Random system freezing

[Exacta]

Have a four year old HP s3700y w/Vista Home Premium SP2 found here: HP s3700y Support Doc. I know I should get a new computer with Win 7 or 8, but I happen to be one of those that really prefers the Vista OS vs. Win 7 that I'm using now on my laptop. This isn't a debate over OS's, just a problem with my current PC which I believe to be a hardware issue.
In another thread (http://tinyurl.com/966oacm) member @Gariarto raised issues about diagnostics and the like. Here I will be more specific.

Everything worked exceeding well until one day the system froze, including mouse, keyboard and of course the OS. I manually restarted the computer and everything was fine until it completely froze again. However, this time when I attempted to restart there was no power. So the first thing I did was replace the OEM PSU (160W) with a 250W PSU max wattage that will fit the case). The system started immediately, but once again froze after approx 10 minutes. At this time I figured it was the onboard graphics/chipset (nVidia GeForce 6150SE nForce 430) as each time the system froze the first thing to occur was the montor displaying a repeating series of colored lines (the color depended on the site I was currently on): I also noted that the heat sink was blistering hot, a hallmark of the nForce 430 chipset.

I consulted other forums and all agreed the onboard video needing replacing. Replaced with a PCI-e nVidia 8400 card with fan. all worked well for 24 hours then the system once again froze. I checked the Event Viewer at the exact times the freeze-ups occurred and NO errors were reported. Because of this I ran every diagnostic test that I knew of or that was recommended. These included memtest86, HP's diagnostic tool, chkdsk, Furmark, SpeedFan for temps, ran the HD utlility from Seagate and no bad sectors, etc. As a last resort I formatted the disk and installed a fresh copy of Vista. I only installed Firefox and the system froze again within an hour. At this point I just accepted the fact that the onboard nVidia chipset was damaged and that the prudent thing to do was to purchase new PC.

After posting a question at bleepingcomputer.com and then referred here re: the heat sink being scalding hot when the onboard video was disabled in BIOS and potential capacitor damage.

So that's where it stands to date and it's just a case of potentially throwing money away on a new mobo for this Min--ITX or just purchase a more heat-friendly PC. If someone has any potential solutions other than the above I'd love to hear them. The real problem is that I have enjoyed the s3700y with Vista and if salvageable that would be fantastic.

Thanks for the long read and any info that you wish to provide.

[ratdude747]

Re: Random system freezing

Sounds like the BGA joints at the chipset let go... Or perhaps just a cooked chip.

[selldoor]

Re: Random system freezing

Have you watched to see the fans actually turning on the cpu and the video card. Have you replaced the thermal tranfer compound on the cpu.
If you havent try that and if you have check it hasnt run down the side of the cpu causing a short.

[Peter9DO]

Re: Random system freezing

have you tried to do a hard reset? I know it sounds stupid but just for the hell of it. Unplug everything and hold down the power button for about 30 - 60 seconds. This will drain all the power from the caps. Plug it back in and give it a shot.

If that doesn't do the trick I'm going to have to agree with Ratdude that it's an issue with the chipset. If you have the means, you can always shoot a little liquid flux under it and give it a little rework job. If not, I'm sure you can find a used board on eBay at a decent price. Good luck!

[Exacta]

Re: Random system freezing

Have you watched to see the fans actually turning on the cpu and the video card. Have you replaced the thermal tranfer compound on the cpu.
If you havent try that and if you have check it hasnt run down the side of the cpu causing a short.

1. Yes on both.
2. The fan has to be remove to get the PSU out so I took that opportunity to clean and replace the heat transfer compound.
3. The problem was occurring even before I changed the compound.

Thanks for the reply, I appreciate.

[Exacta]

Re: Random system freezing

Sounds like the BGA joints at the chipset let go... Or perhaps just a cooked chip.

I'm guessing cooked chip myself. Thanks for the reply.

[Exacta]

Re: Random system freezing

have you tried to do a hard reset? I know it sounds stupid but just for the hell of it. Unplug everything and hold down the power button for about 30 - 60 seconds. This will drain all the power from the caps. Plug it back in and give it a shot.

If that doesn't do the trick I'm going to have to agree with Ratdude that it's an issue with the chipset. If you have the means, you can always shoot a little liquid flux under it and give it a little rework job. If not, I'm sure you can find a used board on eBay at a decent price. Good luck!

