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How should I diagnose this hardware issue?
Stoic Joker:
Might not hurt to clean said components (just their contacts) with a pencil eraser when reseating them.
-Stoic Joker (September 14, 2009, 05:57 PM)
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Never heard of that, but will add to my: ToDos-jammo (September 14, 2009, 07:27 PM)
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I wouldn't do that, some pencil erasers leave a residue which can then cause problems.
-4wd (September 14, 2009, 08:26 PM)
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What kind of pencils have you been using? Alcohol isn't going to do anything to the oxidation layer that coats the contacts after time. Sure reseating the memory a-few-times will scratch/gouge a conductive path in the oxidation usually ... But it's not guaranteed especially if you have a less than perfect (slightly loose, etc.) memory slot.
HP has a never use erasesr cleaning policy (I work for an HP ASP) for their diagnostics - But they get $200 for a 128MB stick of RAM too. I've had a dozen or so incidents in the past year where the Tech (following instructions) "cleaned" (e.g. washed) the memory only to have the problem continue. at least 9 of those were resolved by a little TLC and a pencil eraser. The rest actually did have bad memory.
4wd:
What kind of pencils have you been using?-Stoic Joker (September 15, 2009, 07:20 AM)
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I don't use erasers at all, there isn't any point because...
Alcohol isn't going to do anything to the oxidation layer that coats the contacts after time.
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...gold doesn't oxidise in air. If the gold contacts on your RAM sticks are oxidising you have other environmental problems.
Sure reseating the memory a-few-times will scratch/gouge a conductive path in the oxidation usually ... But it's not guaranteed especially if you have a less than perfect (slightly loose, etc.) memory slot.
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Then you have a problem with your memory slots which should be fixed since any cleaning of the RAM contacts will be a temporary fix.
40hz:
I think Carol's spot on. Causing a fault by shaking the unit is almost always because something is unseated.
A couple of other thoughts:
If reseating all the pluggable components doesn't solve the problem, there's a chance your mobo might have a crack in it somewhere. It's not too common a problem. But sometimes when a case gets smacked hard, the CPU socket, or the surrounding board traces can get damaged - especially if you have one of those monster 3rd party CPU coolers. Some of these big boys have been known to be capable of developing enough leverage to crack something if the case gets slammed hard enough. Other places micro cracks can develop are around the bases of any loaded sockets, and also in the areas where screws attach the mobo to the case.
There's some scary "jog & flex tests" you can do to verify a cracked mobo is the problem - but I wouldn't advise doing any of them unless you really know what you're doing. On second thought, scratch that. Flex testing is a pretty dumb thing to do even if you do know what your doing. The only time I've ever done it was at the direction of a Compaq senior support engineer. And that was on an in-warranty server that the Compaq was going to replace anyway.
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Question: are you overclocked? If you had a seasoned friend do your build, I'd be surprised if you weren't.
I've run into an occasional machine that was successfully overclocked when it was built, but developed stability issues over time as the components "wore in." You might need to back off on some of your performance settings if that's the case.
Good Luck :Thmbsup:
Jammo the OrganizedFellow:
Question: are you overclocked? If you had a seasoned friend do your build, I'd be surprised if you weren't.
I've run into an occasional machine that was successfully overclocked when it was built, but developed stability issues over time as the components "wore in." You might need to back off on some of your performance settings if that's the case.
Good Luck :Thmbsup:
-40hz (September 15, 2009, 05:53 PM)
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Overclocked? Nuh-uh.
At least I don't think so.
Someone else told me to download/run CPU-Z?!
Here is screenshot: http://organizedfellow.com/myscreenshots/#./2009-09-15_180114.png
As posted in my original post, my CPU is: Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 Conroe 2.33GHz
So it doesn't look like it's overclocked.
I haven't gotten around to following any of the above recommendations by Carol (procrastination? been busy? can't find/make the time with my 2yr old + a new dog!?) but REALLLYYY need to get to it ASAP.
Carol Haynes:
Haven't built an Intel box in a long time (I use AMD stuff all the time). Is that VCORE normal for Intel? It is a lot lower than AMD (usually about 1.7V)
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