PC dying or dead- is mobo the cause?

larry moe 'n curly wrote:

Are you the kind of person who tosses out the whole car just because a
headlight burns out?

I'm the kind of person who fixes old computers, and assembles new ones,
with the objective of giving a person a dependable machine that is a
pleasure to use.

I think it is a waste of time and money to "fix" a five year old PC.
It's not worth it, except maybe to prove something, and win a bet.

Go ahead, replace the power supply and the mobo battery. Then something
else will go out. Fix that. Something else will go out. Finding
compatible bits and pieces from other discarded PCs is a crapshoot.
They are used/old too, and can't be depended upon.

Go ahead and make a hobby or a career out of keeping these tottering
ruins chugging away, and bless you. Me, no thanks. You may think it
saves money (as long as you are doing all the work yourself), but that's
assuming that your time isn't worth much.

I have had enough inhaled primeval dust to last a lifetime.

Now go ahead and line up to brag, all of you, about how long you have
been suffering with four megs of RAM and a 500 MB hard drive. Bully for
you, you fetishists, you cheapskates.

On Feb 10, 4:50*am, ToolPackinMama wrote:
larry moe 'n curly wrote:

Are you the kind of person who tosses out the whole car just because a
headlight burns out?

I'm the kind of person who fixes old computers, and assembles new ones,
with the objective of giving a person a dependable machine that is a
pleasure to use.

I think it is a waste of time and money to "fix" a five year old PC.
It's not worth it, except maybe to prove something, and win a bet.

Go ahead, replace the power supply and the mobo battery. *Then something
else will go out. *Fix that. *Something else will go out. *Finding
compatible bits and pieces from other discarded PCs is a crapshoot.
They are used/old too, and can't be depended upon.

Go ahead and make a hobby or a career out of keeping these tottering
ruins chugging away, and bless you. *Me, no thanks. *You may think it
saves money (as long as you are doing all the work yourself), but that's
assuming that your time isn't worth much.

I have had enough inhaled primeval dust to last a lifetime.

Now go ahead and line up to brag, all of you, about how long you have
been suffering with four megs of RAM and a 500 MB hard drive. *Bully for
you, you fetishists, you cheapskates. *

larry moe' n curly is right about patching things up to find that
something else may go bad. I do feel that these relics are worth a
little effort but not an endless stream of cash. A true value cannot
be put on one's time if they themselves are will to spend it on
something that interests them. I will round up a psu and try one more
time to breath life back into this system. If all else fails she may
be getting an early birthday gift from her older brother. Thanks again
to all who tried to assist in this matter.
jinxy.
P.S I think I will use a Japanese psu.

Hi Jinxy

Denis is my name and IT is my food. I have ever come across such a
doom like 10 to 11 times and your sister is explaining exactly
explaining what a client once explained to me.

In all this cases it has all been a problem with the Processor. Even
if your PC has no speaker there is always beep sound that does come
not from the speaker.

I would advice if possible test this PC with another processor. I
think something positive could come out.

Good luck Jinxy


Denis

Denis wrote:
Hi Jinxy

Denis is my name and IT is my food. I have ever come across such a
doom like 10 to 11 times and your sister is explaining exactly
explaining what a client once explained to me.

In all this cases it has all been a problem with the Processor. Even
if your PC has no speaker there is always beep sound that does come
not from the speaker.

I would advice if possible test this PC with another processor. I
think something positive could come out.

Good luck Jinxy


Denis

Oh yea, an IT perfessional....

I'm not IT. I'm an electronics technician.

I've done more than a few systems in my day, from my own homebuilds to
rehabbing/refurbing government surplus machines for charity to embedded
industrial controllers to dedicated systems (right now we support a
complete radio dispatch console system with garage-sale 386/486
motherboards). I started this in 1989.

I've seen 3 bad CPUs so far. One was a Cyrix PR300 that someone pulled
the heatsink off for some reason, then fired up the machine. One was a
P2 something or other that just "died". The last one was a P4 that died
when the powersupply went bad and overvolted everything . There was
electrolyte from blown caps dripping out of the PS...

jinxy wrote:

larry moe' n curly is right about patching things up to find that
something else may go bad.

