He's Dead, Jim
Posted Wed Jan 27, 2010 in
Computing
I’ve been quiet the last couple of days. Computer problems will do that for you.
It started in December. I have an old linux server that was sitting under my desk. I play a little World of Warcraft because I’ve fallen in with a group of folks that I like to hang out with. My PowerMac dual-G5 doesn’t quite have enough power to do the game justice. So, I decided to make the linux server into a Winder$ box and use that for some light modeling work, logging into the company network, and playing a few games.
I bought a PNY version of the nVidia 9800 GTX+ display adapter. That unit has a decent reputation and is at a good price point. I don’t need bleeding-edge performance for what I want to do.
I bought a copy of Winder$ 7 Home Premium, then found I had to buy the Ultimate upgrade to get dual-processor support. I hate giving that much money to M$, but that’s just part of the price. I haven’t bought a copy of Winder$ in years, so I guess it’s just the PC-tax.
Initially I installed the 32-bit version. I had everything up and running in a few hours. But, 2GB isn’t quite enough for current operating systems and I was short on drive space. So, the thoughts of upgrades began.
In thinking through the process, I decided I could probably upgrade the CPUs to Opteron 290s, find some additional RAM (I thought something in the range of 4GB–8GB would be about right), and then pick up a 250GB drive. That would provide enough power, memory, and storage to do the things I want to do. It wouldn’t be a really powerful system, but it would be more than I needed to do the things I want to do. I like having a little headroom.
A pair of Opteron 290s can be purchased on eBay for about $150 if you watch and are patient. I snagged a pair of them. The drive sells for about $60 at Best Buy. The memory, though, that was more challenging.
The Tyan motherboard I have is a server board. The system was designed to use ECC-registered RAM. (Most servers use ECC-registered RAM.) I bought 4×2GB sticks of PNY RAM because the Tyan manual indicates the system supports 2GB sticks, but at the time the manual was issued they were untested. (There weren’t any 2GB sticks when I bought the system. Yep, it was that long ago.)
Everything arrived and I was prepared to upgrade. I installed the CPUs, RAM, and drive and reinstalled Winder$. Well, I tried to reinstall Winder$. I could not get a successful install.
So the troubleshooting process began. It was a classic too-many-changes case. What should have been straightforward was not. Eventually I worked out that the RAM was the issue. When I replaced the new sticks with the original 512MB sticks, the install ran fine and the system was stable. If I installed the 2GB sticks, the system would BSOD.
“OK,” I thought. “I’ll check the Tyan website for compatibility.” The PNY RAM was not listed, but some Kingston RAM was (in 1GB sticks). So, I found a set of them from a server upgrade on eBay and bought them. I had them in a few days. So, Monday night I installed them. When I reconnected all the cables and flipped the main power switch (to energize the PSU), the PSU failed catastrophically (as in blue-flash fail).
After thinking about it for a few minutes, I researched what is required from the PSU and drove to Best Buy to pick up a replacement. I installed that, but the system would not power up. Crap. I was reminded of so many episodes of the original Star Trek when McCoy looks at Kirk and says, with the most serious of expressions, “He’s dead, Jim.”
I set it aside and waited until I returned home from work Tuesday evening. Then I went through another set of troubleshooting steps. The new PSU was operational, but the system would not power up when connected. I tested the power switch in the case and it was good.
So, I have a dead motherboard. I’m hoping that the CPUs, RAM, and display adapter are all good. But, I won’t know until I find a replacement motherboard. I don’t really want a big upgrade because I don’t want to spend a lot of money on this computer. If I was going to spend very much, I would take the funds, add to them, and purchase a Mac Pro and have just one desktop computer at home.
I contacted a long-time business associate who originally assembled the machine. He’s still in business. We’ll see if Tyan will replace the motherboard. If not, then I’ll decide what to do next. I might just purchase a replacement and test my components. If they test good and the resulting system is stable, I’m good to go. If not, then I have another decision to make.
Sometimes, I hate computers.
I hope you can find a reasonable price replacement for your motherboard.
— Bahareh 27 January 2010, 20:04 #Thanks! I did.
— ruminator 31 January 2010, 06:50 #