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    #1

    Is my motherboard doomed?

    One of my PCs at home is an Athlon 1GHz machine running Windows ME. For quite a while now it's exhibited some odd symptoms. It never reboots itself or fails to get through POST, but it can freeze up a lot.
    Often, I turn it on, it gets into the Windows login screen, I log in and then it freezes. Complete hardware freeze, even the mouse stops moving - the only thing I can do is press Reset. I sometimes have to start it up 3 or 4 times before it will work!
    While using it, I sometimes get unusual errors such as "(unknown) caused an error in (unknown) and will be terminated". Or programs just freeze when loading for no reason - force-quit and restart them, they work fine!

    I'm not sure whether these problems are due to bad caps or just because of Windows ME's general instability but I did take a look inside the machine. Next to the CPU there are several Rubycon caps; Nichicons everywhere else. However, there are a couple of fat yellow caps (with a K vent I think) near the IO ports at the back. I don't see any bulging or leaking yet, but should I be concerned?

    It's also possible the PSU is dying, but I haven't looked inside that yet. When I get home I'll take a photo of the area with these caps so you can identify them.
    You know there's something wrong when you open your PC and it has vented Rubycons...
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    #2
    Re: Is my motherboard doomed?

    can you run some http://www.memtest.org/ to see if there is memory issue.
    capacitor lab yachtmati techmati

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      #3
      Re: Is my motherboard doomed?

      Here are the photos of the yellow caps - perhaps you can identify them? The tall black caps are definitely Rubycon (not Rulycon), a good make.

      I doubt there's any memory problems (but I still wouldn't trust the BIOS POST memory test); I'll have to run Memtest sometime.
      Attached Files
      You know there's something wrong when you open your PC and it has vented Rubycons...

      Comment

        #4
        Re: Is my motherboard doomed?

        they are fujitsu fpcap. on rare occasions they can have problems.

        in your case it is most likely either :

        - memory bad
        - psu caps bad
        - hard disk going bad

        or just the os needs to be reinstalled. you would be fine with xp or 2k on that machine with 256 ram. i cant be bothered with os older than 2k anymore. too many wierd issues. anyway if you give some more information then maybe we can figure something out.
        capacitor lab yachtmati techmati

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          #5
          Re: Is my motherboard doomed?

          Well, I say show WinME out the window(s)

          It's just such a piece of sh** OS so it's impossible to know if it's a soft of hardware problem you are seeing... Install something decent from the Windows NT series instead... (not meaning to sound harsh and I know the license cost is steep but...)
          "The one who says it cannot be done should never interrupt the one who is doing it."

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            #6
            Re: Is my motherboard doomed?

            Originally posted by Per Hansson
            Well, I say show WinME out the window(s)

            It's just such a piece of sh** OS so it's impossible to know if it's a soft of hardware problem you are seeing... Install something decent from the Windows NT series instead... (not meaning to sound harsh and I know the license cost is steep but...)
            I totally agree. The problem you're seeing Tom, may, for all we know, not be hardware-related at all. "Lock-ups" as you describe can indeed result from one of a myriad hardware problems, but also from a dodgy driver, some corrupt component in the OS, some memory-resident process that's causing trouble, etc.

            A program (OS in fact ) that I find to be absolutely essential when one's OS is giving (or may be giving) problems is Knoppix.

            http://www.knopper.net/knoppix-mirrors/

            PS. As Per already said, Windows ME is exceptionally bad as far as stability is concerned, even by the standard of Bill Gates' other software.
            Last edited by tiresias; 04-11-2006, 02:22 PM.

            Comment

              #7
              Re: Is my motherboard doomed?

              If OC'ing the FSB or the processor, likely overheating.

              It's amazing that back in 2004, when OC'ing an Athlon XP system for the first time, it was unstable! Then I noticed that my air conditioner didn't have as much air coming out as usual, even when it didn't seem bad enough for it to overheat. Then I redid my air conditioning setup. After I redid my air conditioning setup, it was suddenly stable again! It appeared that even a smaller air restriction caused my processor to overheat. Prime95 failed. Then when I decided to OC the RAM, (I just OC'ed the processor at first, because the multiplier on the Athlon XP T-bred 2000+ I had at the time wasn't locked) I got a black screen and a reboot when analysing the HDD with DefragMentor. LOL! That problem seemed to go away after I changed something. The RAM likely overheated, even when the case was cool. I never touched the RAM when OC'ing it. The RAM I had at the time was 256 MB Kingston ValueRAM PC2100 DDR SDRAM with Hynix chips.

              Have you ever thought of that. Some people say that OCs can require real low temperatures to be stable.
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                #8
                Re: Is my motherboard doomed?

                I'm not overclocking anything on this machine; it's all running as it was when purchased. The fan on the graphics card started grinding a long time ago, and eventually died - so I removed it leaving just the heat sink. However, I do run this machine with the sides of the case off to give it more ventilation.

                I also looked inside the PSU this morning. Nothing is visibly bulged or venting yet, but it seems to be packed with Teapo and G-Luxon caps. I hear these are bad makes - could they be failing without any physical signs?
                You know there's something wrong when you open your PC and it has vented Rubycons...

                Comment

                  #9
                  Re: Is my motherboard doomed?

                  best action would be to run memtest overnight to see if there are memory issues. if there are not then reinstall the os. if the problems are replicated then you can look into other hardware issues.
                  capacitor lab yachtmati techmati

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                    #10
                    Re: Is my motherboard doomed?

                    From what I hear (little experience with them) Teapos often fail without showing any external signs. They're pretty good for bad caps though. G-Luxon though I wouldn't trust as far as I can dropkick a rhino.
                    You know there's something wrong when you open up a PSU and are glad to find Teapos.
                    Why I don't buy cheap cases!

                    Comment

                      #11
                      Re: Is my motherboard doomed?

                      First I would replace that dead video card fan, as the heat build up in your GPU core could lock it up tight in short order, even with the side off the HS was not designed to rid that much heat passively, new HS&fan are perty cheap unless you go big and passive (i.e. zallman, thermaltake giant). second dump the ME os, this was a thorn for M$ as they quitely swept it under the rug. also try removing some PCI cards one by one to see if you have some other hardware thats bad or has a IRQ conflict. make sure all your drivers are up to date also.

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