Death of a workstation....

[hetzen]

Sorry for the title, but I'm having a real headache with this problem. My computer has recently started to bug out on start up, usually taking several attempts to boot. The blue screen is reporting different errors each time, so there's no point posting an error code.

So far, I've swapped out the RAM, removed all unnecesary hardware, changed the boot up drive, replaced the bios battery. Now I can't even get Windows 2000 to reinstall itself without blue screens of death.

My question is, how do you know if your processor or motherboard have bombed out? Have I answered my own question?

Any diagnosis help would be much appreciated

Thanks

 

[micker377]

Is this a "workstation" in name only, or does it have other computers connected to it? The first thing I'd do, is to pull all cards, drives, and peripherals. Just leave the video card, keyboard, and mouse. If it's still acting up, this points to what's left: Motherboard, memory, power supply, or CPU.

 

[garebo]

Do you have access to another power supply as it sounds like yours may be failing? If you could get one to try out that would be ideal.
You have replaced the bios battery, but did you do a re-set? Its an easy thing to do and it could bring results. I kind of doubt it in this case, but you never know and you do have to check all avenues anyway. Make sure you consult the mobo mfgr manual as reset sometimes differs.


Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[paparazi]

hetzen
Was going to suggest several things:

1) PSU failing
2) Bad motherboard capacitors (bulging and leaking caps)look carefully for signs.
3) Bad connector (motherboard, power lead etc)
4) Addon card or periferal preventing reliable boot

Martin

We like members to GIVE and not just TAKE.
Participate and help others.

 

[hetzen]

Thanks all for the advice so far, the only thing I haven't done is replace the power supply, which won't be a problem as I have several of the same cases, so thanks, I'll try that tomorrow. (as an aside, there are quite a few drives attached to the PSU, as well as the Gfx card).

Thinking about it, fluctuating power does seem to be a logical answer to these seemingly random error messages.

I'll also check out the capacitors, but it's a reasonably new MB, so ...

The real pain in all this, is the Raid setup on the MB, I don't have another to retrieve some recent important data. I tend to back everything up periodically, especially after these latest problems, but not for a couple of days, as I was pretty sure it was a RAM thang. And video files are huge.

Lastly, I'm a graphics guy, not really a hardware tech, although I've built all my machines over the years, so my knowledge sharing will be limited to Adobe type threads on these forums, of which I've tried to answer current questions in the AfterEffects section.

Thanks again, I'll update this thread if the PSU doesn't do it.

Cheers