Ah yes. That was me.

I do feel that these relics are worth a
little effort but not an endless stream of cash. A true value cannot
be put on one's time if they themselves are will to spend it on
something that interests them. I will round up a psu and try one more
time to breath life back into this system. If all else fails she may
be getting an early birthday gift from her older brother. Thanks again
to all who tried to assist in this matter.
jinxy.
P.S I think I will use a Japanese psu.

nobody wrote:

I've seen 3 bad CPUs so far. One was a Cyrix PR300 that someone pulled
the heatsink off for some reason, then fired up the machine. One was a
P2 something or other that just "died". The last one was a P4 that died
when the powersupply went bad and overvolted everything . There was
electrolyte from blown caps dripping out of the PS...

A CPU can fail if the little old heatsink fan has failed, but I agree
it's not the first thing I would suspect.

In old computers (in my experience) the power supply goes, the mobo
battery goes, and those are both fast and easy to replace. I check
those first, because it's worthwhile to replace those if that is all
that is ailing the dear old wreak.

Hard drives get old and stop working. That is another part that is easy
to replace.

If it's time to replace the motherboard, you are better off just
building a new computer, I think. It's hell to find new motherboards
for old slot A CPUs. Why bother? I sure have better things to do.

On Feb 10, 8:40 am, jinxy wrote:
I will round up a psu and try one more time to breath life back
into this system. If all else fails she may be getting an early
birthday gift from her older brother. Thanks again to all who
tried to assist in this matter.

Far more information and much less time are spent by simply
measuring voltages on that existing power supply. Disconnect and
remove nothing. In less than two minutes, you either have an answer -
without doubts - or you have numbers so that more knowledgeable
posters can reply.

Simply take VDC numbers from the green, gray, and purple wires both
before and when power switch is pressed. Multimeters being so easy
to use, so inexpensive, and so ubiquitous as to be sold even in
discount stores such as K-mart.

Also useful are numbers from any one of orange, red, and yellow
wires as power switch is pressed. Those numbers especially useful
when computer is accessing numerous peripherals simultaneously. From
those numbers, then entire power system (which is more than just a
power supply) is known good or bad - definitively. No more doubts. No
more swapping supplies. No more posting questions here about the power
supply. A procedure that could even identify bad caps that you cannot
see inside the power supply.

Swapping a supply takes more labor and time ... and still does not
provide any useful answers about the entire power supply 'system'.
Worse, a defective power supply 'system' can still boot a computer.
Swap the supply. See it work today. Suffer more failures tomorrow
that were unnecessary is using the meter. Use a 3.5 digit multimeter
to have an answer without more doubts.

Hey all, I am currently trying to solve a computer no run problem. My
younger`sisters pc was running fine up to a week ago, and then she
started getting random" freeze ups,"( is how she put it). Now it won't
.....
board looks to be an Intel D845EGB2 with a P4 1.7 and 256mb of ddr 266
ram. Is it posible that builders like MDG can put some kind of lock
out or am I just grasping at straws? I know its an older system but
with things the way they are with the economy and all she would rather
not buy a new pc at this point in time. I also know that something

1. Power supply ages. So it could be reason no 1.
2. Dust on the heatsink of the CPU could bring about over-heating.
3. Too many USB devices, overloading the power supply?
Unplug some of them.

If the motherboard or the power supply died, you could still be
able to find P4 motherboards out there and re-assemble a new PC
out of the parts.

