[Novalug] Dead Computer Diagnosis

[Bonnie Dalzell]

On Thu, 16 Nov 2006 rarob at comcast.net wrote:

 >Might want to check the motherboard battery as well.  I've seen some *very* strange behavior
 >if this beastie is not in good shape.

Also look to make sure the battery has not leaked some nasty fluid on the
motherboard. I have found using a digital camera to take close up pictures
of suspicious areas of the motherboard helps to find damaged areas.



 >
 >
 >
 >-------------- Original message -------------- 
 >From: Peter Larsen <plarsen at famlarsen.homelinux.com> 
 >
 >> 
 >> gregory pryzby wrote: 
 >> > I didn't see anything about the disk. 
 >> > 
 >> > Does the disk spin up? If you are brave, you can 'lift' the disk and 
 >> > if it has spun up, you will 'feel' the gyro going. 
 >> > 
 >> > If the disk is working, move it to another machine. 
 >> > 
 >> > My guess is disk is dead. If that is not it, the system just quit. 
 >> > This has happened to me in the past as my machines run 24x7 for years 
 >> > 5+) until they just die. 
 >> 
 >> Since there's no POST beep it sounds like the BIOS doesn't get loaded. 
 >> So test/replace the PSU first. If the PSU work, it may be the mobo or 
 >> CPU. Usually mobo failures are results of overload, and you'll see "burn 
 >> marks" on it. CPU failures happens too, but you should get bios beeps 
 >> for that. If it was the disk you would be told that either it couldn't 
 >> find the disk, or that there were errors on it. 
 >> 
 >> HOWEVER - a quick fix can be simply to move the disks to a new but 
 >> similar computer and continue from there. 
 >> 
 >> If someone moved the box it could be as simple as a wire that "popped" 
 >> out from the mobo. It's happend to me ONCE back in the Pentium I days. 
 >> 
 >> I've lost a lot of PSUs in the last few years. I don't know if the 
 >> quality is just getting low or what's going on. I invested in a $15 PSU 
 >> tester, and it's been very handy. 
 >> 
 >> Regards 
 >> Peter Larsen 
 >> > 
 >> > On Thu, Nov 16, 2006 at 08:46:39AM -0500, David A. Hammond wrote: 
 >> > 
 >> >>Hi, 
 >> >> 
 >> >>I have a machine which is (nearly) dead and I need some help 
 >> >>getting started on diagnosing it. There's not much to go on. 
 >> >> 
 >> >>When I hit the power switch, it lights up and both fans (power 
 >> >>supply and cpu) spin. Nothing else happens. The keyboard 
 >> >>lights don't flash, there's no beep, and no synch is sent to 
 >> >>the monitor. As best I can tell there are no diagnostic leds 
 >> >>anywhere on the motherboard. 
 >> >> 
 >> >>What led up to this state is as follows: 
 >> >> 
 >> >>This machine is primarily used as a file server, name server, 
 >> >>DHCP server, etc. A couple of nights ago it wasn't serving 
 >> >>anything and I could not ping it, so I turned the monitor on 
 >> >>and found that I had no synch. So I tried to reboot it. It 
 >> >>got pretty far into the boot sequence (Fedora Core 3) and 
 >> >>hung. So I tried again. It didn't get as far so I tried 
 >> >>yet again. This time it quit even quicker, so I figured maybe 
 >> >>it was a heat problem and unplugged it for about a half an 
 >> >>hour. When I powered it back up I went into setup so I could 
 >> >>watch the cpu temperature. It started at 36 C and slowly climbed to 45 C 
 >> where it seemed to level off. I then turned 
 >> >>it off but did not unplug it. When I came back the next 
 >> >>evening, I found it in the state described at the top of this 
 >> >>note. 
 >> >> 
 >> >>One other thing: When I was trying the reboots the first 
 >> >>night, I could power the machine off with the front panel 
 >> >>switch but I could not power it back up unless I unplugged 
 >> >>it for about 10-15 seconds. Does this give any hints? 
 >> >> 
 >> >>I have a digital voltmeter, so I can check voltages out of 
 >> >>the power supply. I haven't done that yet. 
 >> > 
 >> > 
 >> > 
 >> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
 >> > 
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                       Bonnie Dalzell, MA 
mail:5100 Hydes Rd ---- Hydes MD USA 21082-----EMAIL:bdalzell at qis.net
 
freelance anatomist, vertebrate paleontologist, writer, illustrator, dog
breeder, computer nerd & iconoclast... Borzoi info at www.borzois.com.
 
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