Haven't tried that, but I've done the clean restart procedure. I'll give it a try. What the hell!!

Thanks!

[Peter9DO]

Re: Random system freezing

Let us know how it works out for you!

[Exacta]

Re: Random system freezing

Let us know how it works out for you!

I think something has really gone wrong at this point. But before I report that I'll try the hard reset. When you say EVERTHING....does that include power cable as well?

[Gariarto]

Re: Random system freezing

OK, that's better, your original post left out a LOT of info needed to whittle this down. Putting the part about the time to failure right in focus.

My ten cents says it works fine until enough heat builds up to expand contacts apart, then it starts to act up. Just as others have already pointed out.

My last job on this kind of symptom was a high end PC build (aimed at gaming)that would work just fine for a time and then would simply lock everything up tight. My customer would leave it and try it again the next day. It simply repeated the cycle, letting him use the PC until it got hot enough to fail.

The culprit was an ATI graphics card which wasn't contacting the heatsink completely so it 'appeared' to be dissapating heat but of course, not all it should, so under light to moderate use it would trip its thermal protection and "freeze" the whole system.

To test this theory, get some better cooling in there, specifically on the chipset and see if it runs longer before failure. Ratdude747 is probably correct in his diagnosis and re-flowing the solder joints will only be a temporary fix because without ducting that heat away, the same thing will occur over time.

I know I said this before and I'am really not trying to make you buy something but...
In my business you have to decide where to call it before you are costing yourself and the customer more than just replacing the part. But thats business, not spending spare time. You say you want this to go away for a few bucks and all the time it takes. That's fine, I do too on many occasions with personal stuff. OK, so on that, reflow the joints if you have the capability and see what changes but you HAVE to keep that sucker a lot cooler after successfully completing the work !

As you already realize that little square of silicon puts out a lot of watts of heat energy per sq mm. Getting rid of it became a passion for some owners and heatsink manufacturers fed that desire with
extreme heatsinks like the ANTAZONE AS-N1000 that soon turned up on the 3rd party market. Google it, its pretty Those M2N-X's I'm recapping have the stock heatsinks and have run fine for years, but the cases they are in have bigass 120mm fans front and back moving a lot of air over the board and hard drive. Both have well exceeded their warranties without heat issues.
Except for the 4 VRM caps of course.

Keep us posted !

Edit - The simplest thing that drove me nuts for a system freeze-up was finding shorting conductors in a wired mouse's cord ! But that was back then on a 486. Just sayin'..

[Exacta]

Re: Random system freezing

Thank Gariarto. Sorry I left out critical info initially, I just didn't want to derail the thread. Upon looking closer at one capacitor it looked as though there COULD be some leakage. It is right next to the heat sink. It is one of those heat sinks that is spring held. So I shut it down, carefully remove the heat sink and checked the capacitor. Looked OK so I replaced the heat sink. Now I have the following conditions:
1. This PC is hard wired to the network, but the network no longer recognizes it.
2. When I plug in the VGA monitor cable to either the onboard bideo OR the graphics card the monitor goes to sleep. When I remove the cable the monitor starts, but says Check Cable connenction.
3. I can no longer hear the .wav sound when I remove or insert a USB drive or an SD card All in a all, it's as if the computer doesn't function at all.
the only thing I hear is the fan and not certain I'm hearing the HD spin.

I fear that the heat sink removal really fu__ed things up. Is this possible? To say I was careful is an understatement, but may have been the wrong thing to do. Any suggestions? The nightmare grows but I need to get the PC on the network as a tremendous amount of info that I use (Documents especially) are on that drive. Shoot me now!!

[kc8adu]

Re: Random system freezing

classic nvidia death.you can try to reflow it.if no go pitch it.they are all destined to die this way.

[Gariarto]

Re: Random system freezing

Don't panic, your Hard Drive should be OK and all your data along with it, but I must remind you of the fact that all these "improper shutdowns' from lockups and whatever else is done to the system to turn it off can potentially corrupt the drive. Particularly if data was being written at the time. Actions such as yanking out the power cord in frustration (not saying you are..) as many do can be damaging.

Remove that drive and slave it into another PC. Back it up before doing more. Then put it back.

All that aside, you have me a little confused.. You said..

