[lug] funky system problem

[Zan Lynx]

On Thu, 2008-01-24 at 15:38 -0800, karl horlen wrote:

> Lately, it's starting to have some intermittent boot
> errors that are less than obvious to fix but possible
> signs of impending doom.  The odd part is that once
> the system DOES boot, 95% of the time it works
> perfectly fine for the entire session which is usually
> about a 12 - 16 hour day!

I'd bet on bad power filter capacitors in the power supply or on the
motherboard.  There were several runs of bad capacitors built out of
extra-cheap components in China.  They've been causing problems for
years now as they eventually fail.

Examine your motherboard capacitors.  If they're bad, they'll have bulgy
tops instead of flat tops.  There may also be leakage of Nasty Stuff
(tm).

Looking into the power supply is much harder.  It can be dangerous too
if you aren't experienced working with electronics -- those caps can
hold lots of volts.

If your system isn't one of the weird Dell designs, it might be
worthwhile to get another power supply to replace yours just to see if
it helps.
-- 
Zan Lynx <zlynx at acm.org>
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