Progressive Computer Failure

[HSRTG]

Okay. This has been building for a while, but it only recently became unusable. For reference, I have a Dell Dimension 8400 that's IIRC 4-5 years old.

A few months back I got to college, and what was a perfectly working system became somewhat unreliable. Randomly during start up the indicator light on the front would stay yellow instead of green, and the system fans would cycle up to an incredible maximum. In this state the computer is extremely loud, and the fans are blowing a huge amount of air. This state is triggered randomly, as far as I can tell, having no difference whether the computer is hot or cold. Sometimes it happened in the morning when cold, sometimes in the afternoon when warm or hot. What was odder was when it apparently fixed itself the indicator light would glow green, and the system would beep with its internal speakers 1 - 3 times apparently randomly. When I restart it, the computer starts for about half a second, turns itself off for 3 - 4, then starts normally. Additionally, it would randomly freeze completely on start up, or in Windows, at apparently random times. I haven't been able to discern a pattern in any of this.

Yesterday, it loaded to the login screen correctly. I logged in with my account, the computer loaded the desktop and mouse, then stopped loading. The mouse moved around, responded fine, but Windows didn't continue loading. I left for several minutes, and when I came back there was no change. I tried starting up with "Last good configuration", and got the same problem. I loaded with safe mode, the computer did its freeze routine, I restarted, and now safe mode has the same problem.

Can anyone tell me what's going on?

[Joviwan]

It sounds like, for whatever reason, your motherboard has borked itself. I'm assuming that your dell is out of warantee, so it's probably a moot point to try and get a replacement board (But it's still worth it to find out, at least.)

As for the cause of the borking that I suspect, could be anything. But for a 4-5 year old Dimension 8400 (You've probably got a high end P4 and half a gig of ram?), it's probably time for an upgrade anyway.

[Uraniun235]

Check the motherboard to see if any of the capacitors are bulging (or, in more extreme cases, burst or missing).

[HSRTG]

The motherboard is a bit more of a serious problem than I'd hoped. I'll call up Dell and ask about a replacement, but my warranty ran out a couple years ago.

Since getting a new computer before mid-summer is pretty much out of the picture, would it be possible to simply replace the motherboard and continue as before?

EDIT: I'll open the system and take a look tonight. The above is in the likely case that you're both correct.

[Joviwan]

Absolutely, assuming the motherboard hasn't let it's necrosis blow out any other hardware. Talk to dell and ask about a replacement board; If you can't get it for free, you can probably buy one from them. As long as it's identical you shouldn't have any problems swapping the old one out, aside from being forced to wrestle with Dell's insidious, bass-ackwards proprietary layout scheme.

What I would worry about after the mobo is if the RAM or the HDD was somehow affected. Those things tend to be tempermental when the mobo goes funkay.

[Starglider]

Since getting a new computer before mid-summer is pretty much out of the picture, would it be possible to simply replace the motherboard and continue as before?

You know for the same money you might be able to get a second hand computer of equivalent or slightly younger age. Then you could move your hard drive and memory over (and CPU and graphics card if they are better than the other PC's) have a computer with twice the memory and a spare hard drive. Which reminds me, I hope you've got everything backed up, because your hard drive is probably getting to the age where the chances of failure start to rise quickly.

[Kitsune]

Sometimes you can get very low priced motherboards through e-bay and other places, perhaps you could just buy a new one in that manner.

Also did a quick Google Marketplace check
http://www.google.com/products?hl=en&q= ... 1&ct=title

Looks like around $100.00

[Stark]

Absolutely, assuming the motherboard hasn't let it's necrosis blow out any other hardware.

In my experience this is more common than not if the caps are actually damaged, and it's often difficult to determine this beforehand. If the board is damaged and it's been that way for some time, I wouldn't rely on any of the hardware for the future.

[Joviwan]

True enough, but hope springs eternal. His most likely solution, I.E, the thing most likely to fix his problem, is replacing the motherboard with an identical model. I'm not saying it's going to work, because in all honesty I don't think it will, but I'm fairly certain that replacing the motherboard is still cheaper than buying a new (or used) computer, which is still what I recommend be done.

