bigmacbear: Me in a leather jacket and Hockey Night in Canada ball cap, on a ferry with Puget Sound in background (Default)
bigmacbear ([personal profile] bigmacbear) wrote2006-10-21 05:04 pm
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Ailing computer -- any suggestions?

Being a Unix sysadmin unfortunately hasn't given me "mad skillz" in troubleshooting Wintel PC issues, especially those which I suspect have a hardware component. But I have my suspicions, and perhaps someone who's done more of this than I have might want to chime in.

About a month and a half ago, my main PC began freezing solid, to the point that I had to hit the "programmer's switch" (hardware reset) to recover it. This would happen typically once every time I turned the computer on, maybe 10 or 15 minutes into the session, and once I reset the computer it would be good for several hours.

More recently, the "programmer's switch" hasn't worked either and I've had to lean on the power switch for several seconds to get the power supply to shut off. On the next power cycle the computer would usually Just Work.

But yet more recently the system has failed to boot on the first try and I've had to repeatedly apply both the programmer's switch and the power switch to get the computer restarted. Today it took at least six tries to recover from the initial freeze.

Oh, and the manufacturer is a local mom-and-pop shop in Rochester. So if I'm to fix this thing it looks like I'll have to do so myself. I'd just as soon not have to pay to have this system recycled so soon after buying it (it's about a year and a half old), and if nothing else I'd like to have a working system for [livejournal.com profile] gmjambear to use in his upcoming skills-building exercises.

My first suspicion is the power supply, because that was the cause the last time I had a computer fail to boot. Anyone who does this day in and day out have another opinion, like is the problem more likely to be in the motherboard or the case itself?

Luckily, I live about a half mile from the only Fry's outlet in Western Washington so if no one else has a clue I could always ask someone there. But due to other commitments I probably won't make it to Fry's until next weekend, and my system's going downhill fast.

Any advice will be appreciated.

[identity profile] ciddyguy.livejournal.com 2006-10-22 01:22 am (UTC)(link)
Lemme take a stab since I'm a PC user and built my own.

It may well be the power supply but watch it, if it's rebooting rather frequently, it's most likely that and they are very easy to replace. Most home brew boxes use a standard powersupply that bolts to the upper part of the case with 3 screws and has a power harness attached to it, it's that harness that attaches to the MB and all drives and CPU. I'd get a 350-400 Watt model at min, but do look at what you have. I bet it's most likely a 300 watter, which for most Celerons and basic P4 based systems is just adequate.

Can't say exactly what a failing MB symptoms are but I think they exibit similar stuff too. As far as other components, such as the video card, do not know if they will cause reboots or not. But upon rebooting, does it do so why in POST? If so, that's not good. I wish I could tell for sure which one but I would agree it's one of them.

My Mom's old PC when brand new did that and it was diagnosed as an ailing MB. Once that was replaced by Packard Bell back in early '98, that old box did fine up until I finally told mom it had to be replaced or else a year ago. :-)

I will never know which one is the culprit since I ended up replacing both the MB, PS, processor and memory at the time of my series of reboots in Sept of 04.

Good luck with this.

[identity profile] quirkstreet.livejournal.com 2006-10-22 03:16 am (UTC)(link)
Could be power supply.

Could be a temperature sensor associated with the CPU chip is mis-interpreting the temperature and thinking the machine is too hot, and setting a status flag that is meant to put it in safe mode or power it down but has the effect of hanging it.

Have you defragmented the hard disk recently? Problems with bad sectors *shouldn't* set in before booting but who knows.

I'm just shooting in the dark here, but those are some thoughts apart from the excellent ones Ciddyguy already gave you.

[identity profile] detailbear.livejournal.com 2006-10-22 06:25 am (UTC)(link)
Problems near the start of a session are unusual.

Our standard procedure at work for client workstations reboots:

1. Remove the cover from the case. Check that all the fans are running, especially the cpu fan. If the CPU fan is doing anything other than running perfectly, shut off the computer until you replace it.

2. If nothing appears wrong, leave the cover off to see if it improves the interval between reboots. If so, you probably have an intermittant fan problem, or a heat sink that's coming loose from the CPU. Or dust/pet hair. If the inside is dusty, you may need to blow off with canned air.

3. If not heat, then check memory. Right click on My Computer and choose 'Properties'. Check again in 3 or 4 hours and again close to the time it normally resets. If you've have less, your memory is possibly going.

4. If you have more than one memory stick, then when it's just frozen, remove the upper half (the slots should be numbered) and check if the problem persists. Your computer will be extremely slow. After a while, shut down and trade the memory in the lower numbered slots. If no change, replace the memory.

5. At this point, it's probably a mother board or some loose wiring.

[identity profile] chrishansenhome.livejournal.com 2006-10-22 12:55 pm (UTC)(link)
Yes, I agree with [livejournal.com profile] detailbear on this one. While I used to construct my own PCs, when the last one went it was the power supply and I said, "To hell I pitch this" and bought a Dell. Now we've got an iMac (with added memory and an 80GB hdd), two laptops (not counting my work laptop) and a Sun SPARC Ultra 10. Buy something commercial from a recognised commercial outfit.

I am about to shut down everything, clean out the area behind the computers, set up a KVM switch for the Sun and my PC, get some cable tidies back there so it doesn't look like a worm convention, put in a DVD writer internally for the Dell and get rid of the rest of the stuff, and then hopefully turn everything on and have it work. Oh, and I'll vacuum out the interior of the computer just to make sure.