On and Off-Line

[DavePEI]

Hi All:

Just a short note to tell you I am having computer problems and if you try to contact me, please be patient.

My three year old computer is overheating, and I have ordered parts to build a new one. Now, it may take me  while to get the new one on-line thanks to Microsoft making a lot of the software I use unusable with Windows 7.

Meanwhile, I have added two extra high speed fans to my old one which is keeping the board temp down, and it is no longer shutting down on me, so hopefully that will keep me on-line until I have the new one built up and software loaded...

Bad timing, sure would rather have spent the money on phones instead of the computer  

I should have the new parts in a week, so am keeping my fingers crossed I can nurse this thing on for a week or two...

Dave

[twocvbloke]

If it's overheating, it may be due to your heatsinks (CPU and/or graphics card, possibly others too) being clogged with dust, treatment is usually a screwdriver, compressed air and a long paintbrush, fiddly work, but, no more fiddly than stripping a phone down to restore it...

Hopefully not as bad as this one I pulled out of a computer some years ago when working at the computer shop:



And yes, it was seriously overheating, and stunk of cigarette smoke, bleugh....

[DavePEI]

If it's overheating, it may be due to your heatsinks (CPU and/or graphics card, possibly others too) being clogged with dust, treatment is usually a screwdriver, compressed air and a long paintbrush, fiddly work, but, no more fiddly than stripping a phone down to restore it...

No, it isn't the heatsink. Actually, the CPU is staying at a reasonable temp (54 c.). It is actually the motherboard itself. Its temp is over 76 deg. c. Far over what it should be.I cleaned all the dust out the other day, lubricated all of the fans, etc. but still no go. I have two extra high speed fans in it now, but it is still going up to 72.

Board has never gone above 40 c. before, but lately, it has slowed down and you can smell the hot electronics.

Dave

[twocvbloke]

Could be dying (or already dead) capacitors then, usually when they go, the rest of the motherboard usually follows suit...

That's one of the main problems I dealt with when I repaired computers for a living, sometimes the problem was obvious where the power smoothing capacitors (usually the taller ones around the CPU, lined up like soldiers) had popped or vomited their electrolyte, others were a complete visual mystery until the motherboard was swapped out and problems disappeared immediately...

Cheap capacitor quality these days is what makes modern technology so unreliable compared to that of maybe 20 or 30 years ago, it's why I've gotten bored of modern things, having to repair them so often when really they shouldn't need to be... 

[Bill]

Have you tried the fingertip test? There are no high voltages in here, so you can touch anything. When it is hot, just quickly touch a finger to every motherboard component you can see, moving around until you burn yourself. You will probably find that it is one of two things.

1. An electrolytic capacitor is failing. They do this occasionally, for no apparent reason except age. You can simply replace it, and be done. The capacitance value of the new one is not real critical - go up to 2X or 3X higher, but don't go much lower than the original. The voltage value of the new one must be the same or higher than the old one.  Polarity matters, of course. Size does not.

2. A resistor or transistor is overheating. This is trickier, because the actual failure is somewhere downstream of the part - something else is drawing excess current. Such as an electrolytic capacitor.

Try it - it might be easy.

Bill

[DavePEI]

Have you tried the fingertip test? There are no high voltages in here, so you can touch anything. When it is hot, just quickly touch a finger to every motherboard component you can see, moving around until you burn yourself. You will probably find that it is one of two things.

1. An electrolytic capacitor is failing. They do this occasionally, for no apparent reason except age. You can simply replace it, and be done. The capacitance value of the new one is not real critical - go up to 2X or 3X higher, but don't go much lower than the original. The voltage value of the new one must be the same or higher than the old one.  Polarity matters, of course. Size does not.

2. A resistor or transistor is overheating. This is trickier, because the actual failure is somewhere downstream of the part - something else is drawing excess current. Such as an electrolytic capacitor.

Try it - it might be easy.

Bill

Hi Bill:

I figure that is what it is... However, it is very hard to narrow it down to a particular component. As I said, when I built the machine, it used to run cool as a cucumber. I just hope it will stay working until the new motherboard, processor, cooling, and memory arrives from Tiger-Direct. I have always built my own machines, customizing them for what I need, but it p's me off that Microsoft has made so many programs incompatible that you HAVE to upgrade operating systems AND software. Just wait for Windows 8 - it will only be touch screen. Grrr!

So far, the added fans seem to keep it from shutting down - I am keeping my fingers crossed that it will last long enough...

