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Chumbawumba4ever97 posted:Yep an actual DVD. I know they are slower but I've done this a ton of times before using optical media and it usually never takes more than a minute or two to boot. We would like to celebrate its 15 year anniversary if possible. Oh, to boot? My bad, I thought you meant to repair. Chumbawumba4ever97 posted:We would like to celebrate its 15 year anniversary if possible. well, ah, yeah
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Apr 8, 2021 15:52
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At this point just use a liveUSB to do some hardware diagnostics. Something sounds broken.
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Apr 8, 2021 15:58
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Internet Explorer posted:Oh, to boot? My bad, I thought you meant to repair. Sorry I did mean to boot, into repair haha. I can't get it to boot because it just stays stuck at "Preparing Automatic Repair". It rightfully wants to repair because his computer improperly shut down like 20 times before bringing it to me. But now that it has a new PSU and new RAM, I just want the computer to attempt to boot normally without trying to fix anything because it's perpetually stuck in thinking it needs to repair, which it shouldn't since there's a new PSU and RAM in it (the computer is no longer powering off randomly on its own). Khablam posted:At this point just use a liveUSB to do some hardware diagnostics. My guess is his bad PSU fried a stick of RAM and corrupted his hard drive a little bit. Could be the CPU, but I don't think it's that just because it's been on for 3 hours now doing chkdsk and it hasn't powered off. One minor annoyance I noticed with Macrium Reflect (I've been using it for years and never noticed this): it doesn't matter if the old image is small, the new drive has to be the same size or larger. So my friend's old HDD was a 640gb WD spinny drive, which I made an image of in Macrium. He bought a 512GB SSD drive. The Macrium image was only 92GB (he doesn't use that much stuff). I kept getting "not enough space" errors when trying to put the old image onto the new drive, even though he had more than enough room. Not the end of the world, but just a head's up to anyone who might do this in the future, hopefully this tidbit saves you some time.
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Apr 8, 2021 16:13
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Chumbawumba4ever97 posted:One minor annoyance I noticed with Macrium Reflect (I've been using it for years and never noticed this): it doesn't matter if the old image is small, the new drive has to be the same size or larger. So my friend's old HDD was a 640gb WD spinny drive, which I made an image of in Macrium. He bought a 512GB SSD drive. The Macrium image was only 92GB (he doesn't use that much stuff). I kept getting "not enough space" errors when trying to put the old image onto the new drive, even though he had more than enough room. Not the end of the world, but just a head's up to anyone who might do this in the future, hopefully this tidbit saves you some time. If you boot to the Macrium PE environment, when you go to clone a drive I think you can tell it to resize the boot partition on the old drive such that it fits on the new, smaller drive. I also think that if you create an image of the old drive and then restore the image to the new drive that it will autoresize it to fit. I am less sure of the latter than the former, though.
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Apr 8, 2021 16:32
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A failing power supply could definitely damage the motherboard or other parts on the way out. Best option is probably for your buddy to get a cheap chromebook. I respect your mission to drive that pc into the ground though. Godspeed 
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Apr 8, 2021 16:35
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Actually I just noticed some bulging caps on the motherboard!  The funny thing is it's only those green ones. Every other capacitor on the motherboard looks fine, except for the green ones. I guess they are some lovely brand? He's lucky because I have a huge bag of capacitors from an arcade monitor repair I was going to do a while back and never bothered with. Before I waste my afternoon doing this, would a couple bad caps cause Windows 10 to boot poorly? Edit: by the way I am only assuming those caps are bad. Three look like they have rust on top and one looks like it's bulging, but there's no crud around the bottom of any of them. Chumbawumba4ever97 fucked around with this message at 17:05 on Apr 8, 2021 |
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Apr 8, 2021 17:02
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The 10 random variables that have happened to that bootdrive make using what it does to diagnose the issue pointless. Just live-boot it and see what is failing.
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Apr 8, 2021 17:12
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Chumbawumba4ever97 posted:Before I waste my afternoon doing this, would a couple bad caps cause Windows 10 to boot poorly?
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Apr 8, 2021 17:21
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Chumbawumba4ever97 posted:Actually I just noticed some bulging caps on the motherboard! Chumbawumba4ever97 posted:The funny thing is it's only those green ones. Every other capacitor on the motherboard looks fine, except for the green ones. I guess they are some lovely brand? More recent mobos have high endurance aluminum-poly caps around the CPU, even cheap OEM ones. And retail motherboards now use them everywhere (even though they're not really needed in remote corners of the board). quote:Before I waste my afternoon doing this, would a couple bad caps cause Windows 10 to boot poorly? Bad caps can do all sorts of wack things. Normally I'd expect a successful boot and then random crashes, but if that was already happening a few months ago and now the caps are even worse then just booting could be a problem. There might be an intermediate stage where it is grinding out the boot for hours before it fails entirely. edit: though after thinking about it, most of my bad cap experience was with the capacitor plague 20 years ago, which IIRC was more on the secondary caps for like chipset & memory, rather than the CPU-feeding ones. Could be different symptoms depending on which components are most impacted. Klyith fucked around with this message at 17:27 on Apr 8, 2021 |
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Apr 8, 2021 17:21
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Thanks for the replies! Unfortunately after watching two YouTube videos I'm still too dumb to figure out how to test caps with a multimeter (I have no idea what to turn the knobs to, something every video fails to address) so I'm just going to replace all the bulging ones. Unfortunately they seem to be a pretty odd one because they are all 1800uF 6.3V and Amazon is out of stock on them for two weeks. Microcenter by me carries capacitors but none of that exact "size". I really miss Radio Shack sometimes.
