Posted on 12/21/2011 1:51:06 PM PST by daniel1212
Opinions? PC tech mystery
Last week my hard working Sony VGC RA840G PC (circa 2005), 2.8ghz, 3gb ram, under XP media center (a gift), which came with a hard-to-ID mobo (appears to be a Asus p5lp-vx), would not boot into Windows, but would just hang at the stage when loading settings would take place. It would boot using safe mode, but even booting with only windows services (chosen via msconfig) would result in the same terminal hang. In safe mode I scanned the system with an up to date online scan (Bit Defender), as well as Kapersky root kit scanner which found nothing.
It also would not run disk check, and going back to a good restore point also did not fix the problem.
I have a full recent back on another drive which i was able to boot from before this, but the very same thing would happen using that, which evidenced it was a hardware issue.
I also had a Linux OS on another separate drive that i sometimes used, and sometimes it would boot into that, but not always.
Attempting to do a clean install would fail to proceed to the point where you can choose what to do , as did an attempt to install a preview version of W/7, or even another copy of Linux. Things were getting worse.
In attempting to diagnose the problem, i disconnected all peripherals except the kbrd and mouse (both work fine on another PC),
unplugged floppy and card readers,
removed all cards except video (which i also swapped out),
unplugged IDE data cables
swapped out each of the 3 sticks of memory
cleaned out dust; checked wires, etc.
checked the voltage of the (Sony cu$tom) PSU which showed 12, 5 and 3.5
But it would still hang, and eventually would not even load under safe mode.
However, i did look for capacitor plague and found one capacitor, a larger one, that was swelled, the top bulging, and which was more common years ago. I even made a basic attempt to remove the mobo in hopes of repairing it, something i had never done. I have removed mobos before, and once installed a CPU, but, this PC apparently the CPU is liquid cooled as it has pipes going from underneath a large heatsink up to a large fan box up the top, and so i put that off for perhaps another day.
As a result of it not starting, instead i used an old white box 1.5ghz PC (from my neighbors metal recycling business), which i had installed a retail copy of XP on, but with only 768mb of ram i could not work with my usual 3 Bible programs, about 10 documents open as well as about 80 tabs in Firefox. And i began praying and looking at newer builds with 64bit. [Surprisingly however, despite only having pata connectors and 1.0 USB, i was able to access my sata drives using one of those $3.00 usb sata ide cable adapters from ebay), powered by an old PSU (clip facing you, with a paper clip connect the green wire to the black wire to the left of it), which improvisation some might carefully find useful.]
But last night after trying to remove the mobo i decided to give it another try, after thinking of selling it for parts, and this time it booted, after running check disk, and continues to run well I am certain disk errors were not the problem as nothing would consistently run using various drives. Perhaps i inadvertently fixed something in my attempt to remove the mobo, as nothing else was done, but i thank God the old work horse is running.
Opinions?
Also, if America were a computer, what would be the diagnosis?
Thanks for your prayers.
Find another computer with similar - better specs that needs a HD, and stick the HD in it, and take the old thing to a recycle bin, and toss it in.
It could be that moving the mobo reseated the memory. You might just have a funky DIMM in there.
No mystery here. Junk it and buy a Mac.
Well, this is rather fast, being 2.8ghz and tweaked. The main advantage is that 64 bit can take more ram, as i use of most 3gb even in XP.
I did see these as offering the best buys. What do you think:
http://www.computerlx.com/view_cart.aspx
http://www.pricewatch.com/gallery/computer_systems_with_os/phenom_555
http://www.pricewatch.com/computer_systems_with_os/
http://www.pricewatch.com/gallery/computer_systems_with_os/athlon_ii_x4_640
you may have bought some time but with the capacitor going its only a matter of time. Go to the MFG website find the service guide, it will tell you how to do the rip down, replace the capacitors, clean it up then back it up. BTW get the hard drive diagnostic program from the HD MFG and make sure its fine. Lastly check the ram with a memory checker program.
Dell has a dos level hardware diagnostic suite, you should see if there is one for your system.
Could have been some bad memory or mobo shorting on the case.
Use memtest86 to see if the memory is okay.
If your motherboard has swollen capacitors, I think I would plan on rebuilding that computer real soon.
No, even when i booted into Linus it was inconsistent, and now it runs fine. I did not touch the memory after swapping them out to no avail.
Get the best specs you can afford... slap your HD in, and go...
Can Windows users go to Heaven?
No, they are not close, and had swapped them, running with only one and then trying another. And while this is the 1st day back it running without a noticeable hitch (event manager also good).
By booting linux from a usb stick, you can avoid any problem that your drive might be having, and safely run diagnostics on it.
Ditto..buy a MAC.There are a lot to choose from too to meet your needs.
In my younger days, I wanted to use one of the new fangled VGA cards, but the bios chip wouldn't support it. I had to de-solder the bios chip and solder the new on in. That's they way we did it back then and we liked it!
Yes, it is only one, but that can be all it takes.
Will check. Thanks!
It’s not a mystery. Obama and Eric Holder are spying on you using your own computer.
I hear you. Will try to make best use of the funds that be, as needed.
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