of them, Until recently 1 of them is back.

They didn't lock up, they just started running really really really SLooooooowww.

So slow that on a fresh install of windows 2000 notepad took minutes to open.

The last one I never got running, I ended up buying a cheap motherboard with an AMD CPU and put it in the Brand name PC.
I now use is to run my network monitoring software and Switch Monitoring software.

I will probably do the same thing for the 1 that just returned.


StevenE

 

[huggy59]

If not power supply, I'll bet its the chipset "glue" chips that deal with I/O such as IDE, USB, PCI, etc. ie. motherboard has gone bad, or perhaps cache memory or something similar.

I've had two identical boards do the same thing here, within 2 weeks of each other. I replaced the m/b in each system and all is well.

 

[rocco]

7) the machine do not crash at all when you let it sit in the Bios, or if you let it sit where you select which OS to boot (grub, etc.)
8) extensive 18hour memory tests show memory is ok, swapped it anyways as a test, same problem

That kind of smells like an interupt contention problem. Is there a way to tell if the cpu was/was not in an ISR?

 

[ClearToLand]

6) they are about 3 years old, so no warranty

• Possible Short Circuits
  
• BadCaps
  
• Motherboard Repair

On September 13, 2002, it was reported to Passive Component Industry Magazine by contacts in Japan that an unusually high rate of failures of aluminum electrolytic capacitors produced in Taiwan by Lelon Electronics, Luxon Electronics, and other aluminum capacitor manufacturers had been traced to a problem with an aqueous electrolyte (insulation) that had been used throughout the Taiwanese electrolytic capacitor industry.

 

[electron]

Thanks for the links, hopefully I have the time next week to take a closer look at the motherboard itself.

 

[BraveSirRobbin]

Hey ClearToLand:

Good point about the bad capacitors. The bad ones "puff" out at the tops. Maybe take a look at the mobos and see if this characteristic exists.

I remember some posts over at anandtech land about this problem with mobos, specifically the Epox EP-8K7A (of which I own two).

 

[electron]

my EP-8K7A died very suddenly, but I couldn't tell if it was related to the recent power fluctutations, or a the capacitor issue (or both).

 

[Paul]

from what you're saying i'd agree that its probably bad caps. the nice thing is, if you can get the right caps, you should be able to replace them all, as the leads for caps are pretty big. and hey, if you break something, its no big deal because they didnt work in the first place. i've replaced caps on several motherboards that were exhibiting the same symptoms, and thats taken care of it. so far i'm 3 for 3 in replacing caps and having the motherboards work afterwards, so i think you'll do ok.