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Apr 8, 2021 18:30
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Chumbawumba4ever97 posted:Thanks for the replies! Unfortunately after watching two YouTube videos I'm still too dumb to figure out how to test caps with a multimeter (I have no idea what to turn the knobs to, something every video fails to address) so I'm just going to replace all the bulging ones. These are filter caps, so the values are not super critical. You can get ones rated at a slightly higher voltage for example like 10v, 16v or 25v and be fine or even slightly higher capacitance like 2000uf. Just mind the polarity when installing replacements.
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Apr 8, 2021 18:42
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You're the best because a place near me has 2200uF 6.3V but I thought it was only kosher to go above the voltages. I didn't realize you could go higher on the uFs. Off to the store! 🍻
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Apr 8, 2021 18:53
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Chumbawumba4ever97 posted:You're the best because a place near me has 2200uF 6.3V but I thought it was only kosher to go above the voltages. I didn't realize you could go higher on the uFs. Off to the store! 🍻 For filter caps, its OK to go a few % above. I replaced a lot of bad caps. Mostly TV/monitor power supplies, and a few mobos. It's rare that I ever used the exact same value cap as a replacement. Never had a problem.
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Apr 8, 2021 19:11
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Chumbawumba4ever97 posted:Thanks for the replies! Unfortunately after watching two YouTube videos I'm still too dumb to figure out how to test caps with a multimeter (I have no idea what to turn the knobs to, something every video fails to address) Either your multimeter has a dedicated capacitor testing function or it doesn't. Cheaper ones usually don't. If yours does, it should have a capacitor symbol on the dial. Also, you usually can't test capacitors in circuit.
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Apr 8, 2021 19:37
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Chumbawumba4ever97 posted:so I'm just going to replace all the bulging ones. I would do that entire line of green ones there, whether or not they've got bulge or schmutz on 'em. They're all between the CPU and the VRM so will have been exposed to the most heat. Not having VRM heatsinks is pretty normal for a 15 year old board (back when CPUs used half the power of today's), but does mean the VRM dissipates heat through the PCB.
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Apr 8, 2021 20:38
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Chumbawumba4ever97 posted:Actually I just noticed some bulging caps on the motherboard! Very nostalgic. Yup, those dying caps could cause all manner of weird instabilities.
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Apr 8, 2021 21:12
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Klyith posted:edit: though after thinking about it, most of my bad cap experience was with the capacitor plague 20 years ago, which IIRC was more on the secondary caps for like chipset & memory, rather than the CPU-feeding ones. Could be different symptoms depending on which components are most impacted. I did computer service around 2008 and I still saw the tail end of the plague then. Bulging or burst caps, magic smoke, actual flames - it was a special time.
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Apr 8, 2021 21:26
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Thanks for all the replies. Yep I am replacing all 7 of the green ones. And yep my multimeter does not have a capacitor setting. I'm a moron and didn't realize you need a different device for that. That being said, I cannot believe what an absolute nightmare it is removing these capacitors. I have liquid flux, regular flux, a Hakko soldering station, a solder sucker, and even desoldering wick and I can't believe how impossible it is to remove these things even with all that. I always seem to get one leg off just fine but the other one refuses to get all the solder out of the hole so a piece of the leg won't budge. I legit spent three hours on one of them, only for a piece of the leg to still be stuck in the hole. I added a bunch of new solder too to make it easier to remove but nothing worked. I just ordered a Hakko FR301 desoldering station for $245 on Amazon which apparently is a steal because the amount of aggravation and cursing was not worth it. I've desoldered the PPU off of an NES (which is supposed to be famously difficult) in a tenth of the time it took me to get one and a half capacitors off. Hell one of the legs was so impossible to remove that I had to run a wire from the other side of the motherboard just so the new capacitor could get wired in.  I'm not doing that six more times. I'm sure this Hakko thing is gonna zap em right off in seconds but man I can't believe how difficult this was. I soldered an HDMI port on my Dreamcast for chrissakes! I'll let you all know in two or so days if the cap replacements fixed it  Thanks again for all the help. Chumbawumba4ever97 fucked around with this message at 22:08 on Apr 8, 2021 |
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Apr 8, 2021 22:03
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You know, you would really think something like “ the Solitaire collection isn’t working”. Would be a quick fix. You’d really think that. Half of the “here’s how to fix it” guides when googling are useless because the things they say to do, straight up don’t exist. Can’t reset the app, if there’s no option to reset it! Edit: oh my gosh, is the Ms solitaire collection the only one in existence to download? Ffcfffffff Johnny Aztec fucked around with this message at 22:23 on Apr 8, 2021 |
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Apr 8, 2021 22:20
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Chumbawumba4ever97 posted:. Modern PC motherboards are usually six or more layers. One or two of those layers will be a ground or power distribution layer of solid copper. Those layers will suck every bit of heat out of your soldering iron making it very difficult to desolder through-hole parts, particularly with desoldering wick. Modern lead-free solder also doesn't help here. It can actually be advantageous to add leaded solder to the joints before you try to desolder the component. Even with a proper vacuum desoldering station this will help.
