Hardware failure(?)

Sedai Hara · Posted: Sun Feb 07, 2010 2:58 pm Post subject: Hardware failure(?)

Backstory:

Got a stationary power-house of a PC that has been running smoothly for awhile, but lately I have suffered some weird problems:

When powering up it seems like it needs to get warm first, so it powers up, blacks out and powers up again for awhile until it comes to life, thought it was because of the cold air in the room or that the PSU is getting bad (fairly new one)

Then got black-outs where all screens would black-out, PC still running but not accessible until it restarts and all is well again.

Last night I got one of these blackouts, thought all was like usual so went to bed. This morning the computer would take AGES to boot through BIOS, and it looked like this:

As you can see there is some weird texture in the backgrund made up of white dots. This just continued with that nothing USB-powered would work. Ended up at the windows-booting query with the loading screens whch took quiet some time to go through, USB would power up but it all ended up with a bluescreen for a millisecond then it would reboot. Got a snapshot of the Bluescreen:

It dumps cache and reboots once again.

Next step was natural: Boot of linux of a CD. But yet again USB-powered things wouldn't work, and the weird texture stroke down again! But the kernel did boot.

Now it all went terribly wrong. First try I got a errormessage upon GNU-GUI initating, saying that GNU couldn't get a singal. Never seen this before and haven't been able to replicate it again. Will try though.

Next try the desktop-envirorment boots but locks up while loading, getting loading-cursors and half-rendered menues everywhere. Next try was more successfull but with a thin line of a menu with moving cursor, I can't do anything thought exept moving the cursor around.

So yeah, not sure what is the problem here. I am suspecting it is the MOBO which have gone bonkers or the GPU. No idea what-else can cause these rather fundamental problems. BIOS-weirdness sugests it's the MOBO though.

Help me SHC, you are my first bastion of computer related guidance (only Hope!*)

Disclaimer: Many of the fore-mentioned technical terms might or might-not be real words used in the industry. Pictures was taken in a hurry whit shit phone-camera aswell as shit lightning, hope you can make some sense out of it though.

Bombcrater · Posted: Sun Feb 07, 2010 4:02 pm Post subject: Re: Hardware failure(?)

It's had to say for sure what's wrong as there's contradictory symptoms. The boot failures and problems with USB devices would indicate the mobo is dying, but patterns on the screen suggest a graphics card fault.

Can you link the pic of the white dots BIOS screen? That would be useful as the type of corruption is sometimes a good pointer as to what's gone pop.
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Sedai Hara · Posted: Sun Feb 07, 2010 4:46 pm Post subject:

Thought I had that pic added, updated and fixed.

What really makes me a bit curious is why Ubuntu isn't running either, seeing as it only needs RAm + PSU + MOBO in general to survive.

Bombcrater · Posted: Sun Feb 07, 2010 5:34 pm Post subject:

Looking at that BIOS shot I'm pretty sure the motherboard is shot. The corruption pattern suggests there's something wrong on the PCI-e bus, rather than a fault with the gfx card's memory.

If you can get hold of one it may be worth trying another gfx card just to eliminate that possibility, but I really don't think that's the problem.
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Sedai Hara · Posted: Sun Feb 07, 2010 5:39 pm Post subject:

Found a store nearby who sells MOBOs very cheap, so going to rush there tomorrow and grab one and hope it solves it.

Sad thing is I don't have the cash to do a full upgrade while I am at it, so need to get an old 775 chipset one for my CPU. Oh well.

Sedai Hara · Posted: Mon Feb 08, 2010 12:13 am Post subject:

Just found this intresting line in the Bluescreen:

Sedai Hara · Posted: Mon Feb 08, 2010 12:22 am Post subject:

Just booted without an GPU, and it all worked, atleast USB is powered, sound works and program runs in the background (sound tells me). So in the end it was the GPU that was the problem.

This changed everything, and good I tried this!

Bombcrater · Posted: Mon Feb 08, 2010 4:34 am Post subject:

Very interesting! I've never encountered a faulty GPU causing USB issues before. Presumably the card is so buggered it's messing up the PCI-e controller in some way.

What kind of graphics card is it, btw?
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SAI_Peregrinus · Joined: 23 Jan 2008 Posts: 721

Sounds like the classic issue with an Audigy spewing noise across the PCI-bus, just updated for modern times. Be glad there wasn't any permanent damage.
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Sedai Hara · Posted: Mon Feb 08, 2010 10:05 pm Post subject:

Update:

Shit just went bonkers, computer wont even go to POST, even without a GPU like it did before. It just powers on and off and won't do anything.

Suspecting the damage has been spread allready, so now won't touch it and be happy with my laptop. Shit-hardware, didn't want those DX11 games anyway.

Edit: old GPU is a Px8800GTX Wintech getfast card (think thats the full name)

Sentille · Joined: 24 Jul 2006 Posts: 338 Location: Dirty Essex

I'd also try a different PSU, sometimes when they go weird stuff happens, had it happen before to be.

If you can pretty much guarantee it isn't a GPU or PSU issue then it does, as others have said, seem like the mobo and thrown a fit.

Is it possible to use a different machine to test your GPU and PSU?

hope you get it fixed, nothing worse than a random PC issue.
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Duty

Spawinte · Posted: Tue Feb 09, 2010 3:26 pm Post subject:

What manufacturer is your motherboard from? Damn things are the same as power supplies, you have to go for a reputable company and pay the bit extra if you're a heavy user.

Sedai Hara · Posted: Tue Feb 09, 2010 4:43 pm Post subject:

Mobo is a Gigabyte one, an EP35 Ds4 I think. PSU is a Zalman 600 watt.

MOBO is 3 years old, PSU is one-ish.

Going to try my GPU in another computer, also get to borrowing a PSU to try the mobo more. I am worried that the damage is spread to the CPU aswell, which would make an allready expensive error even worse.

Crying or Very sad

I hate this shit.

Sedai Hara · Posted: Wed Feb 10, 2010 3:08 pm Post subject:

Isolated the new problem:

It's the CPU-power connector to the MOBO, the small one thats a dual-4-pin connector on the upper left. Now for some reason the MOBO is alive as long as it's not connected, when connected with both the old PSU aswell as a borrowed one it just powers on and off.

Google tells me it's a connector problem on the mobo, or a faulty connector-pin on the PSU. Seeing as everything functions normal otherwise I can bet it's the MOBO acting up.

Anyone-else had this problem? Any good way of making sure what's up with it?

Note: The CPU-fan got power even without the pin connected and will move when the power is cut, so it ain't a malfunctioning CPU-fan that's acting up.

Ishihiro Tanaka · Posted: Wed Feb 10, 2010 4:30 pm Post subject:

Aha, an 8800 card isn't it?

They are prone to a problem called bad soldering of the SMD components, mostly the main GPU chip itself.

Look here for more information

http://forums.nvidia.com/lofiversion/index.php?t106510.html

You could try to re-BAKE the card by googleing baking 8800 card which basically mean you take the gfx card, wrap it in alu foil (or at least the bottom) and than bake for 25 minutes at 200 degrees celsius or something.

What this does is effectively reflow the soldering tin around the legs of the GPU unit and therefore make electral contact again.

The stop error also indicates GPU issues:

STOP Error 0x00000116: VIDEO_TDR_ERROR
STOP error 0x116 means that an attempt to reset the display driver and recover from a timeout failed. STOP code 0x00000116 may also display "VIDEO_TDR_ERROR" on the same STOP message.display "VIDEO_TDR_ERROR" on the same STOP message

Hope it helps!
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