Comments | drdoug: Computer woe episode III: Return of the Motherboard

drdoug

Computer woe episode III: Return of the Motherboard

Sep 12, 2011 20:03

Alas, my computer woes are not yet resolved. In episode 1, the computer died, and we ended up suspecting the motherboard. In episode II, Dell were very nice about warranties, diagnosed the motherboard as faulty definitively, and arranged to send round an engineer.

Things have moved on!
( Snipped for the tiny minority of my readers who are unaccountably not gripped by this saga )

customer-service-hell, computers

Comments 15

steer September 13 2011, 00:42:16 UTC

It would be too much of a coincidence for a second motherboard to be faulty. Memory or CPU are obvious suspects. One problem you have now is that anything on your HD may be dodgy -- written by flaky machine in the process of falling over.

One thing I would consider is to do an exhaustive test of the memory using nothing from the hard drive. Burn yourself a copy of (say) "ultimate boot CD" or actually an ubuntu boot cd. I would try a minimal stripped down system... don't even connect the HD, put as little memory in as possible (say just 1 stick of 2Gb) and boot to try it. You should be able to run a memory test then.

In my experience, memory can be tricky to seat and motherboard wiring can be notoriouly dodgy so I've had lots of spells of "impossible" conditions (you know, works with A+B and B+C but not A+B+C) -- which turns out to be memory not quite clicked home or loose connectors to the motherboard front panel.

Was the CPU replaced as well as the MB?

drdoug September 13 2011, 05:55:40 UTC

Don't think a second mb faulty is too much of a coincidence to consider - it's not at all impossible that Dell used a refurb mobo with an intermittent fault as the replacement they fitted, and it's also not at all impossible that there's a batch/regular problem with the motherboard.

The old motherboard was definitely gone - it was broken even with only the PSU plugged in (no memory, no CPU). Memory or CPU faults on top mean that there were two problems to start with, which again is in to 'not most likely' territory, except we're there already, I think.

The dodgy HD is in my mind - but this is one area Windows wins over Unix-derived OSes: Windows file systems are far less vulnerable to disk trashing when the machine dies. (Or at least were: things may well have moved on a bit since I last looked at this one hard.)

Test of the memory is a cunning plan, and a boot/ubuntu CD is cunning too. (For my reference: under Ubuntu, to do a memory test, hold down shift during boot to get GRUB, then down arrow to "Ubuntu, memtest86+". There's ( ... )

drdoug September 13 2011, 06:42:40 UTC

Both sets of memory checked out fine. Machine now has 2Gb-A in slot 1 and 1Gb-C in slot 3.

Further reference: Windows Memory Diagnostics Tool is fine, but not first choice if your system has boot issues at all. It works nicest from a fully-booted system, and goes straight in to that from 'test complete ok' without waiting for keyboard input - eventually you get a popup on the desktop saying it was Ok. (Or not.)

Strongly suspect the Ubuntu one of being much better. Will pick up an Ubuntu bootable CD at work later today and double-check with that.

steer September 13 2011, 15:06:35 UTC

I'm not sure what a mother board is MEANT to do with no CPU plugged in... (Is it meant to still give diagnostic bleep ( ... )

Thread 8

Heya kingginger September 13 2011, 06:57:45 UTC

That kind of thing sounds like the memory has been blown ( ... )

Re: Heya kingginger September 13 2011, 07:00:21 UTC

oops - just seen the Windows memory test replies above...

Main one is to disable the auto blue screen restarts...

Re: Heya drdoug September 13 2011, 09:24:04 UTC

Thanks for all this!

The machine boots happily if there's memory in only slots 1 and 3, and I've not had and BSODs in that configuration. Last night, it wouldn't boot at all with memory in slots 2 and 4 so we couldn't get in to the built-in diagnostics. My current theory is dodgy connection from slots 2 and 4 to the rest of the motherboard, which turned from intermittent to definite problem with all my fiddling around with the RAM.

Have disabled the auto-restart on blue screen, and left it running while I go to work to see if it holds up. It stayed up for hours and hours last night doing the backup, before hibernating cleanly at some point after the backup completed. Gah - just realised, forgot to turn off hibernation. Ah well.

Re: Heya kingginger September 14 2011, 10:34:14 UTC

Doh for the RAM - but the first replacement part is always a refurb for the home user... And frequently for the business user too...

babysimon September 13 2011, 08:50:18 UTC

I think the priority is to set it off on a full, fresh, automated backup cycle.

Yes.

That is always the priority.

drdoug September 13 2011, 09:19:35 UTC

:-) Yes ( ... )

Acronis True Image Home kingginger September 14 2011, 10:33:27 UTC

Good / best backup program I have found for home users ( ... )