siwu’s blog

Computer Outage - Not?

There may be a stall in the development of DWMaxx for the next two weeks, because I think my motherboard is dying (Asus P4P800 Deluxe). I spent the whole weekend trying to revive it, it works sometimes, sometimes it doesn’t…. Well, after 3 days and nights and 100€ on a new hard drive, it seems I’ll have to let it go… After all, it’s been on 24h/24 for the last 5 years… And because everything has evolved, I can’t just buy a new mobo, I’ll need a complete upgrade (from the CPU to the GPU). And I’ll do it when I have the money, that is probably at the end of the month!
In the mean time, I’m still trying to make it work again, because I’m not as coffy on the laptop
UPDATE 12/02/2008: It’s alive! True magic involved here. Read on for the whole story.

So yesterday, when I got back from work, I gave a try to boot the computer, and this time it started, but it did the same as it would do with it would boot: boot, but being INCREDIBLY slow on the BIOS screens. Anyway, it booted, sweet. But when I unplugged it to put it back in it’s proper place, and plugged it in, it wouldn’t boot anymore, with the dreaded “System fail CPU test” in a loop on the speakers.
For the story, there is a small LED light on the mobo, and when you turn the computer off, it should turn off too, but it wouldn’t (the PSU was fully unplugged). Also, the reset CMOS procedure wasn’t working (I would try to reset the CMOS, and when it would boot, the settings were the same as before). So what I tried was to left it unplugged without any juice whatsoever, removed the battery, and went to work. When I got back, the LED was still on, after a whole day without juice… Something was weird. I guess in a desperate move (and with some true magic), I unplugged my external hard drive. And bam, the computer booted! Without being slow in the BIOS! So my guess is a ground issue. The USB hard drive perhaps was supplying current to the mobo through the USB port. Anyway, it’s alive now, and I’ll try to keep it that way for a while