[mdlug] Help diagnosing hardware problem

[David Lane]

Is there software testing the mother board?




________________________________
From: "Ingles, Raymond" <Raymond.Ingles at compuware.com>
To: mdlug at mdlug.org
Sent: Wednesday, June 17, 2009 8:38:48 AM
Subject: [mdlug] Help diagnosing hardware problem

I think I've narrowed it down, but here's the symptoms:

My father called me yesterday, reporting that his computer (bought in
May of 2005, running Ubuntu 9.04) would get to the login screen, but
once he signed on, the monitor would say "no signal" and nothing further
would happen.

I went over last night, and checked things out. At that point, it would
boot through the BIOS and the boot loader, but would no longer even get
to the graphical login screen. Once the monitor said "no signal", it was
unresponsive to keyboard input. I tried booting from a live DVD - again,
no graphics. I tried booting into a leftover Windows partition - it also
locked up, "no signal". Even memtest (from the hard drive or the DVD)
would give a blip of text, and then reboot. I could get to a text root
prompt via the live DVD, but no obvious problems showed up in the logs.

At that point I figured it was either the video card, the power supply,
or the motherboard. I returned with several video cards, and replaced
the existing AGP Nvidia 5700LE. A PCI ATI Rage Pro card allowed booting
and apparently normal operation, though memtest still flaked out. An AGP
Matrox G400 prevented the system from even powering up - hitting the
power button did nothing. (Never saw that before.)

At the moment, they are back to the PCI video card. At this point I
think it's probably the power supply. My dad will pick up a 400-500 watt
supply and we'll see if that allows the system to work again. Does
anyone have any thoughts or suggestions?

Basic system specs:

Gigabyte K8NSC-939 motherboard
939-pin OEM ATHLON 64 3000+CPU
  - 1GB DDR RAM
  - GeForce 5700LE 128MB

Sincerely,

Ray Ingles                                            (313) 227-2317

"Ironically, Microsoft's efforts to deny interoperability of Windows
      with legitimate non-Microsoft applications have created an
  environment in which Microsoft's programs interoperate efficiently
              only with Internet viruses." -- Daniel Geer
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