I replaced the motherboard and it appears that one problem has gone away...for now. The video signal is no longer "late" to the monitor. This is no big surprise to me since this is the second AGP video card that is giving me problems with this motherboard. However, I still have the "application popup" in the event log stating a "machine check" has occurred. Well, everything has been replaced except the hard drive. But I find it difficult to believe that a new hard drive can cause corrupted data on an intermittent basis.
So I am left with one of two possibilities. Either this event log message is NOT related to my previous data corruption problem, which has actually been solved. Or the part of the disk controller that resides on the hard drive is marginally not operating within specifications. Here I need to take a step back and think about this. I can see the other problems that I discovered like with memory and heat can all be related to the motherboard. So perhaps all along it was a very unusual problem with the motherboard, with the components not operating entirely within specs but well enough for the MB to operate. So the MB can be more picky about components like memory, and heat which can change the operating characteristics of the board further. But the entire problem was not solved with a motherboard swap.
At this point, I have to consider that the motherboard is not 100% compatible with Windows XP. This is very strange since I have an Intel chip set based motherboard by a MB vendor that has a very good reputation. And both the MB and Windows XP has been out long enough for any compatibility problems to be handled by the vendor. Also searches on the Internet does not turn up any apparent compatibility problems with this MB and Windows XP. Most of the problems have been with video cards, since many who build their own system like playing exotic games on their PC. So I do not think this is the case, but I cannot rule this possibility out at this point. But what is interesting is the portable that I rented has the same error message. And the database I have been running on it appears now to be corrupted. This portable also runs Windows XP. I will rebuild the database and see if this is the case. Remember that the only software in common with the PC I have been testing and the portable is the Windows XP operating system. I wonder if this Dell Inspiron (sp) uses the same Intel chipset that my motherboard uses?
I did think that the CPU may be the problem. The CPU is the only other part that I have not replaced besides the disk drive. And it is a central component of the motherboard. But a CPU problem that leads to intermittent problems with the disk drive is unlikely. If I was having intermittent crashes, or even intermittent problems that would show up each time in a different way, then I would think it may be the CPU (or memory or power supply or temperature). But the CPU would still be near the bottom of my list. I have only run across one bad CPU that caused intermittent problems. The actual cause related to the power source, which I will mention below.
The other possibility is the UPS power supply itself. Thinking I have eliminated the UPS power supply from the picture, I plugged the PC back in since the power from my power outlet can be at times of poor quality. Perhaps the UPS is passing high frequency noise? Over time this type of noise on the power line can damage integrated circuit chips and even start to punch holes in the substrate of a chip. I have seen this type of problem permit the chip to continue to operate, but cause odd intermittent behavior with the PC. I can then unplug the PC from the UPS but there still will be this problem. This is because the damage has already been done. A bad power unit like a UPS is the most difficult to diagnose when it appears to be working.
So first I need to determine if I am running into data corruption problems with the portable PC. If this is the case, I will then install Windows 2000. If the problem with the portable is not related to the operating system, then I will need to see if I have a continuing data corruption problem. If I do, then I need to swap out the hard drive. If that does not work, then the CPU is next. Life is soo interesting right now!
Bob Graham |
