[wplug] Since we're off topic

[Brian Roberts]

Bill Moran wrote:

> Brandon Kuczenski wrote:
>
>>>> Since the problem seems to be correlated to the *first time* I try 
>>>> to power up the machine after n hours, I will wait for awhile and 
>>>> try again with the HDDs not plugged in.  If I see it fail even once 
>>>> without the HDDs, then it's probably the motherboard (there isn't 
>>>> anything else here except for a wireless NIC).  If not, then I'm in 
>>>> data recovery hell and will probably prevail upon the list again soon.
>>>>
>>>     Sounds like a power-supply, dewd. Don't skimp on those. Bad 
>>> power supplies are the leading cause of machine failure (minus 
>>> user-error). What kid of power supply do you have in that thing? Bad 
>>> RAM may also be the cause, but I've seen few cases of that. Of 
>>> course, I only get monster power-supplies anymore, so...
>>
>>
>> I guess it could be the power supply, but it's new, too, and 300W.  
>> Plus, the fact that the BIOS has still not failed to POST once 
>> without the hard drives plugged in (8 attempts and counting) points a 
>> bloody finger at them.  Plus, this HDD has made noise since the day I 
>> got it - occasionally it will make a cracking noise as if it suddenly 
>> stopped spinning, and then started up again.  Since it was an IBM, 
>> and since I bought it new and it did that from day 1, I figured it 
>> was some sort of *feature* but now I don't think so anymore.
>
>
> I've been following with some interest, but now I think I actually have a
> similar experience to offer.
>
> Late last year, my FreeBSD desktop computer started acting up.  About 
> once
> a week it would just freeze up, and then on reboot it sometimes would
> refuse to recognize the HDD.  I replaced the power supply ... no change,
> I replaced the mobo ... no change, finally I replaced the HDD and the
> machine has been rock stable since.
>
> In my case, I didn't suspect the HDD, because it wasn't making any 
> noise or
> exhibiting any other behaviour other than the lockups.  But it was
> obviously the cause of the problem.
>
Over the past two years I have had 3 whiteboxes that acted very strange 
but not on a regular basis.   Windows boxes that would boot and work 
then lock, or die when there was a cd but no HDD or vice versa.   After 
I was starting to think it was the HDD and when Knoppix started getting 
flaky after a bit I was really torn. 

Even after I replaced the mobo with a similar model I was still having 
troubles...

I ended up stumbling into the bad capacitor Theory.   Basically when I 
switched Mobo vendors the problem went away,  looks like someone had a 
set of bad chips, but they would only surface their problems at odd 
times and under certain loads.

http://www.badcaps.net/
http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2003Feb/bch20030207018535.htm

Brian