Computers are giving me extreme agita. Can you help me?

November 27, 2006 5:14 PM

I am about to have a nervous breakdown. Please, can you help me with my mysterious, probably power-related, computer nightmares?

Ok. Where do I begin? Please be patient, this is quite a saga. Over the past few months, I started having a problem with my machine. Occasionally, I would power up but nothing would happen. That is, it would power up, but fail to post, and nothing would appear on the screen. My harddrives also started acting blinky, and "SMART" started complaining about them.

I replaced the power supply (it was a new, robust one, but I figured wth) with a nice Antec 550W. No change. Also swapped out with new RAM. Again, no change. Seeing as this machine was about 5 years old, I figured it might be time for a replacement. I bought a new mobo (ASUS A8N-VM CSM), processor (AMD Athlon 64 3800+), video card (PCI-E ATI X1950PRO) and case, and set it all up.

The only components I brought over from the old rig are:

- 2 matching sticks of RAM, 1GB each
- 2 harddrives, neither of which I'm running the system off
- DVD/CD drive
- PCI sound card

When I first set it up, I left out 1 of the old hard drives, eager just to see if it would run. It did. I added the other drive, and at first, I failed to get a video signal. Rebooted a few times to no avail. Tried the on-board video, still no love. Then I plugged in an old monitor using a VGA adapter (the current monitor is DVI), and lo and behold, I got picture. I think this was just coincidence though, as when I plugged things back into the original set-up, it worked.

Hoorah! It worked! It worked beautifully for about 24 hours, even, during which time I installed windows XP on a new SATA harddrive. I was playing some HL2, enjoying the new video card, when, during a loading sequence, it froze. Couldn't ctrl-alt-delete, nothing. Dead. So I hit "reset". Since then, I have not been able to get a video signal off the PCIe card. I couldn't get one off the integrated video either, but now that's subsided, and I can pretty consistently use the integrated video. (That's what I'm using now.)

Some potentially relevant facts:

- The motherboard calls for EATX power, meaning a 24 pin connector. I have an ATX PS, with a 20 pin connector. Everything I read online, and in the mobo manual itself, seems to indicate that this shouldn't be a problem, especially considering my powerful PS, but thought I should throw it out there.

- I'm in an old Brooklyn, NY building, with old electrical. The computer is plugged into a surge protector which is connected to a LONG industrial-type extension cord which plugs into the one grounded outlet in the apartment. I was failing to get video from even the IGP until I reshuffled things and plugged into another outlet.

So, here's my question:

Considering that these issues seem to have followed me between two machines, could this be a problem with my (from-the-wall) power? How can I test this? Will a UPS fix it?

Sub-question -- is my video card fried?

Please, please help me. I feel like smashing things and crying.

posted by TonyRobots to Computers & Internet (18 answers total)

Best answer: I'd been through a similar situation with an older homebrew machine. Sell each of the parts on ebay, and then use the proceeds to buy a single, simple machine from a provider you trust. Then making it work becomes someone else's problem.

If you're like me, you will resist this answer for a long time until you realize it would have saved you a ton of stress.
posted by anildash at 5:23 PM on November 27, 2006

Response by poster: I can't admit defeat that quickly. Also, seeing as the problem has seemingly spanned two machines, there is no guarantee that it wouldn't afflict a pre-built Dell (or whatever) as well.
posted by TonyRobots at 5:30 PM on November 27, 2006

Could it be your RAM? I've had similar problems in the past (intermittent crashes, flake-outs etc) and it turned out to be the RAM.

another possible issue could be overheating. Are you sure there's adequate cooling?
posted by gadha at 5:35 PM on November 27, 2006

Response by poster: 1) The problems with the old machine predated the RAM in question.

2) Things are very cool. 27C CPU.
posted by TonyRobots at 5:40 PM on November 27, 2006

Best answer: You are probably running into line noise/power stability problems, as you suspect. Since your whole building may be at issue, see if you can't hook up with a friend who has a newer circuit to work with. If you can't reproduce the problem elsewhere, the circuit is probably the culprit. In that case, a good UPS can help, but a cheap one will not. If it turns out that the circuitry is the problem, you will need some degree of power conditioning in order to get around your stablity problems, which is not available with the less expensive UPS/SBS systems.
posted by owhydididoit at 5:46 PM on November 27, 2006

Best answer: I've been looking into buying a line-interactive UPS, and if your problem is in fact power stability, the UPS should give your machine clean power.

I found one that rated 94/100 on Wize.com and costs $100 if you decide to go down that path.
posted by jaden at 5:54 PM on November 27, 2006

Response by poster: owhydididoit, thanks. That's my suspicion. How likely is it that permanent damage has been done, such that bringing the system over to a more stable power environment won't actually help at this point?

