[ale] Losing stability

[Matt Kubilus]

Those beeps aren't random, they usually indicate some sort of
diagnostic message particular to your motherboard/BIOS.

Also, your RAM is most certainly bad.  It's the cheapest easiest thing
to swap for sure.  Do you have any systems running the same kind that
you could swap test?

I would say to try swapping in this order, easiest(cheapest?) to hardest:

* RAM
* PowerSupply
* Video Card (believe it or not, especially w/Winders)
* CPU
* HardDrive
* Motherboard

Have you ever overclocked this system?

-Matt

On 10/30/06, Christopher Fowler <cfowler at outpostsentinel.com> wrote:
> I've written off older hardware because I've lost old hardware recently.
> It just seems like PC these days aren't able to go much past 3 or 4
> years.  A troubling fact.
>
> Could be the following:
>
> 1.  Bad CD drive (Remove it)
> 2.  Bad hard drive (Try a new one)
>
>
> I had a machine behave like this and the conclusion was that it was a
> bad disk.  The problem was that the disk holding swap was bad and when
> the drive kept retrying the system would appear to "hang".  Sometimes
> even reboot.  One idea is to not use swap and force everything in
> memory.  Not sure if 512mb is enough these days with GNOME and other
> crap running.
>
>
> On Mon, 2006-10-30 at 09:25 -0500, Charles Shapiro wrote:
> > My main box at home is having Serious Troubles.  On startup it often
> > will hang (no screen output) with the CD light lit steady until I
> > press & hold the "off" switch to retry. Other behaviors include
> > appearing to start up and then emitting random beeps through the
> > speaker with no screen output, or giving random core dumps on various
> > scripts in /etc/init.d.  I've also experienced  spontaneous reboots
> > and random hangs/program failures in X windows.  The "memory speed"
> > number given in the initial startup screen sometimes changes from
> > boot-up to boot-up as well.  The system is a home-brew about 4 years
> > old and lightly used; leadtek WinFast K-series MB, athlon chip, cheap
> > simple video card, single 512 MB DRAM stick. Processor temperatures
> > appear to be within acceptable ranges, at least according to the
> > "syshealth" part of the BIOS. I've enabled the full memory test in the
> > POST, but so far that hasn't picked up any problems.
> >
> > I'm thinking that the problem is either memory or motherboard. I've
> > removed, air-blasted, and re-seated the memory stick in a new slot
> > without change in behavior. At  this point I'm considering getting
> > some new memory and, if that doesn't change the behavior, replacing
> > the motherboard.
> >
> > Does this seem reasonable? The clock appears steady, so I'm assuming
> > the BIOS battery is OK, but perhaps that's a factor?
> >
> > -- CHS
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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>
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