Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: FUBAR-BDHR on September 26, 2008, 04:56:36 pm
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Finally had time to try to fix that machine that crashed trying to break the Temporal Mechanics zip.
Leading up to the crash I remember this scenario. It did a few hard shutdowns with a serious system error message from windows.
After that I noticed that the network card light was flashing on the router (the bad kind of flash where it can't figure out the speed).
It was an onboard card so I ordered a replacement and was going to just disable the internal card.
Before I could even shut down and go to the BIOS the system did a BSOD.
Powering back on it came up with a message about overclocking failing. I only used the BIOS defaults for the system and never set overclocking.
Booted up again and the system never got past the windows loading screen.
It wouldn't even switch off so I shut the power off at the switch on the power supply and tured it back on.
Same thing with the overclocking but this time the BIOS splash screen came up which I had disabled. Looked like everything reset to factory default
Tried booting again with the same results and shut off at power supply again
Last time I tried to boot it it wouldn't even power on. That was months ago
Today I pulled the case out thinking I was going to need to get a new MB. Did a quick check the fans and make sure the cards were seated. Everything was fine.
Plugged the power cord back in and hit the switch and low and behold it powers on.
Quickly shut it down and connected the monitor and keyboard and turned it back on. BIOS came up but I missed hitting the DEL key in time.
Figured what the heck and let it go since windows was loading. Well it loaded.
Shut id down and pushed it back into the cabinet and hooked the network, video 2, and sound back up.
Wouldn't load windows and when I rebooted I got the same overclocking message.
Disabled the overclocking entirely. No message but no boot.
Disconnected the network cable. Still nothing
Disconnected the video and audio and it booted and is still running.
Now for the fun info. This system took a lightning hit almost a year to the day before these problems started. I was able to get it working again with a new power supply (plenty of wattage) and vid card. It ran for a whole year without a problem. Only time it was shut down was for a power outage.
So do you think it's a bad motherboard? Vid card? CPU? It's a nice system and I'd like to get it working again for minimal $$ otherwise I'd just replace them all. I don't think I'm going to find a Pentium D 3.6 though. Last time I looked was a year ago and they wanted $800 for one.
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"Only time it was shut down was for a power outage." This is typical. In enterprise level installations hardware often runs for years and years without being shut down...suddenly there is a power outage or something is moved and power has to be removed for a while and then suddenly all sorts of stuff needs replacing as it never came back from having no power.
This sort of thing can definitely happen.
Lightning and electrical damage can do real numbers on computers in my personal experience. Some of them you basically need a whole new system because so many components are damaged and almost nothing is salvageable. Other times you can be lucky. I think you were lucky for the year but it was probably borrowed time.
The only way to know whats wrong in my opinion is to replace each component with another component and see if thats the one or not. Not easy when you aren't a computer store with a bunch of hardware lying around for testing purposes. If you can get your hands on a video card and some RAM from somewhere else try those two and see if that helps. If not then it could be motherboard, CPU, or both.
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I was thinking about swapping the video card. I know I have one around here the problem is finding it. I know I don't have any spare memory for this system. If I did it would be in the system as there are 2 empty slots. Right now I'm just letting it run to see if it crashes. Going to see if I can find a replacement MB. Probably going to be hard to find the same model as the system is over 2 years old.
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Any beeps or error codes on startup other than the overclocking message?
What is this video 2 to which you refer? Is it booting with onboard video but not a dedicated card? Chances are if that's the case you once again have a power issue or a dead video card.
Try a new PSU first. If that doesn't work, try a video card.
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Nope no error codes. The video card has support for 2 monitors labeled video 1 and video 2. Power supply doesn't seem to be the problem as the system runs fine with all hardware installed just not all cables connected.
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In my experiance it's video cards and PSUs that get frakked up the most, but that's just me
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I've seen a lot bad power supplies but not too many bad video cards. I'd almost say this was a video card problem except for the network port freaking out.
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Then what could it be other than the mobo? :wtf:
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Processor or something totally off the wall that should never happen.
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If there's a bug out there I'm just drunk enough to stumble into it.
And I thought my old computer had problems...
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for a moment before i read the lightening spike that it sounded like a virus had your machine by the neck or your computer components are knackered after many years useage.
power cables sometimes get hit because of the metals it uses and the same holds true if you happen to be an idiot wearing a lightening suit with a huge rod attached to the back that will attract every single jolt of energy the heavens will throw at you!. anyone want a cooked person encased in a lightening suit or a freshly char-grilled pc?
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The only problem with that theory is the power supply was changed after the lightning strike and there are no splitter cables or anything.
Think I'm going to replace the MB. Just got to finds something that takes the same CPU, Vid card, and memory.
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Have you checked the memory for errors? System memory is the most sensitive device to both EMI and overvoltage. If you have problems POSTing, but the system does POST (even sometimes), that is your most likely culprit.
Also, what happens when you attempt a bare POST (as in, nothing connected to the PC except CPU, RAM, and display)?
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It works just fine with the following connected: CPU, Memory, HD, DVD, DVD-RW, Keyboard, Mouse, Display 1, and SCSI card. Been running for 2 days with no crashes. Network port (built in) goes nuts when connected to the switch. This happens even right at power up and before the BIOS splash screen if connected. System hangs loading windows if Display 2 is hooked up. Haven't tried hooking the sound back up. Nothing else to hook up. So I'm having both network an video problems that started at the same time.
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Have you checked the memory for errors? System memory is the most sensitive device to both EMI and overvoltage. If you have problems POSTing, but the system does POST (even sometimes), that is your most likely culprit.
Also, what happens when you attempt a bare POST (as in, nothing connected to the PC except CPU, RAM, and display)?
Thats actually a good suggestion.
Yeah run memtest86 (download the ISO, burn to CD, run :)) and let it have a few passes at it...that is...if you can get it to come up on screen properly with all of the problems you're having. The program will test your RAM very very carefully.