1. This PC is hard wired to the network, but the network no longer recognizes it.
2. When I plug in the VGA monitor cable to either the onboard video OR the graphics card the monitor goes to sleep. When I remove the cable the monitor starts, but says Check Cable connenction.
3. I can no longer hear the .wav sound when I remove or insert a USB drive or an SD card All in a all, it's as if the computer doesn't function at all.
the only thing I hear is the fan and not certain I'm hearing the HD spin.

OK, before I begin I don't want you to feel I'm getting on your case here but we need to get things in order. You have eluded to inexperience and some things I take for granted (shame on me) Lets get basic.

Certain events can only happen or be detected after others are complete.. Like is this still booting into Windows ? It has to be to make any USB mount/dismount notifications. The sounds are a function of the operating system. How do you know its not getting an IP address from the network if you can't see anything ? Is it set up for a network boot ? Are you looking for the connection to appear from another PC ? When exactly are you pulling the VGA cable in and out ? Not when its powered up I hope ! ? I know hundreds will tell you its OK but its not a practice I would repeat. The monitor going into standby means it's not recieving a proper video signal. When you plug in a cable to a powered up monitor it senses that and waits for a vga signal before giving up and going into standby.

Fans and HD spinning but not booting is classic POST failure.

We need to know some things.

1- Is the motherboard completing POST ? (Power On Self Test) The motherboard's Basic In Out System (BIOS) 'firmware on a chip' tests attached devices and itself when you hit the power button. Success brings a little audible beep (if it has a little piezzo speaker attached. Some older systems would send the sound to a powered up external speaker) and then an attempt to read boot instructions from attached devices.. HD, DVDRW, CD, USB, LAN etc. At this point it hands off to the code on the device ie: Windows startup.

2 I'm going to hazard a guess that its not POSTing otherwise why were you led to try both video outputs looking for a picture ?

3 Another wild guess is from your heatsink removal. If the chipset module connections to the motherboard are in fact compromised then perhaps the last little contact they had before has been disturbed to a point of zero contact. Hence the board's BIOS is failing POST since the chipset is not reporting back as operational.

So everything assembled and connected, monitor on, like you expect to use the PC. What happens after you press the power button ?

If its all a negative then I rest with my first suggestion of motherboard replacement. Sorry dude, kc8adu is most likely correct. With the utmost respect, if you think you could successfully re-flow this yourself then give it a try but you know I don't think its worth it.

[Exacta]

Re: Random system freezing

Gariarto -

"....I must remind you of the fact that all these "improper shutdowns' from lockups and whatever else is done to the system to turn it off can potentially corrupt the drive." I realize that and cringe when the system has frozen because of that very thing. I will state this now so that there is no confusion, I AM going to replace the mobo or get another computer. nVidia death is at the doorstep and accepted as reality. Because you spent a great deal of time and thought into your post I think it only fair to clear up and answer some of your points.

1. Hardwired = router attached to the PC. When opening the Network from a wireless laptop the Network does not recognize the PC.
2. Guilty as charged. I normally do, but during this episode I've been in the group that does not shut off the computer to move the VGA cable from the onboard port to the PCI-e port.
3. It is not set up for a network boot. I do not know if an IP address has been acquired for the reason you state.

As far as the POST questions:

Until just now when I have hit the start button I have heard the little 'beep' followed by the Windows logon tune a time later. That is no longer occurring I assume the mobo is not completing POST. You hazarded the right guess.

Next in line is the heat sink. I removed it and placed a little extra tension on the springs by bending them slightly and reseated. At restart, the lights for the ethernet port lit and the router again 'recognized' the PC. What I needed to accomplish most, access to the PC via the network, has been accomplished. You have to be correct in your assessment of contact point(s) with the chip.

"So everything assembled and connected, monitor on, like you expect to use the PC. What happens after you press the power button ?" Absolutely nothing. No beeps, the monitor momentarily comes out of Standby and within 10 seconds goes back to sleep. The one thing I can do is access the HD via the Network and that is all I want at this point so that I can take off of it everything I need in preparation for a new mobo or computer.

Please understand that I have not been so dillusional as to think there was some sort of magical fix to this. You provided me more than I could have asked for and that was an understanding of the "why?'s". I've been investigating new mobos for about 3 weeks and threw in the towel until I posted here and one was brought to my attention. Will it solve the problem. Probably. But this is still a Mini-ITX machine subject to heat degradation because of its small form. But, the chipset is not nVidea so I may have a change of heart.

