The new "died in the line of duty" thread

SmokeRngs said:
Try reseating every connector in there. I know it's a pain in the ass but it's worth trying. Do this with every card you have in there and the RAM. About the only thing I would leave alone is the CPU. It's virtually impossible for it to get shaken loose. I have found this to cure many problems like this.

Sometimes I have been forced to completely take the system apart and put it back together when the above suggestions didn't work and after that the system would work.

One more thing you might try is putting a different BIOS battery in. You can sometimes get some weird behavior when the battery is dying or getting low.

One more option would be to toss a PCI vid card in it if you have one. I keep a couple around just for times like this. I doubt that is problem since if there was a problem with the AGP card the system will usually beep at you.


Aye, I tried everything except the BIOS battery and PCI vid card. I don't have any PCI cards, and the board is brand-new. It's a DFI Lanparty UT NF3 for socket 754, and I doubt the bios battery is bad, since that board's had a whole 24 hours of downtime since I got it. It'll also boot to Windows with no vid card, so that's not the problem. Turns out the mobo died, which is the only thing that makes sense. I get no beep errors, I turned it on and checked if it was talking to my router, which it should, and it wasn't. USB optical mouse wasn't lighting, fans spun up and all, so it's got power, but the CPU wasn't emitting heat. So, it's not initializing the CPU, or memory, or HD. I get to rip the thing out and take it back to Fry's now, which is upsetting, since I bought it about a month ago. I just need to drag out the dang receipt and get a replacement board. Such a PITA.
 
Well tonight I found I lost my AMD Sempron 2800 :( :( :(

Was running like a champ for a while, then suddenly system wouldn't boot or post.
went through everything i could on the board (MSI mATX) thinking it was the board,
as the system clock/date/etc would constantly f up. but that wasnt it.

Slapped in the 2200xp from BakedON that has been happily folding in my old
system, and the mATX works again...

but now i'm back to not having a "fast" machine :(
 
The GeForce Ti4200 in my main rig died last weekend...two days before Unreal Tournament 2004 arrived via Fedex. Fortunately, I was able to borrow a 4400 from a friend. But now that machine (the one in my sig) doesn't spend quite the same percentage of the time on folding. Of course, the fact that a hurricane made us evacuate and turn everything off didn't help.
 
Lost one to a hard drive failure yesterday. Not really dead though, just taking a break till I get another.

 
I hate our electricity company. The power just dipped a few minutes ago, and it looks like our router is now hosed. Now, when the other computer is done with its 600-pointer (finally got one after a long string of stupid small WUs!), I'll be switching ethernet cables back and forth. Grrrr.

 
Mohonri said:
I hate our electricity company. The power just dipped a few minutes ago, and it looks like our router is now hosed. Now, when the other computer is done with its 600-pointer (finally got one after a long string of stupid small WUs!), I'll be switching ethernet cables back and forth. Grrrr.



you not have some UPS with some deep cycle batts to clean that power up and run for days on end when the power is down??

I had my cable modem hosed once. It sucked... On the phone with TW my modem is dead. Ok turn it off count to ten and then back on. well it is dead. You have to wait a min. etc..

 
I lost the Antec 300w PSU in my HTPC (folds more than it records ;) ) about two or three months ago. Replaced it immediatly with a Tt 430w I had on hand.
 
Duster said:
you not have some UPS with some deep cycle batts to clean that power up and run for days on end when the power is down??
Yep, a couple small (only have to ride out a couple seconds of lost power) UPSes is now at the top of my wish list. Unfortunately, they'll have to wait until I'm done being distracted

 
Thankfully I haven't had anything totally die while folding. I've had a NIC or two stop working and a HD die in an older boxen, but the worst (or scariest) was when my A64 3000+ wasn't working when I woke up. Turning it on resulted in nothing, the fortron PSU took an unexpected crap and died. Nothing else appeared damaged, and thankfully wasn't, but I was ready for other things to have destroyed by the PSU. Everything was fine, and that system is now folding at a friends house.
 
My freaking router died. I have no backups and have to connect to the internet through a stinking Linksys WAP. I guess it was time for an upgrade. This is gonna halt nearly all my production til Thursday or Friday. :(
 
ICE_9 said:
My freaking router died. I have no backups and have to connect to the internet through a stinking Linksys WAP. I guess it was time for an upgrade. This is gonna halt nearly all my production til Thursday or Friday. :(


i like netgear routers there easier to use first month of so mine needed to be restarted every other week then its good for about 6 months.
 
I got a new router tonight. I like the interface. It's gonna be a couple months till I get all the forwarding and stuff setup again.
 
