And then Bubbles died, again.

[digitalwanderer]

Damn it, I was having a bad enough day yesterday when about 7pm I finally got a free moment I sat down at my PC and she locked up and died....and rebooting did NOT fix the problem.

I have no clue what is wrong, I haven't played with her since I put the new northbridge cooler on about a month ago and I've been running her light since then (around 1.6Ghz instead of her usual 2.4 to give the thermal compound time to set).

I spent a number of hours last night trying to get her back up and managed to get her to boot into XP, but only by putting her FSB to 100 and her multiplier to 6. :?

Bubbles should not be a 600Mhz PC, she should be much closer to 2Ghz...and she ain't even stable at 600!

I just pulled her heatsink to check it out since it did bump against the new northbridge cooler a tad and I thought it might be keeping weird pressure on the CPU, and there IS an uneven looking pattern in the thermal compound wear....the back was dark and thin the front was white and thick. (Which would correspond to the way the heatsink was bumping the northbridge)

Could that cause this? Why ain't I getting a thermal warning then? What else could it be?

 

[Frank]

Did you check the logfiles when you could? They often offer good clues about what went wrong. Otherwise it is hard to say. If you get no errors in the logfiles, the CPU is the most likely suspect.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Beep Codes for ABIT AWARD BIOS Motherboards

1. No beep at all - this means your motherboard is dead, either due to a]URL text[/url] defective or underpowered power supply, poorly seated CPU or RAM, or a dead-on-arrival board
2. One beep - board is working fine
3. One long beep then machine shuts down - faulty, improperly installed or missing CPU
4. 1 short(Beep) System booting is normally
5. 2 short(Beep) CMOS setting error
6. 1 long - 1 short(Beep) DRAM ERROR
7. 1 long - 2 short(Beep) Display card or monitor connected error
8. 1 long - 3 short(Beep) Keyboard Error
9. 1 long - 9 short(Beep) ROM Error
10. Long(Beep) continuous DRAM isn't inserted correctly
11. Short(Beep) continuous POWER supply has a problem
12. A two-tone siren, generally caused by overheating or out of specification voltages

Ok, so once I got the #3 and a #10 at some point. :?

I remounted the CPU and haven't crashed yet doing around middling 800Mhz, I think I might try upping her a bit and seeing if she'll boot.

Could a slightly askew heatsink have caused the problem if'n I had used AS5 and it had just cured enough to not cool the bottom of the chip yet the top/middle was cool so the sensor didn't react?

I'm gonna try rebooting and getting her over a 1Ghz methinks....

EDITED BITS: Oh, and thank you. I'm moving fast today and spaced my manners.

EDITED BITS II: Which log files should I check?

 

[digitalwanderer]

WOO-HOO!!!! Booted to 1.578Ghz and she seems ok so far.

(Hey, I couldn't get above 1Ghz last night to save me balls, this is GREAT!!!!)

What a weird-assed, goofy problem to top off a weird-assed, goofy day. :?

On the brightside, I almost got my hallway done and my Bubbles seems to be working again. (Knock wood, toss salt over me shoulder, cross me fingers, and sprinkle around some magic scooby-dust.)

 

[Frank]

EDITED BITS II: Which log files should I check?

The ones from Windows, in the system management part of the configuration screen. You can probably find out what was happening by checking those.

 

[Frank]

WOO-HOO!!!!

Great!

 

[suryad]

So we still dont know what happened then?

 

[digitalwanderer]

So we still dont know what happened then?

I think my first guess was bang on, the heatsink wasn't quite seated properly due to the northbridge and when the AS5 cured/dried out just enough it started overheating part of the chip.

I bent a few fins on my northbridge cooler out of the way, bent a few fins of the Zalman out of the way, and cleaned off the AS5 and used good old generic white silicone thermal paste in healthy dosage and she seems a whole lot better. (And the heatsink seems to fit a lot more "comfortably", last time I sort of had to persuade it a bit. )

A weird one, and even weirder timing for me; but all is well that ends well. 8)

 

[digitalwanderer]

Oh, and for some reason I'm dancing around singing I'm so damned happy I got my PC back up and into a semblance of running....it's almost embarressing how relieved/happy I feel.

It's been some rough days, I'll take me wins where I can get them.

 

[Guden Oden]

I'm happy to hear it.

I myself had a terrible day, smashed a mouse (and some other stuff) in anger over getting repeatedly fragged in RtCW and had to go out and buy a new one, plus found out I've been charged like 8x more than I should have on my VISA card when I went to the supermarket a couple days ago so had to go to the bank and try and get that cleared up, was told to go to the police first and make a report (or else they wouldn't do anything), then when I went back to the bank the fuckers had closed early at 1PM because tomorrow is the jesus-flying-day (holiday here in sweden). So, yaay...

 

[digitalwanderer]

What is "Jesus-flying-day"?

 

[RussSchultz]

I think its "Ascension" in christian speak.

 

[Druga Runda]

They killed bubbles, bastards 8)

 

[digitalwanderer]

I think its "Ascension" in christian speak.

Ah, I have no clue what that is...but thanks. (And I think I prefer "Jesus-flying day" as it just gives me a silly grin)

They killed bubbles, bastards 8)

No, it was me...but I brought her back too so it's all good. 8)

 

[RussSchultz]

After Jesus' resurrection, he did a little more preaching, etc. Eventually, he ascended directly to heaven (40 days after resurrection, if I'm not mistaken).

Its big in the catholic world, plus the protestant/catholic religions (Lutheranism, Methodism, etc.) Sweden's official religion is Lutheranism. Ascension is a mandatory 'mass' day, according to the dogma. Hence a day off.

For flying Jesus day.

 

[MasterBaiter]

I'll drink to that!

P.S. Congrats Digi on resuscitating (wooo!!! big word!!!) Bubbles!

Shouldn't you be putting her to the O/C irons @ this point to make sure falls back in line now?

 

[digitalwanderer]

Shouldn't you be putting her to the O/C irons @ this point to make sure falls back in line now?

Yeah I really should, but I forgot what I had all my voltages at and I'm just a bit too scatter-brained in real-life right now to focus on it properly so I'm waiting until either a game comes out that I want to play or the world to slow down a little...whichever comes first.