--
@~@ Might, Courage, Vision, SINCERITY.
/ v \ Simplicity is Beauty! May the Force and Farce be with you!
/( _ )\ (Xubuntu 8.04.2) Linux 2.6.28.4
^ ^ 14:10:01 up 3 days 19:05 1 user load average: 1.00 1.00 1.00
¤£*ɶU! ¤£¶BÄF! ¤£´©¥æ! ¤£¥´¥æ! ¤£¥´§T! ¤£¦Û±þ! ½Ð¦Ò¼{ºî´© (CSSA):
http://www.swd.gov.hk/tc/index/site_...sub_addressesa

On Feb 11, 1:13Â*am, "Man-wai Chang ToDie (33.6k)"
wrote:
Hey all, I am currently trying to solve a computer no run problem. My
younger`sisters pc was running fine up to a week ago, and then she
started getting random" freeze ups,"( is how she put it). Now it won't
.....
board looks to be an Intel D845EGB2 with a P4 1.7 and 256mb of ddr 266
ram. Is it posible that builders like MDG can put some kind of lock
out or am I just grasping at straws? I know its an older system but
with things the way they are with the economy and all she would rather
not buy a new pc at this point in time. I also know that something

1. Power supply ages. So it could be reason no 1.
2. Dust on the heatsink of the CPU could bring about over-heating.
3. Too many USB devices, overloading the power supply?
Â* Â*Unplug some of them.

If the motherboard or the power supply died, you could still be
able to find P4 motherboards out there and re-assemble a new PC
out of the parts.

--
Â* @~@ Â* Might, Courage, Vision, SINCERITY.
Â*/ v \ Â*Simplicity is Beauty! May the Force and Farce be with you!
/( _ )\ (Xubuntu 8.04.2) Â*Linux 2.6.28.4
Â* ^ ^ Â* 14:10:01 up 3 days 19:05 1 user load average: 1.00 1.00 1.00
�借貸! ��騙! ��交! �打交! �打劫! �自殺! 請考慮綜� (CSSA):http://www.swd.gov.hk/tc/index/site_...sub_addressesa

Last night I removed the psu from the tower and opened it up , only to
find that the 2 large caps. were both leaking. It looked as if someone
had dropped a teaspoon of peanut butter in there. I guess that solves
that, but what else might be toast is yet to be seen. Going to Tiger
Direct on the weekend for a psu. I will post back with the outcome.
jinxy

On Feb 11, 8:44Â*am, jinxy wrote:
On Feb 11, 1:13Â*am, "Man-wai Chang ToDie (33.6k)"





wrote:
Hey all, I am currently trying to solve a computer no run problem. My
younger`sisters pc was running fine up to a week ago, and then she
started getting random" freeze ups,"( is how she put it). Now it won't
.....
board looks to be an Intel D845EGB2 with a P4 1.7 and 256mb of ddr 266
ram. Is it posible that builders like MDG can put some kind of lock
out or am I just grasping at straws? I know its an older system but
with things the way they are with the economy and all she would rather
not buy a new pc at this point in time. I also know that something

1. Power supply ages. So it could be reason no 1.
2. Dust on the heatsink of the CPU could bring about over-heating.
3. Too many USB devices, overloading the power supply?
Â* Â*Unplug some of them.

If the motherboard or the power supply died, you could still be
able to find P4 motherboards out there and re-assemble a new PC
out of the parts.

--
Â* @~@ Â* Might, Courage, Vision, SINCERITY.
Â*/ v \ Â*Simplicity is Beauty! May the Force and Farce be with you!
/( _ )\ (Xubuntu 8.04.2) Â*Linux 2.6.28.4
Â* ^ ^ Â* 14:10:01 up 3 days 19:05 1 user load average: 1.00 1.00 1.00
�借貸! ��騙! ��交! �打交! �打劫! �自殺! 請考慮綜� (CSSA):http://www.swd.gov.hk/tc/index/site_...sub_addressesa

Last night I removed the psu from the tower and opened it up , only to
find that the 2 large caps. were both leaking. It looked as if someone
had dropped a teaspoon of peanut butter in there. I guess that solves
that, but what else might be toast is yet to be seen. Going to Tiger
Direct on the weekend for a psu. I will post back with the outcome.
jinxy- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Went to the local mom and pop and picked up a used Antec 400w psu. It
cost me $12.00 with a no questions asked 60 day exchange. Hooked it up
and system is up and running again. It seems that no other damage has
occured, but that could change quickly. I am going to let it run for a
few days without a reboot to see if dies. thanks for all of your
advices.
jinxy