Re: [gentoo-user] My PC died. What should I try?

Hello!

On Fri, 17 Aug 2012 09:50:40 +0200
Alex Schuster <wonko@×××××××××.org> wrote:

> Hi there!
>
> Two days ago, my PC suddenly died, after working fine for half a
> year. I used myrtcwake as usual to suspend to RAM, and it woke up in
> the morning. But after two minutes, the screen went blank and
> nothing, even SysRq, gave a reaction. I tried booting a couple of
> times again, and sometimes it did not even reach KDM. Now, I cannot
> even run Grub (from my USB stick) any more, I only see a "GRUB"
> string at the top right, then nothing happens.
>
> Booting with SystemRescueCD also freezes sometimes. If not, I can
> make it freeze after seconds by running 'memtester'.
>
> Booting good old memtest86 ran for an hour and only found one error,
> then I aborted, removed three of my four memory modules (4GB each),
> and tried different ones in the first bank. Memtest86 again did not
> find much errors, but froze once. Running memtester after booting
> from SystemrescueCD again makes the thing freeze in seconds. It once
> also froze while being in the BIOs setup.
>
  If the system behaves in such an unpredictable way (freezing at a
random point), I usually check the following things:
- RAM;
- bloated capacitors on the Motherboard;
- bloated or dried capacitors in the power supply unit;

  If your PC is only half a year old, it is unlikely that the
capacitors dried. But they could easily bloat, especially if they were
of bad quality or situated near some hot surface like heat sinks.
  Testing the power supply needs not only visual analysis. It would be
good to attach the oscilloscope to the output and see the voltage
level. It should not have large peaks (voltage jumps). But this is
usually true for the old units with dried capacitors, as I said.

  If I were you, I'd tried to temporarily replace the memory with a 100%
working module, and if it does not help - replace the power  supply
unit (if you do not have the necessary equipment to test it thoroughly).

  And one more simple test: turn on the PC, enter the BIOS setup
utility and keep it running in this state. If it runs ok for some time
(like a couple of hours), I'd say the problem is in RAM.

  Regards,
    Vladimir


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