In comp.os.linux.hardware Garry Knight <garryknight@gmx.net> wrote: > For some time now my machine has been resetting itself several times at boot > time before eventually booting successfully. As others have said, it is most likely to be a Power Supply Unit problem. Is it rebooting during the Power On Self Test, or further along the line? > The machine was running fine for a few years under various Mandrake/Mandriva > Linux versions and then suddenly started resetting whenever the sound card > was used, though not every time. Do you know what type of motherboard you have? There is a bug I have found with Asrock K7S8XE motherboards, which can cause the computer to crash when the sound card is used. (A BIOS upgrade fixes this) > The box is a generic Chinese box Ok, check if its an Asrock motherboard. > Standard CMOS Features > ---------------------- > IDE Primary Master ST340823A For the purposes of testing you could remove these: > IDE Primary Slave ST340014A > IDE Secondary Master LITE-ON DVDRW SHW-163] > IDE Secondary Slave SAMSUNG DVD-ROM SD-61 Maybe put the CDROM on the primary interface and disable the secondary one. Again, I have seen problems with Asrock motherboards using the secondary interface, causing some wierd error messages during boot-up. (I'm not sure what other brands may be affected) (The BIOS upgrade did not fix this, and I ended up putting the IDE devices in a specific order as a workaround) > Drive A 1.44M, 3.5 in. Set to "None" if you are not using this. Use the CMOS reset jumper on the board, remove the internal battery, power the machine up and down, as needed, and reset the BIOS. (You could put a new battery in at this point). > Virus Warning Disabled > CPU Internal Cache Enabled > External Cache Enabled If things are still looking bleak, you could disable External Cache, but I doubt that is the problem. > Quick Power On Self Test Enabled Disable this for a more intensive Power On Self Test > Boot Up Floppy Seek Enabled This hammers the heads in the Floppy Disk Drive during bootup. Disable this. > PCI Dynamic Bursting Enabled You could toggle this, for the purpose of testing. (But I doubt that is the problem) > OnChip IDE Channel1 Enabled Disable this for the purpose of testing (You will need to move your CDROM drive onto the primary interface) > Pimary Master UDMA Auto If you wanted to eliminate a drive problem, you could disable UDMA, but I doubt that is causing your problem. > Onboard FDD Controller Enabled Disable this for testing purposes > Onboard Serial Port 1 Auto > Onboard Serial Port 2 Auto Disable these for testing purposes > Onboard Legacy Audio Enabled Disable this > Game Port (200-207H) Enabled Disable this for testing purposes > ACPI function Enabled Some early boards had problems with ACPI. Try the drive swapping stuff first. If it still crashes, you could try Disabling this. > PM Control by APM Yes > Video Off Option Suspend -> Off > Video Off Method V/H SYNC+Blank Ok, good. > Wake Up Events > LPT & COM LPT/COM Switch Off > HDD & FD On > PCI Master Off Ok. > IRQs Activity Monitoring Disable these: > IRQ3 (COM 2) Enabled > IRQ4 (COM 1) Enabled > IRQ5 (LPT 2) Enabled > IRQ6 (Floppy Disk) Enabled > IRQ7 (LPT 1) Enabled > PNP OS Installed No Ok, good. > Reset Configuation Data Disabled You could do a reset, if the other stuff does not work. > Resources Controlled By Auto(ESCD) If you are really really desparate, then you could do this manually, but I would try the other stuff first. > Assign IRQ For VGA Enabled This legacy interupt is no longer required. You can disable this. > Assign IRQ For USB Enabled I don't know whether you need this for a USB keyboard or mouse. (You need to Google here.) Disable it if you can. > PC Health Status Ok, it looks healthy to me. Let us know how you get on. I reckon its the Power Supply by the way, so try that first and foremost. Mark. -- Mark Hobley 393 Quinton Road West QUINTON Birmingham B32 1QE Email: markhobley at hotpop dot donottypethisbit com http://markhobley.yi.org/

In article <36frl39httd45imffdpe0sf8gp2ml4br28@4ax.com>, Grant <bugsplatter@gmail.com> wrote: >On Mon, 10 Dec 2007 21:30:51 +0000, Garry Knight <garryknight@gmx.net> wrote: > >>For some time now my machine has been resetting itself several times at boot >>time before eventually booting successfully. > >Sounds like bad capacitors on the mobo, check for bulging or leaking >capacitors around the CPU area. Yes, you should definitely check for failed electrolytic capacitors on the motherboard, first thing. These are a very common problem lately. In two years' time, I've come across at least 10 systems with capacitor trouble (including one that was showing exactly the same problem reported), but only one with a bad power supply. See http://www.badcaps.net/ for more information, including some photos of what to look for. -- Jordan.

On Wed, 12 Dec 2007 14:48:02 +0000, Garry Knight <garryknight@gmx.net> wrote: >Jordan Hazen wrote: >> Yes, you should definitely check for failed electrolytic capacitors on >> the motherboard, first thing. >... >> See http://www.badcaps.net/ for more information, including some >> photos of what to look for. >Thanks for this link. I've had a look and while none of mine seem to be >leaking from the bottom, at least one of them suffers from the bulge you >can see in the third picture down on http://www.badcaps.net/pages.php?vid=5 >I've uploaded pictures of the one I think is faulty. If you look at >http://i7.tinypic.com/6u978ds.jpg and http://i7.tinypic.com/6slcn89.jpg, >it's the one at the far right of both pictures. Yup. you definately have bad caps. It's time to replace the motherboard. You should also get either a case with a filter on the air intake, or put the system on a cleaning schedule. Your cpu heatsink and fan are filthy and the heatsink might have blocked air passages.