Dave

[twocvbloke]

Darn it!! My laptop conked out in sympathy, suddenly overheating and not working properly, happened rather suddenly too...

Thankfully I had a spare relatively new motherboard (came from a scrap laptop that had a smashed screen that was barely used) on hand and what a difference it's made, I forgot how peppy this old thing is!!

I dunno, computers eh? 

[DavePEI]

Darn it!! My laptop conked out in sympathy, suddenly overheating and not working properly, happened rather suddenly too...

Thankfully I had a spare relatively new motherboard (came from a scrap laptop that had a smashed screen that was barely used) on hand and what a difference it's made, I forgot how peppy this old thing is!!

I dunno, computers eh?  

They can be a pain in the butt! For years, I have run a Laptops for Kids program here on the Island, repairing and giving laptops to underprivledged kids. Lately, the source of laptops had dried up due to a new Government program which collects and scraps computers so I am getting a break from that...

One annoyance I always had, was there was a certain subset of parents of children without the means to provide their child with a computer, who would reject a free computer, because they thought a used machine, though free wasn't good enough for their kids. Sheesh! Then again, most were thrilled, and I am pleased that my work gave many kids an entrance into the computer world. I am just as glad the sources of used machines have dried up, as it cost me a small fortune buying the little extras, expansion memory, power supplies that these machines needed. I never passed that along, they were always free.

Often in a laptop, that problem is often caused by dust/lint clogging the passages in the fan/heatsink assembly just as you get in a full sized computer. The passages through the heat sink the fan drives air in clogs. I remember back a few years, I was given a two month old Dell, which was bought by a government employee for his daughter - I opened it up, and the whole assembly was clogged by pink fuzz. I called her father, and it seems she would only use it on her bed, setting it on her warm fuzzy pink blanket. So I warned him to make sure his daughter understood what had happened to her computer, and he said he's make sure she didn't do it with her new one...

Anyway, some cleaning, and replacement of prematurely dried out heat sink compound, I was able to give it to a child, and as far as I know, he is still using it.

Some laptops, particularly a few Dell versions, have a problem with heat surrounding the video chip. They will heat up enough over time and the pins will unsolder... The only cure which works sometimes is to re-flow the solder around the chip, and with luck that often works.

Of course in a way, I prefer working with desktops - so much easier to get your hands into, but you do have even more problems with heat dissipation.

I often wondered about water cooling. The new case I ordered with my new motherboard, etc. has inlets and outlets for water cooling on the back - almost half considering putting water cooling in this one   I also ordered a spare motherboard for it at a really good price, as it is the one part which I might not be able to find in a few years.

P.S. I just got my notice that my parts have been shipped and will be here on Hallow'een day. Hope the old one lasts with the additional cooling  until then! Even if it doesn't, I can bring the one from the museum over, but would prefer not to have to, and don't want to load any of my everyday software onto it.

Dave

[twocvbloke]

My laptop has been dropped, bashed, sat on, and recently given a high voltage shock (from my dead CRT TV's flyback, via me, the laptop acting as a ground ), and it's survived pretty well, but unfortunately time has caught up with the old motherboard (it was clean, clear and I had replaced the thermal compound before), and it was just giving up the ghost, so, saving time I just did a heart transplant on it, and it'll probably live another few years yet...

I used to be the laptop reviver when I was working, often like you, they'd buy in scrap laptops and I'd go through them stripping them and reassembling the good parts into working laptops, they'd then get sold in the shop as 2nd hand units, and they were popular, so I had plenty of work to do with those around...

Though I never got into the solder reflowing stuff, as the proper equipment was expensive and they weren't that desperate to get them all working, and I definitely couldn't do it now without the money, plus I've gotten bored of repairing laptops, so many these days are built so poorly that they're not worth attempting to use for spares, but that's what fuels consumerism, break it, buy another, break it, buy another....

Desktops are much easier to work with, but, that's what I found to be boring, they were all different, but building and repairing them was the same routine, everything in the same place, doing the same thing, filing in the same places, not very challenging, whereas laptops, they were always new, different layouts, oddly designed hardware, different connectors and interfaces, that's what I liked, but things changed, and it's more difficult to fix cos of hardware issues and designed to fail and all that...

[DavePEI]

Hi All:

Well, my parts have arrived and I am in the process of building up the new machine. Meanwhile, with the extra cooling I placed in the other machine, the system board temp has leveled out at 65 degrees and it is still thankfully, working.