[Kitsune]

True enough, but hope springs eternal. His most likely solution, I.E, the thing most likely to fix his problem, is replacing the motherboard with an identical model. I'm not saying it's going to work, because in all honesty I don't think it will, but I'm fairly certain that replacing the motherboard is still cheaper than buying a new (or used) computer, which is still what I recommend be done.

I have savaged parts from various machines and built computers that way and have no found in my experience the motherboard dying to kill the memory, hard drive, or video cards.

[Stark]

Wow, that's fantastic, because I've seen boards with fucked caps kill memory AND video cards. Who knew messing with the power system could damage sensitive electronics?

The issue si that even with cap damage I don't think it's possible to tell if a part is damaged until it fails (which is obvious with video cards but can be a pain to track down for low-level memory damage).

[Kitsune]

A side question, have you definitely made sure that it is not one of the RAM which died or is dying? I have had memory die a couple of times and made me think the motherboard was dying. DDR-2 memory (which is what New Egg states it has) is pretty cheap

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

My early 2004 Dell laptop has also, as of several days ago, started running the fan at full blast at all times even when the air its blowing out is cool and the thermometer in the computer reads 30 degrees. The computer is running rather sluggishly, too, with my browser often taking several seconds to switch tabs and Dawn of War on minimum settings running more slowly than Company of Heroes used to on high. Task Manager will sometimes show large, random processor usage, but the problem persists even if the usage is shown at 0-5%. I'm currently backing up everything no matter what, but is failing hardware also the likely issue for mine, or could it be a software issue? Anti-virus and anti-spyware programs have come up with nothing, but still.

[HSRTG]

First of all, thanks for all the help. I'm very inexperienced with hardware.

His most likely solution, I.E, the thing most likely to fix his problem, is replacing the motherboard with an identical model. I'm not saying it's going to work, because in all honesty I don't think it will, but I'm fairly certain that replacing the motherboard is still cheaper than buying a new (or used) computer, which is still what I recommend be done.

Ah. Well, as you said hope springs eternal. I'll start looking into cheap, used computers if the motherboard idea and the other proposed fixes don't work. Worst case is I have some spare parts.

A side question, have you definitely made sure that it is not one of the RAM which died or is dying?

Can I tell the difference with only the symptoms at hand, or is this just a matter of trial and error?

If the board is damaged and it's been that way for some time, I wouldn't rely on any of the hardware for the future.

I was going to get another hard drive on the basis of Starglider's post. I sincerely hope it's not as FUBAR as you say about the entire system, but I'll keep this in mind.

[Kitsune]

The best way to test if it is the RAM is to put another one in.....If it boots fine, it likely is the RAM. that is how I tested both of mine. Can get DDR at New Egg for like $6.50 for a 512 Meg and around $11.00 for a one gig

Also, I have heard a bit of discussion of motherboards killing video cards or RAM but have never heard of it killing a hard drive.

I kind of wonder also if the cases are not of the motherboard killing the other components but poor power current / a large number of power spikes killing both?

[starslayer]

There's no way in hell that this is bad RAM. The fans are controlled by the BIOS, which has its own memory directly on the motherboard. Bad RAM also wouldn't cause Windows to simply stall when it loads; you'd be getting BSODs at random times aplenty as it hits the bad cluster, which corrupts whatever data the OS is currently working with, causing it to throw fatal errors (you'd look for several different bugchecks/stop codes). Or it might simply flat fail to boot, which your machine does not seem to have done yet, HSRTG.

I'm currently backing up everything no matter what, but is failing hardware also the likely issue for mine, or could it be a software issue?

Failing hardware is most likely, given the sheer age of the computer. When was the last time you reformatted and reinstalled Windows? That may help, and would certainly tell if your problems were hardware or software.

I kind of wonder also if the cases are not of the motherboard killing the other components but poor power current / a large number of power spikes killing both?

The whole point of the motherboard is to both transmit signals between the components and deliver power to all of them. The BIOS controls the power (really, the voltage) sent to all the installed components, and if something on the board starts to die, it can start sending widely varying voltages to the components, frying them. Anything that relies on the mobo for a power connection is fair game, although some components are more tolerant of excessive voltage/voltage or current swings than others. A bad PSU can also be the culprit, overwhelming the mobo's capacity to regulate the voltage, regardless of how healthy it is.