Can't thank you enough for the effort and the education. Had it not been for your questioning diagnostics earlier I never would have started this thread and raised this topic again. But when I compare what you have provided me in terms of being a little more knowledgeable instead of returning my "lemon graphics card" as numerous people had suggested and continuing the madness, I'm glad you got involved in a futile matter. Can't thank you enough and I'll leave the reflowing to guys like you.

Mark

[Peter9DO]

Re: Random system freezing

Yes, that's the power wire as well... Sorry, it took so long for me to get back. You want no power going to the computer (other than the BIOS battery), so any power source you may have (AC adapter, battery) remove it and then hold the power button. Then just replace the power wire and give it a shot.

[Gariarto]

Re: Random system freezing

My friend, you are quite welcome, it was my pleasure to help. I get a kick out of getting to the bottom of things. Ask my wife. (Smack ! Ow !! Aw c'mon honey)

Right now I have a 2007 Compaq Presario on the bench outputting no video signal from the onboard but it audibly boots into Windows... Belongs to an elderly lady who told me she'd just spent 4 hrs total going backwards and forwards to Kingston with her rig to BestBuy. Bestbuy told her that her monitor was dead and sold her a new one. They wanted to keep the old one but she refused and wanted it back.
Back home, of course, the new monitor sat there in standby too. She spent a further 3 hours, she said, on the phone with a bestbuy 'rep' in Pakistan who finally said her computer was faulty and she would be offered a good deal if she would like to order a replacement over the phone !
Being a good solid Brooklyn gal she described where he could insert his offer and then called me. (I was recommended by a friend of hers - Always nice)

SO here it sits with a small new $20 PCI video card working like a champ.(cheapo motherboard has no PCI-e slot, just the solder points for one ) running on her old "dead" monitor. She'll be back on facebook and skyping the grandkids in the 'am.

Someone on this board with all their electronics wizardry and experience needs to invent and market a bullshit detector. With a built in tazer. Three strikes and yer' out salesman.. Bzzzzztt HAHA !!

Gary

[Exacta]

Re: Random system freezing

Yes, that's the power wire as well... Sorry, it took so long for me to get back. You want no power going to the computer (other than the BIOS battery), so any power source you may have (AC adapter, battery) remove it and then hold the power button. Then just replace the power wire and give it a shot.

Zippo.....and I'm sort of glad it didn't do a thing. Had I heard mobo beep and then know the drivers were loading I would have been tempted to hook up the VGA only to be disappointed once again. I really do appreciate the try though.
One power cable hooked up and one LAN operational and I'm good.

thanks for your help.

Mark

[Peter9DO]

Re: Random system freezing

Zippo.....and I'm sort of glad it didn't do a thing. Had I heard mobo beep and then know the drivers were loading I would have been tempted to hook up the VGA only to be disappointed once again. I really do appreciate the try though.
One power cable hooked up and one LAN operational and I'm good.

thanks for your help.

Mark

Not a problem. I do believe it's what everyone else is saying, the chipset. If the solder between the chip and the board has been comprised it will lead to similar symptoms that you are experiencing. Also, the added issues once you pulled the heatsink would show a sign of the soldered joints being broken and with the little bit of pressure that was applied to remove the heatsink, was enough to make the break in the solder bigger or went to another solder ball as well. I would guess the chip was getting hotter than normal caused by arching between the crack in the solder. Even just a simple reflow would repair the problem, but if your not a DIYer in the reflow department, you will find it much cheaper to replace the board rather than bring it to someone that would do a reflow, reball, or replace the chip. Or you can start buying all the equipment and get to learning how to do the procedure but you'll probably cook the chip, due to the learning curve. Oh yea did I mention get ready to spend a couple thousand dollars on all the equipment as well. Lol! Sorry, we couldn't come up with a solution to the problem, but as you said at least you gained some knowladge.

[Exacta]

Re: Random system freezing

.....Sorry, we couldn't come up with a solution to the problem, but as you said at least you gained some knowledge.

A solution is not what I was after (last paragraph of my initial post) but the amount of bullshit advice I had received it was worth posting again when it was evident that there are truly some people in the know at badcap.net. I guess I was looking for a confirmation of what I knew was going to happen, and yet I did get a little smarter posting here. Thanks for efforts and help.

Mark