Frustratingly, when the case arrived, its plastic front had been damaged, but the back metal portion was ok, so I have been able to start assembling the machine. Meanwhile a replacement case has been shipped, and I should be able to test the unit with what is remaining of the front panel.

Specs for the machine are as follows:

· GIGABYTE GA-78LMT-S2P AMD 760 Motherboard - Micro ATX, Socket AM3+, AMD
760G Chipset, 1333MHz DDR3, SATA II (3Gb/s), RAID, 7.1-CH Audio, Gigabit
LAN, USB 2.0

· AMD ADX640WFK42GM Athlon II X4 640 Quad Core Processor - Quad Core, 2MB Cache, Socket AM3, 95W, No Fan, OEM, Runs at 3.0 GHZ.

· Gelid Siberian CC-Siberian-01 CPU Cooler - Silent 80mm Fan, PWM Control, Aluminum
Heatsink, Intel and AMD Sockets

· 2 x Corsair CMX4GX3M1A1333C9 XMS3 4GB DDR3 RAM - PC10666, 1333MHz, 4096MB

· EVGA GeForce GTX 650 01G-P4-2650-KR Video Card - 1GB GDDR5, PCI-Express 3.0(x16), 1x Dual-link DVI-I, 1x Dual-link DVI-D, 1x Mini-HDMI, DirectX 11, Dual-Slot

· Samsung SH-222BB/BEBE 22X Internal DVDRW Drive - SATA, 1.5MB Buffer, 22x DVD+/-R, 8x DVD+/-RW, 16x DVD+R DL, 12x DVD-R DL, OEM, Black

· Diablotek PSDA600DA Series 600W Power Supply - ATX, 600 Watts, 2x 80mm Fans

· Diablotek CPA-6170 EVO ATX Mid-Tower Computer Case - ATX, Mcro ATX, 4x External
5.25" Bay Drives, 5x Internal 3.5" Bay Drives, 7x Expansion Slots, 3x
Front USB Ports, Black

· Seagate 2TB Serial ATA HD 7200/64MB/SATA-6G HardDrive

· All in One Internal USB 2.0 Card Reader

Total cost was a bit under $600.00 including a spare motherboard which I ordered.

Construction is on hold right now until I get some heat sink compound for the heat sink/cooler.

I will install the off-board video card after I have Windows 7 Ultimate loaded and the rest of the machine checked out. I chose a case with lots of cooling, and the video card has its own cooling built in, as well. It should run nice and cool.

Photo of it below during construction. Should be a nice machine!

Dave

[twocvbloke]

I have to say, I'm not much of a fan of those "upside down" cases, where the PSU is on the bottom, as the PSU acts as an exhaust for the warm air in the system, having it down at the bottom means that there could be potential problems with unwanted hotspots...

I am curious as to why you are installing Windows with the graphics card removed, it'll install fine with the card in place, as windows generally loads a generic driver to operate the card (or uses a pre-packaged nVidia driver from the Windows disc) while it does it's fettling, instialling with onboard graphics then adding the card just adds an extra and unnecessary step...

Still, a Gigabyte board is a decent purchase, three brands I prefer are MSI, Asus and Gigabyte, they are generally the better performers and last longer, other brands tend to be worth what you pay, very little, and last for a short time before kicking the bucket...

I'd be wary of the Seagate HDD though, those were always problematic when I was working at the computer shop, and I know a few people who have had them drop like flies, so, keep regular backups of that drive...

[DavePEI]

I have to say, I'm not much of a fan of those "upside down" cases, where the PSU is on the bottom, as the PSU acts as an exhaust for the warm air in the system, having it down at the bottom means that there could be potential problems with unwanted hotspots...

I am curious as to why you are installing Windows with the graphics card removed, it'll install fine with the card in place, as windows generally loads a generic driver to operate the card (or uses a pre-packaged nVidia driver from the Windows disc) while it does it's fettling, instialling with onboard graphics then adding the card just adds an extra and unnecessary step...

Still, a Gigabyte board is a decent purchase, three brands I prefer are MSI, Asus and Gigabyte, they are generally the better performers and last longer, other brands tend to be worth what you pay, very little, and last for a short time before kicking the bucket...

I'd be wary of the Seagate HDD though, those were always problematic when I was working at the computer shop, and I know a few people who have had them drop like flies, so, keep regular backups of that drive...

First of all, the power supply exhausts out, not in. Therefore this one designed for the case draws air out of the bottom of the case. Additionally, because the supply is on the bottom, there are two fans on the top providing additional exhaust, plus one in the front of the case, plus of course an exhaust fan on the video card and the CPU cooler fan. So I don't see that as a problem.