Mohonri said:
I hate our electricity company. The power just dipped a few minutes ago, and it looks like our router is now hosed. Now, when the other computer is done with its 600-pointer (finally got one after a long string of stupid small WUs!), I'll be switching ethernet cables back and forth. Grrrr.
Well, good and bad news. Good news is--my router started working again. Bad news is I don't get to buy a nice Linksys (second hand for $15) to replace it. But just in time for my laptop to turn in a nice 600-pointer. Man, those small WUs cut my ppd in half! Good to get a couple bigger WUs again.

 
well, just found out that one of my 512 Crucial Ballistix sticks are dead :mad: now i only have one 512 stick in my main rid and it feels soo slow, i lost 3 days worth of folding and im in 2 races, so it didnt help one bit

 
Does the power supply for a laptop count? It died sometime last night, I am lucky it didn't start a fire and burn the house down. Now my laptop is dead until I can find a replacement. The battery died years ago, and has been running on AC ever since. You know your power supply is fried when there is a big melted spot in the middle of it.
 


While not technically "the line of duty", my raid 5 array died yesterday morning by dropping two disks at once due to a controller problem. It also scrambled data so I can't rebuild it. So my file server and its ~2ghz are down until I can figure out whether to try to recover or just reformat and reload backups.
 
lost my psu today - fan died. froze up :( it'd been dying for awhile, i think, but still annoying.

time to contact fortron RMA dept... back up on a thermaltake that was sitting in my (not currently in use - need some disks) dual p3.

the black knight always triumphs!
 
Lost 2.4Ghz yesturday :(. One of the P4's at work tanked. Not sure whats wrong with it, and thanks to my craptastic boss I can't take it home and give a good look into it.
 
Power supply on one of my trays decided to stop working. Second PS in a month to write Final Program.

sigh...

 
I lost an Athlon 1100 over the weekend. Was going to make a box for a friend and started taking it apart when we realized it wouldn't work due to lack of SATA ports on the motherboard I was going to give him (under the assumption he would fold on it when not in use of course).

When putting the box back together, some wires got hooked up in the CPU cooling fan and I do believe I fried the chip or the mobo. Good riddance anyways...was just an 1100. Will replace it with a better combo when I see a deal at Frys for about $120-$150 (mobo/CPU) since I already have RAM, HD, PSU, etc.

 
blakex said:
I lost an Athlon 1100 over the weekend. Was going to make a box for a friend and started taking it apart when we realized it wouldn't work due to lack of SATA ports on the motherboard I was going to give him (under the assumption he would fold on it when not in use of course).

When putting the box back together, some wires got hooked up in the CPU cooling fan and I do believe I fried the chip or the mobo. Good riddance anyways...was just an 1100. Will replace it with a better combo when I see a deal at Frys for about $120-$150 (mobo/CPU) since I already have RAM, HD, PSU, etc.


Hell, just send the RAM and PSU my way and I'll get 'em folding now. I have a couple spare hard drives I could use for the moment. :D I'm sure I can dig something up around here that can use it. ;)

 
SmokeRngs said:
Hell, just send the RAM and PSU my way and I'll get 'em folding now. I have a couple spare hard drives I could use for the moment. :D I'm sure I can dig something up around here that can use it. ;)
Use them to fold under my ID? ;)

I'll probably pick up something this weekend. They won't be offline long.

 
blakex said:
Use them to fold under my ID? ;)

I'll probably pick up something this weekend. They won't be offline long.


Hey, it's my electricity it would be using. :p How about I let it fold the first half of the WU under your name and I finish off the second half under my name? That sounds like it would work out just fine with me. :D

 
Well, the onboard video in my Geexbox machine is out. So I guess it's time to (find and) put in a pci one :( Ah well, it was good while it lasted.

 
A few weeks ago we had a wind storm here on Vancouver Island, with power outages that took out my main system:
Antec 1080
Asus A7N8X-E
AMD Athlon 2600+
2x Corsair 3200 512
2x Maxtor SATA 120
ATI 9800

Looks like the motherboard is toast (RMA), the RAM is gone (RMA), one of the hard drives has bit the dust (RMA), and my CPU is intermittently "flakey." Video seems OK. My CyberPower UPS did not work (immediate power off) and I've received the claim form from them to get reimbursed once I see what gets covered by the RMA route. Still waiting for parts to come back. :( Anybody have a Barton 3200+ for sale?

If I can get this boxen rebuilt I will do so. If not, it is time to build an X2... :D

 
Celerator said:
A few weeks ago we had a wind storm here on Vancouver Island, with power outages that took out my main system:
Antec 1080
Asus A7N8X-E
AMD Athlon 2600+
2x Corsair 3200 512
2x Maxtor SATA 120
ATI 9800

Looks like the motherboard is toast (RMA), the RAM is gone (RMA), one of the hard drives has bit the dust (RMA), and my CPU is intermittently "flakey." Video seems OK. My CyberPower UPS did not work (immediate power off) and I've received the claim form from them to get reimbursed once I see what gets covered by the RMA route. Still waiting for parts to come back. :( Anybody have a Barton 3200+ for sale?