[Vertigo1]

Instead of re-installing the OS, grab yourself a bootable linux distro and see if its still usable. However, judging by the symtoms you've mentioned, I'm leaning heavily towards your system being fragged due to a power surge.

Do you have any kind of power protection between your computer and the wall socket? (ie: a UPS of some sort) If not, find yourself about 70 bucks and buy a decent APC unit from your local retailer. Clean power is an extreme rarity these days (particularly in college dorms), and it doesn't take much of a spike to kill a computer. (especially when you consider the cheap ass parts Dell throws into their systems) In the last house I lived in, the power line leading to the house corroded on the pole outside the breaker panel. (the line was atleast 15 years old....and anyone over the age of 5 knows what happens when you mix different metals...) This resulted in half the breaker panel loosing power randomly. Can you say power spikes ahoy? I got lucky because my PC, and a couple other things, were plugged into my UPS. The built-in power conditioner kept my equipment from self-destructing from bad power. The line (and breaker panel, due to its age) were replaced and all was good.

Moral of the story? About a hundred bucks invested in a decent UPS will potentially save you hundreds of dollars. Think of it as an electrical condom for your PC.

[charlemagne]

Doesn't have to be a power surge, heat problems can easily lead to similar symptons by - as already mentioned - blowing/fucking up capacitors.

However, I'd advise against trying to re-install the OS, too. In my experience Windows setup will just look up and/or produce BSODs when the motherboard is fucked, so propably nothing to gain there.

[HSRTG]

I've had the computer plugged into a surge protecter at all times.

[phongn]

Do you have any kind of power protection between your computer and the wall socket? (ie: a UPS of some sort) If not, find yourself about 70 bucks and buy a decent APC unit from your local retailer. Clean power is an extreme rarity these days (particularly in college dorms), and it doesn't take much of a spike to kill a computer.

A $70 UPS won't really do much in the way of power conditioning, not that it's really needed for switchmode PSUs. A decent surge suppressor will probably be enough (at least until the MOVs die, which they inevitably will, either due to sacrifice to stop incoming surges or internal resistance degrading them over time). The UPS (and, in fact, most PSUs) also have MOVs for defense.

(especially when you consider the cheap ass parts Dell throws into their systems)

That has very little to do with it.

In the last house I lived in, the power line leading to the house corroded on the pole outside the breaker panel. (the line was atleast 15 years old....and anyone over the age of 5 knows what happens when you mix different metals...) This resulted in half the breaker panel loosing power randomly. Can you say power spikes ahoy? I got lucky because my PC, and a couple other things, were plugged into my UPS. The built-in power conditioner kept my equipment from self-destructing from bad power. The line (and breaker panel, due to its age) were replaced and all was good.

Er, you don't actually know that the random breaker failures caused voltage spikes to surge through. Now, they might've caused the power to go on and off, but a voltage spike might not really have been generated there.

Moral of the story? About a hundred bucks invested in a decent UPS will potentially save you hundreds of dollars. Think of it as an electrical condom for your PC.

A good surge suppressor is cheaper, though money invested in a decent UPS can potentially save data, which is far more valuable than the computer it resides on.

[phongn]

I've had the computer plugged into a surge protecter at all times.

The protective components of surge suppressors die over time and usually silently.

[HSRTG]

The protective components of surge suppressors die over time and usually silently.

Aw fuck. It's a few years-old surge supresser too. Well, that's one more component on my to-buy list. Thanks for the heads-up.

[Kitsune]

However, I'd advise against trying to re-install the OS, too. In my experience Windows setup will just look up and/or produce BSODs when the motherboard is fucked, so propably nothing to gain there.

Is there anything to lose by trying?

[Joviwan]

However, I'd advise against trying to re-install the OS, too. In my experience Windows setup will just look up and/or produce BSODs when the motherboard is fucked, so propably nothing to gain there.

Is there anything to lose by trying?

All of your data?

[charlemagne]

All of your data?

Right, and he might be lucky and Windows might just start to work again, which would leave him with an at least partially usable computer instead of a totally fucked one.