Bristol Digest, Vol 545, Issue 2

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Today's Topics:

1. Re: Bristol Digest, Vol 544, Issue 3 (Alex Butcher)
2. Re: Bristol Digest, Vol 544, Issue 3 (Matt Dainty)


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Message: 1
Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2014 12:24:13 +0100 (BST)
From: Alex Butcher <lug@assursys.co.uk>
To: Bristol and Bath Linux User Group <bristol@mailman.lug.org.uk>
Subject: Re: [bristol] Bristol Digest, Vol 544, Issue 3
Message-ID: <alpine.LFD.2.03.1404081217570.6140@nffheflf.pb.hx>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed

On Tue, 8 Apr 2014, Ron Young wrote:

> Hi James,
> I am a IT field service engineer with over 40 years experience, contracting
> around Europe and UK, and I believe that your problem may well be a dodgy
> graphic card however, have you tried removing EVERYTHING from the
> Motherboard, as if you were going to replace it? IF you remove one
> connector/component at a time, being carfull to reconnect it before you move
> on to the next item, I have had many instants were dody connections were the
> problem, just pull it and reinsert it again PSU to motherboard USB,LAN,
> Graphics EVERYTHING! I believe that the connections get "tired" after a
> while and I have been sent out on calls to " Replace the Faulty Motherboard"
> only to find that by just pulling everythind connected to the Motherboard
> and reinserting it, cured the problem.

Yeah, "remove and reseat" is quite a common diagnostic technique. I've seen
PCI cards that wobble in their slots and cause hangs, or graphics cards that
lose the connection with one side of the edge connector when the backplate
screw is tightened if the card is not held central whilst doing so (and this
is on good quality parts too; Antec cases, Asus/Gigabyte motherboards).

And then there's a special place for SATA connectors which have a tendency
to become intermittent if you breathe on them and are sometimes specified
only to 50 insertion/removal cycles.

Best Regards,
Alex



------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2014 07:33:39 -0400
From: Matt Dainty <matt@bodgit-n-scarper.com>
To: Bristol and Bath Linux User Group <bristol@mailman.lug.org.uk>
Subject: Re: [bristol] Bristol Digest, Vol 544, Issue 3
Message-ID: <20140408113339.GZ2245@simulant.bodgit-n-scarper.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

* Alex Butcher <lug@assursys.co.uk> [2014-04-08 07:25:36]:
> On Tue, 8 Apr 2014, Ron Young wrote:
>
> >Hi James,
> >I am a IT field service engineer with over 40 years experience, contracting
> >around Europe and UK, and I believe that your problem may well be a dodgy
> >graphic card however, have you tried removing EVERYTHING from the
> >Motherboard, as if you were going to replace it? IF you remove one
> >connector/component at a time, being carfull to reconnect it before you
> >move
> >on to the next item, I have had many instants were dody connections were
> >the
> >problem, just pull it and reinsert it again PSU to motherboard USB,LAN,
> >Graphics EVERYTHING! I believe that the connections get "tired" after a
> >while and I have been sent out on calls to " Replace the Faulty
> >Motherboard"
> >only to find that by just pulling everythind connected to the Motherboard
> >and reinserting it, cured the problem.
>
> Yeah, "remove and reseat" is quite a common diagnostic technique. I've seen
> PCI cards that wobble in their slots and cause hangs, or graphics cards that
> lose the connection with one side of the edge connector when the backplate
> screw is tightened if the card is not held central whilst doing so (and this
> is on good quality parts too; Antec cases, Asus/Gigabyte motherboards).
>
> And then there's a special place for SATA connectors which have a tendency
> to become intermittent if you breathe on them and are sometimes specified
> only to 50 insertion/removal cycles.

Not sure if this has been suggested, but have you tried a different PSU?

I ended up replacing the PSU at least once on the last two machines I
built from parts. Not to say I built them badly; the machines were in
continuous use for years at a time between replacement PSU's, but I
remember they generated the same hard-to-diagnose problems that
disappeared completely when I swapped the PSU on a hunch.

One PSU failure manifested itself as a random lockup, and then when the
machine rebooted, the kernel would spin up the hard disks and the extra
load from that would trip the failing PSU again and the machine would
power cycle once more, rinse and repeat.

Matt



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End of Bristol Digest, Vol 545, Issue 2
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