If I can get this boxen rebuilt I will do so. If not, it is time to build an X2... :D


Just bit the bullet and build an X2 system. It's what I would do if I had the money.

 
blakex said:
Or an Opteron 100 series :) I love my 175.


That's what I'd be going for and what I had planned to get until things came along and spent my money before I had a chance to spend it myself. I was looking at an Opty 170 for some dual core and overclocking goodness.

 
Thanks all for the suggestions. I spent the wee hours reading reviews and comparisons of the X2 and Opteron chips. As far as I can discern, in terms of performance, there is not a big difference either way. Any other input?

Oh yes, fold on!

 
Celerator said:
Thanks all for the suggestions. I spent the wee hours reading reviews and comparisons of the X2 and Opteron chips. As far as I can discern, in terms of performance, there is not a big difference either way. Any other input?

Oh yes, fold on!


I personally would get the 3800+ X2 over the 170 unless you really want that extra cache. My roomie just got his up to the same speed as my 170 with less voltage. If I had his chip I'd definitely be able to get it up to 2.7 with my WC. Save the 100 bucks and go 3800+ X2 is my suggestion even though I heart the opty's.

 
Celerator said:
Thanks all for the suggestions. I spent the wee hours reading reviews and comparisons of the X2 and Opteron chips. As far as I can discern, in terms of performance, there is not a big difference either way. Any other input?

Oh yes, fold on!


The main reasons to go with the Opty's is the extra cache and some steppings are known to overclock really well and better than the X2's of the same clockspeed. If you have no use for the extra cache (and most people probably wouldn't ever notice a difference) and aren't looking to go to the edge on overclocking, you're probably better off going with an X2.

One little note, the Opty 170 is not the equivilent of the X2 3800. The equivilent to the 3800 is the 165.

Basically, check prices on them and find the one that seems to be the best deal.

 
looks like my shuttle killed over with a dead mobo this morning and it is a tad old for RMA

Don't know what to do now

 
Well, this is the first time I've added anything to this thread.... thankfully, it's not as bad as it could've been.......

Last night I decided to finally test the HD from my uncle's PC (he'd already bought a new PC, just trying to salvage data from the drive).... So I turn off my dually because it's the easiest to work on.....

I pop open the case, and pull out the tray for the HDs..... my HD felt EXTREMELY warm.... warmer than I've ever felt a HD..... so I moved it down so it wasn't against anything and in direct line of the fan........ I install my uncle's HD, and turn on the PC..... doesn't boot (dead drive, which I assumed, just wasn't sure if it was the IDE controller on his old PC)...

But my finacee says "shouldn't that fan be spinning right now?".............. I look and both fans on the CPU are humming away.... but my 120mm case fan in the back was dead..... I gave it a little push, no go...... No wonder everything was so damn hot, no air flow! I don't know when that fan died.... but I'd have to say it was recent because I'm not sure the hardware could've survived on the airflow they were getting for much longer.......

my Dually is a dual 1700+ on an MSI K7D (given to me by LPerry in a raffle).... I'm just glad I found the fan before everything else failed.......


Keep on Folding!! For the [H]orde!!

 
Mayhem33 said:
I remember when radio shack had parts and stuff. Now its can we sell you a cell phone, toy car, or some other mainstream buy any where items. they used to have some cool stuff you couldn't get any where else. Computer stores are starting to get that way as well, you want a
selection of cpu fans, or case fans for that matter and its...we don't have that! (PC Club for instance)

My local CompUSSR has an entire aisle dedicating to nothing but case fans, coolers, rounded cables, thermal grease, lighting, etc.
 
Celerator said:
Thanks all for the suggestions. I spent the wee hours reading reviews and comparisons of the X2 and Opteron chips. As far as I can discern, in terms of performance, there is not a big difference either way. Any other input?

If you do end up going with a 64 to replace your old setup, I reccomend the x2 3800+. Having just built one for myself, I think it's the best bang for the buck you can get. I got a 3800+ on a DFI Lanparty NF4 Ultra with a XP90 for cooling. 1.45v and it's running 2.7ghz per core (270 x 10). Needless to say, I am thrilled.
 
Looks like I lost a hard drive IDE cable. Yep, been pushing it too hard I know. Gonna have to fork out the energy to grab another one from the spare parts box and install it. This is gonna take a while. :p
 
ICE_9 said:
Looks like I lost a hard drive IDE cable. Yep, been pushing it too hard I know. Gonna have to fork out the energy to grab another one from the spare parts box and install it. This is gonna take a while. :p
Smart-ass! :D

Need another cable? I tidied up the bench a week ago, and came up with 25 IDE 40- and 80-wire. Didn't think I *HAD* that many drives come through or been installed.

Fold on!

 
I am good. I have a crap load of minor parts for pcs. The system is up and folding again.
 
Code:
$ uptime
 07:25:49 up 42 days, 22:17,  2 users,  load average: 2.14, 2.11, 2.12
It went down when it had to come with me for Spring Break. Gone but not forgotten :p

 
Back
Top