Free Computer Consultant ………. Daily Insights

I just blogged about a problem with an Asus P5LD2 Deluxe PC last week and it’s a nightmare getting all the parts RMA’d and providing a loaner PC in the interim.

What do I do when it’s my own PC that’s going south? Well, that’s what happened beginning last Sunday when I woke up to a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) on my primary PC, an Asus P5KC.

During the course of the day I was able to get it up and running several times. Sometimes it would boot and I could do a “chkdsk /f” which it would perform on the next boot up and it would be fine - only to BSOD, not always with the same error code.

Once I had to get out the XP CD in order to boot because even the Command Console wouldn’t work. (Keep your XP CD handy!)

Since the hard drive was always corrupted I suspected that the drive was shucking out, but SpinRite not only didn’t show any problems but didn’t help either. Next suspect might be memory, but with memory from Crucial I didn’t put much faith in that theory. I changed out the hard drive just to be sure, restoring from a drive image made with my favorite backup program and kept looking for other hints.

Then in  the process of swapping out the hard drive, I practically burned my hand on the video card. The video card I was using was a 512MB PCI-E card from Asus that was designed to be fanless. I get sick of video cards whose cheapo cooling fans either get noisy or just plain die; requiring me to provide a loaner and then RMA the card to the manufacturer. And nobody likes a noisy fan.

In this case, maybe it’s not the best design, who knows. What I did was quick order an XFX video card from a favorite vendor with free shipping and a new video card was at my door the next day (I know, the free shipping isn’t supposed to be that quick, but usually is).

For now it looks like the problem is solved. But the keys to quick recovery are these:

• Good drive image backup
• A detailed list of installed software and configuration changes
• Knowing where all the CD’s, etc are for the rebuild
• Knowing where to go for the right hardware at the right prices

Back up and running, solid as a rock. A good feeling.

Typically when I chose a motherboard to build business workstations out of, I use that motherboard for the entire cycle of the technology; meaning usually, I use a particular motherboard for a particular Intel chipset; changing motherboards when it’s time to move on to the next chipset.

Normally I will not have to RMA (return as defective) any motherboards for a long time. Then, once in a while, a particular motherboard shows itself to be a problem. The last one was the P4T533 series which had a habit of one day either locking up or not coming alive when powered up. If it happened during the 3 year warranty, Asus would replace it (I would have to come up with a loaner for a couple of weeks) and it would then be fine forever. If it died after 3 years; new machine.

I am now starting to see the emergence of another problem board, the Asus P5LD2 Deluxe. Below is a photo of a P5LD2 Deluxe and an Asus EN6600 video card that I paired with this board on many occasions.

What is happening to these boards is that a couple of voltage regulators are getting fried. Why? Who knows. Asus technical support will point to the Antec power supply. But is that really likely to happen on several occasions with different computers in different buildings and different cities? Only if the unit is an inherently bad design.. and that’s possible.

But the problems with Antec that I read about concern low or poor voltage, not motherboards burning up.

And here’s the video card:

What’s the fix?

Well, the first time I just replaced the motherboard, video card and power supply. As soon as I applied power, it all fried again - same components.

So the next time, I RMA’d the processor and memory also.

Could it be the Antec power supply? Maybe. But I have used the same power supply with different Asus motherboards and not had any problems..so far, anyway.

In the meantime, BACKUP - just in case (no data lost to date), and have a spare PC on hand.

Ever notice that it takes 4 or 5 times longer to tell someone what they don’t want to hear than to tell them what they want to hear?

I had a conversation with a cheap (not inexpensive) Dell desktop computer owner today. He bought this “good deal” 13 months ago. It came with a 1 year warranty. It came with RAID 1 (mirrored hard drives) to help protect his data.

Sidenote: RAID 1 protects you if 1 hard drive dies. Period. If the controller goes bad gradually (bad thing, rather have it die outright), or if a hard drive just starts scrambling data, you will likely end up with either 2 hard drives of either mismatched garbage or matched garbage.