With regards to the video card, the motherboard has its own on board video I will use for set-up. The card contains the new drivers for that card which haven't made it yet into the windows distribution, so I will add the card afterwards, and it will be one less variable when I install the Windows tomorrow. Another reason is I can plug my monitor directly into the motherboard, but to plug it into the video card, I have to wait for an ordered adapter to arrive - more delays...

I have three identical 2 gig Seagate drives here, and none have given me problems. I use one of the three in an external drive case I use to store movies (and it is full, or darn near).

Dave

[twocvbloke]

First of all, the power supply exhausts out, not in.

Well, I know that bit, hence my concern of heat problems, as in a standard shape ATX case, the PSU resides at the top and draws cool air in through the bottom or through the vent behind the front panel, having it pass over components to keep them cool, and having the aid of convection to make sure it all goes to the top...

With this case, you have to have an extra set of fans to compensate, which to me is a bit of a problem in terms of noise levels, especially annoying if you're just typing something out on forums rather than playing call of duty or whatever, heck, in my desktop there's only 3 fans, the PSU, the CPU heatsink and the graphics card, and they get annoying after a while...

And I still see no reason to omit the graphics card when installing Windows, like I say it loads a generic driver or an as-near-to driver as it can, I built enough systems from scratch like this commercially and they never caused any problems, even with the likes of XP as that would happily run at 800x600 on a default driver after it was installed in order to install drivers and software, only testing the system (using Passmark's Burn in Test Pro) after the drivers were loaded and everything the customer ordered was installed...

I'm just a fussy sod when it comes to putting a computer together, have to have everything before I start, probably stems from working in a computer shop building them day in day out for 6 days a week, well, give or take, some days were slow...

[DavePEI]

First of all, the power supply exhausts out, not in.

I'm just a fussy sod when it comes to putting a computer together, have to have everything before I start, probably stems from working in a computer shop building them day in day out for 6 days a week, well, give or take, some days were slow...

Well, don't forget, I don't have that luxury of waiting for another week for the adapter to come. My other computer is dying, and I don't know how long it will be before it is dead, and aside from here, I have a major web page to run. So I have to get this going, even without the case front and the adapter for the mini HDMI port on the video card to fit it to my monitor, as it uses a normal HDMI connector. So one has to make some compromises.

It is a little different when you are building something for someone else - everything has to be at hand then, and believe me, I have built more than a few for others, too.

Insofar as the fans are concerned, I would rather have fan noise - at least if you can hear the fans, you know the computer is getting cooling. Don't forget I came from the days of the DEC PDP8, and in my early working life actually had the opportunity of working INSIDE a Univac - now there was a machine which needed cooling - aisles surrounded by vacuum tubes. I have been building my own systems ever since. So fans, as long as they are there, make me very happy

This case is very well designed - even the HD blanks on the front cover are filtered inlets, made from screen material with filters on the inside,  so air can basically be drawn in the full front, and exhausted by all fans. The only one which blows in is the one on the lower front panel. The back panel also is lined with air inlets. Of all the cases I have used, this one is the one with the best air flow design I have seen. Not only that, it has water inlets should a person be using water cooling. There should be no dead spots for circulation.

The only problem is the shipper broke the plastic front panel posts that fasten the panel to the metal portion - it is that that is causing the major delay, waiting for another so I can replace the panel, but in the meantime, I can temporarily hold the panel on with a bungee. Once again, this isn't something I would do for a customer, but for my own use, it works, and allows me to get the machine operational without delay in case the other machine does die completely.

Dave

[Jester]

Don't forget I came from the days of the DEC PDP8, and in my early working life actually had the opportunity of working INSIDE a Univac - now there was a machine which needed cooling - aisles surrounded by vacuum tubes.

Your mention of the Univac jogged a memory I have of Dad describing the computer at the USAF base in Duluth, MN.  This would have been forty years ago, and I'm sure the technology was at least twenty years old at that time.  From his description, the building was three stories high, had the floor dimesions roughly the same size as a regulation basketball court, and was the only structure on base that was air conditioned.  I recall him saying that four huge AC units were installed, and I'm sure half of those were redundant and were only there for added reliability.  The most powerful part of his description was what would happen if all the air conditioners suddenly went offline-- the entire contents of that building would burn up in less than four minutes.  I'm sure this description was standard base safety instruction, but it still impressed me.