Also, would this UPS help?
posted by TonyRobots at 5:56 PM on November 27, 2006

Response by poster: Jaden, that UPS looks even better, thanks. I'd still love to know if a) these symptoms seem likely to be caused by bad power, and b) if my video card may be permanently damaged (after just 1 day of usage!)

thanks all!
posted by TonyRobots at 5:59 PM on November 27, 2006

Response by poster: Oh, and I somehow forgot to mention -- when I did finally get a picture through the on-board video, it turned out my new windows installation had gotten corrupted, (windows/system32/system file was bad) and I had to do some arcane recovery console dance to get things running again. CHKDSK found errors on the brand new drive, and apparently my system "hive" was corrupted. This, too, points to power issues, no?
posted by TonyRobots at 6:06 PM on November 27, 2006

This could point to either power issues or ram issues.
burn yourself a copy of memtest 86+ and see if it is an issue with the ram. If it is, then the problem is most likely the ram although it could also be the power.
posted by killa62 at 6:44 PM on November 27, 2006

It sounds like you've identified that you've power problems. The surge protector is useless for brown-outs, so definitely get a small UPS.

Or simply buy a laptop. (You can get some good corporate ones that are 2-3 years old that have come off leases.)

(As for testing... I think you've eliminated all other variables. But, do your light bulbs ever flicker or dim?)
posted by kamelhoecker at 6:46 PM on November 27, 2006

Best answer: In general, when machines are acting flakey, the right thing to do while testing them is to boot off non-writable media. Ubuntu live CD's are good ones to use for this, because (a) they come with memtest86+ installed as a boot option (b) you can get them mailed to you for free (c) they contain enough serious apps to give your system a fair old workout.

If I had a machine that refused even to show me video, and I plugged it into a different outlet and it worked, I would be buying a UPS - stat!
posted by flabdablet at 6:54 PM on November 27, 2006

Response by poster: Yeah, lightbulbs definitely flicker/dim when, for instance, the refrigerator compressor comes on. Is there a free program like memtest86+ that I can run from within windows?
posted by TonyRobots at 7:18 PM on November 27, 2006

There's not much point running diagnostics if you've already switched everything else except your source of electricity, you have flickery lights, and you've already been unable to run your computer off one of your power outlets. It's virtually certain that brownouts are your problem, and a UPS is much cheaper than a rewire.

There's also not much point running RAM test diagnostics from inside Windows, since Windows occupies so much RAM; the tester wouldn't be able to test RAM occupied by bits of Windows without killing Windows.

If you just want to run Memtest86+ without downloading 600MB of live CD or waiting for one to arrive in the mail, ordering a CD, just download it from the official website. It's less than 70kB to download, and gives you a package that will create a stand-alone Memtest86 boot floppy (or USB key or CD-ROM, depending which version you download).
posted by flabdablet at 9:12 PM on November 27, 2006

You mention a PCI sound card in the mix, but don't mention if it was in or out during your faultfinding. I've got a couple of old sounds cards - an old SBPro 16 ISA, and a later SB somethingorother PCI - which will both cause intermittent data corruption, failure to boot, etc when plugged in. I understand it's a common failure mode.

I should really throw all that old crap out...
posted by Pinback at 9:16 PM on November 27, 2006

LONG power cord as in HOW LONG? What gauge wire? Fatter wire (i.e., lower guage numbers) is better.

Long power cord means voltage drop. The more power you try to pull out of it, the more the voltage drop. If your voltage to the new power supply drops below its specified minimum, it might not work properly.

PCs are exquisitely sensittive to out of spec voltages. The variety of symptoms you have sounds power related.

Since it's the easiest thing to substitute out, go with that before you buy or sell anything. Get thee to a power outlet that puts out a nominal voltage of 120 VAC. If the problem goes away for good, go back to your current setup. If the problem returns, go back to the 120 and check to see if it goes away.

In general, if you can make a problem repeatable, make it go away, come back and go away again, you've found it.

Your problem is not particularly repeatable... it's more of an intermittent. But if an intermittent occurs frequently enough, you can make the same assessments that you can with a highly repeatable error.
posted by FauxScot at 9:30 PM on November 27, 2006

Best answer: PCs are slightly sensitive to out of spec line voltage. Otherwise these problems would be a lot more common!

You need to do more debugging.. Run memtest, try some other burn-in and test software on the ultimate boot CD, and try browsing the web from a live CD for an evening (like Knoppix, but it doesn't matter which).

Also, try to correlate crashes to the fridges activity, and try plugging the fridge into the outlet on your stove.

I wonder if you can get an unswitched multi-voltage computer power supply, which would be good on anything from 100-240 V. Ah, it appears that you can:

All this clever circuitry, of course, means that this is an "all voltage" PSU; it'll run from anything between 100 and 240 volts AC, without any manual switching. People in 220V countries who enjoy clicking PSUs into 110V mode and waiting for a victim to turn the computer on have fewer and fewer opportunities to do so, these days.

That particular model doesn't look any cheaper than a line interactive UPS, but depending on details, it should do a better job of handling brown outs, down to 100V, than a line interactive UPS - because there is no switch over delay.
posted by Chuckles at 11:09 PM on November 27, 2006

You know....I've built my own machine ever since my first computer. I've upgraded every part of my machine several times over, since 1993, but I recently bought my first laptop, and I think anil is right on the money. Your time is more valuable than that.
posted by Mr. Gunn at 10:39 PM on November 28, 2006