For $39, Dell helped him get the RAID array re-mirrored. 24 hours later, the array is again being reported as “degraded”, i.e., both drives not matched. Windows is locking up and certain program files are being reported as corrupted or “damaged”. Want to take a guess what his data files are like?

The user tells me all of this, then carefully explains what error messages his browser reports when surfing a local news website. It takes 15 minutes to tell him to quit worrying about Windows until he has the hardware working solidly.

I tell him that after he gets the hardware repaired and squared away - I recommend he ask Dell for an extended service contract, they might do it at 13 months - he will likely have to reload Windows from the Dell Recovery CD that came with his PC. A Windows Repair install is probably not even a good idea at this point.

Oops. This was one of those “today only” super specials (that you can get every day) and, in order to offer such a good deal, Dell decided they couldn’t afford the 39 cents it would cost them to include a recovery CD.

I’ve said before, I say again, there are few reasons not to get a 3 year warranty on computer hardware:

• You pride yourself on being penny wise and pound foolish
• You are using the PC’s to run a political campaign and the election is less than 1 year from now
• Your doctor gives you less than 1 year to live and you have no heirs
• Your wealth makes Bill Gates and Warren Buffet look like middle class citizens

Think about it. The (r)e-tailer thinks so highly of the product that they are only willing to stand behind it for a year. Why should you think it will last longer than that?

If you buy right and your needs change little (my clients still use Microsoft Office 2000) that PC you buy today should cover your needs for at least 3 years. My clients typically get 5 - 8 years from PC’s.

I could fill a book with stories of computer hardware that had a 1 year warranty that died after 13 months. The name Gateway stands out in this category but Dell would find its name there too.

Don’t buy without a 3 year warranty. If you do, please don’t call me when it pukes after 13 months.

I think it no coincidence that some PC’s have been locking up the last couple of days. Here in the Midwest, temperatures are above 90 degrees (F) and humidity is somewhere north of 100%.

Unfortunately, dissimilar machines are exhibiting almost identical behavior. These PC’s, some W2K Pro and some XP Pro, boot to the blue GUI (not the BSOD blue), the mouse is active, but they never display the login prompt.

Naturally, these computers are poorly ventilated in the first place, and filled with dust bunnies in the second place.

One W2K machine responded nicely to an XP Pro upgrade; the XP Pro box, while giving a “Data Error Reading” when I try to select recovery console from the boot menu, seems unwilling to let SpinRite detect and fix the read error.

Frustrating and time consuming. If you have any similar stories, please post a comment with the details.

Cheap computers, I hate them. This particular unit is a Gateway 500 Series Computer, circa 2002. It was cheap. Besides the price, the next indicator of quality (or lack thereof) was that it came loaded with Windows XP Home Edition instead of XP Professional.

The owner brought it to me on Friday because it was dead. She wanted to know if I could fix it or if she needed a new computer. Now, you know I’m not a salesman since I told her I would look at; chances are it’s the power supply. (Some people buy another new PC at this point; yes, you guessed it, another cheap computer.)

Turns out, Gateway saved themselves all of about a $1.50 by configuring this model with a whopping 160 watt power supply; and this is a full tower PC. I have had units like this underpowered gem fail to boot up after adding a second hard drive for the sole purpose of upgrading the hard drive and cloning the old onto the new. 160 watts is barely enough to power the unit out of the factory door, let alone add another device. So much for expandability.

This unit I salvaged by installing a used 300 watt power supply that had the right connectors. 300 watt is the smallest output power supply I have EVER put in a PC. New I think they might have gone for about $35, retail.

The problem with finding such a cheap power supply in a cheap computer like this is that it is an indicator of just how bad the manufacturer is trying to cut costs. Where else do they skimp on quality? Answer - Everywhere. Cheap, slow (5400 rpm) Maxtor hard drives, cheap floppy drives, slow (PC2100) RAM. This unit came configured with all of 128MB of RAM. Turn it on and go do something else for a while.

Cheap is as cheap does. Avoid it, I say.

The good news is that I gave her the power supply on the condition she would buy 512MB RAM for under $50 from Crucial.com, my preferred memory source. She can probably get another year or two out of this PC with a little TLC, and enjoy using it a whole lot more.