Warning - this email is pretty much just to say "thanks for the help, here's what was wrong and some helpful tools I used to figure it all out."
Ok - just to let you all know what was wrong with the myseriously dying computer (since I'm sure everyone is one the edge of their chair to find out): It appears to be a power supply issue - power would dip and cause erronious writes to the hard drive, I guess. With a few devices unplugged and being careful not to stress the processor (email and word processing don't tend to put a 100% processor load on the machine, thankfully), the machine is running fine until I get around to swapping out the power supply. I found some pretty good tools online to help test things out - some open source, some free downloads: Motherboard Monitor (http://mbm.livewiredev.com/) - reads temperature and voltage information from the motherboard sensors. Unfortunately, windows only. Anyone know of a Linux program that does the same? Memtest x86 (http://www.memtest86.com/) tests the RAM Docmem (www.simmtester.com) Another RAM test utility Ontrack Data Advisor (http://www.ontrack.com/dataadvisor/) - "evaluation version" checks the hard drive, data (only if in FAT16 or FAT32), and RAM Hitachi (they bought IBM's hard drive division) has a hard drive diagnostic "drive fitness test" (http://www.hgst.com/hdd/support/download.htm) IBM's website still has it's "IBM enhanced diagnostics" (http://www-1.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=0&q=IBM+Deskstar+60GB+&uid=psg1MIGR-44330&loc=en_US&cs=utf-8&cc=us&lang=en#Affected) And Maxtor has their "power max" tool: (http://www.maxtor.com/en/support/downloads/powermax.htm) Yes, there are alot of hard drive diagnostics here - but I was convinced it was a hard drive problem at first, so that's what I had been hunting down. With any luck, things are going to be working now without too many problems. Thanks for all your suggestions and help! --Brent N. --- "Matt W." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > From: "Brent Nordick" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > By "the machine is back to failing to boot" I mean > > that it was completly re-installed with the os and > > everything was running for about 24 hours - long > > enough to reinstall software and start to > reconfigure > > it. Then it started to hang at the OS loading > screen > > - it will not go any further. No error messages, > no > > "hard drive busy" light - nothing. The computer's > > fans are all working, and the hard drive isn't > making > > any odd noises. (Previously, the error that > caused me > > to replace the hard drive was bad hard drive > noises > > and failure to even find an OS on the hard drive) > > Could be a bad hdd, could be any other bad hardware > in the computer, could > be bad drivers trying to load. I suppose the first > step would be to check > out the hdd; scan for bad sectors (as has been > mentioned). You can also > download an intensive hdd diag tool for Matrox hdds > from their site. > Booting into Knoppix could also be helpful, or > trying that Dell diag that > was mentioned (to find bad hardware). If you don't > find any problems, then > try a re-install. Oh, you may try booting into > "safe mode" if possible, > that would help determine if you're trying to load > bad drivers (if you don't > know how to do that, email me off the list). > > Let us know what you come up with. > > Matt > > > ____________________ > BYU Unix Users Group > http://uug.byu.edu/ > ___________________________________________________________________ > List Info: http://uug.byu.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/uug-list __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com ____________________ BYU Unix Users Group http://uug.byu.edu/ ___________________________________________________________________ List Info: http://uug.byu.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/uug-list
