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

[Alex Schuster]

v_2e@×××.net writes:

>    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.

The power supply is older, I re-used it from the PC I had before this 
one. I hope it causes the trouble, and will try another one this 
evening. Thanks for this information, this strengthens my confidence 
that I do not have to buy a new board or CPU. Now I am driving home with 
a bag of three PSUs I had lent to a friend (and already forgotten).

>    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).

I wish I had :)  The RAM is okay, I think, I cannot imagine different 
memory modules to suddenly go bad all at once. And memtest86 found one 
error only after an hour, while the crashes happen after a few minutes 
already.

>    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.

It once crashed after ten minutes. That was not reproducable, but I did 
not try that often.

	Wonko