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Apr 8, 2021 22:35
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stevewm posted:Modern PC motherboards are usually six or more layers. One or two of those layers will be a ground or power distribution layer of solid copper. Those layers will suck every bit of heat out of your soldering iron making it very difficult to desolder through-hole parts, particularly with desoldering wick. Modern lead-free solder also doesn't help here. Wow thank you for the explanation. I thought I was going crazy. I added the solder to the bottom part of the motherboard, where the capacitor legs barely show up. Is this what you're referring to? I don't think I'd be able to get solder on the other parts of the legs as there's really no room under the capacitor for the iron. The funny thing too is I never really looked at what a capacitor is doing in general and I still kind of can't tell (I know they like store power or something). I was checking continuity and I noticed all these capacitors are kind of all just connected together on the same metal "plane". I actually don't even know why polarity matters! It looks like everything is just all connected to one common ground spot on the motherboard or something! (I know this is going well beyond the scope of the thread by the way!)
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Apr 8, 2021 23:21
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Let me get this straight. You've spent $245 and countless hours of painstaking work to repair a motherboard from 2009. That's insane. you could probably have scrounged a replacement motherboard from ebay or something for less than that; hell for $245 you could have bought a NUC or a PC on a stick. The computer is 12 years old, it passed its reasonable functional lifespan a very long time ago. I'm on my 4th PC in that space of time.
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Apr 9, 2021 05:33
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The Lord Bude posted:Let me get this straight. You've spent $245 and countless hours of painstaking work to repair a motherboard from 2009. That's insane. you could probably have scrounged a replacement motherboard from ebay or something for less than that; hell for $245 you could have bought a NUC or a PC on a stick. The computer is 12 years old, it passed its reasonable functional lifespan a very long time ago. I'm on my 4th PC in that space of time. My thoughts exactly.
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Apr 9, 2021 05:42
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Sounds to me like that $245 got him a nice soldering station he can use for hobbies, he's helping a friend, it's fun for him, and he's learning things. OTOH, I lurk the obsolete tech thread a bunch and none of this strikes me as out of the ordinary.
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Apr 9, 2021 05:44
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I tried to recap a dual opteron DDR2 board with capacitor plague and while I finally got it done, with great, great difficulty, it wouldn't boot afterwards. I thought about it and remembered I paid $30 for the thing including the CPUs, and they're both dual core. I just got something else to run VMs. I wouldn't say it was a worthless experience since I did learn a bit about soldering but I haven't bothered soldering on a motherboard in the eight years or so since, although I also haven't needed to.
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Apr 9, 2021 06:02
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Wow, I haven't seen an ECS board in a long time. I think the last one I had had S3 integrated graphics.
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Apr 9, 2021 06:34
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Chumbawumba4ever97 posted:Wow thank you for the explanation. I thought I was going crazy. The voltage converter that powers the cpu outputs little bursts of power, so capacitors are used to stabilize the voltage and average it out over a fraction of a second. They are like batteries but much much faster to absorb and release power, and much much lower capacity. The reason big capacitors care about polarity is pretty simple: they are made of very thin layers of very fragile substances, and it's cheaper to design the layers under the assumption that one side is always positive
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Apr 9, 2021 10:14
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CaptainSarcastic posted:Wow, I haven't seen an ECS board in a long time. I think the last one I had had S3 integrated graphics. They're still around making boards for OEMs
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Apr 9, 2021 10:20
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Dylan16807 posted:The reason big capacitors care about polarity is pretty simple: they are made of very thin layers of very fragile substances, and it's cheaper to design the layers under the assumption that one side is always positive This was very entertaining for me in high school when we discovered that they explode with a very satisfying *pop* when you run 120v AC through them. We did this with small ones, though. The biggest one I ever exploded was probably half an inch in diameter.
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Apr 9, 2021 12:54
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HalloKitty posted:They're still around making boards for OEMs I think NZXTs boards are all outsourced to ECS too
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Apr 9, 2021 14:33
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doctorfrog posted:Sounds to me like that $245 got him a nice soldering station he can use for hobbies, he's helping a friend, it's fun for him, and he's learning things. OTOH, I lurk the obsolete tech thread a bunch and none of this strikes me as out of the ordinary. Yeah it's exactly everything you just mentioned. Plus I needed a good desoldering tool anyway because like I previously mentioned, I have and own arcade cabinet monitors I want to fix. Dylan16807 posted:The voltage converter that powers the cpu outputs little bursts of power, so capacitors are used to stabilize the voltage and average it out over a fraction of a second. Cool to know! Thank you! I am familiar with resistors and their purposes, it just seemed confusing that capacitors are all connected to one another and I couldn't figure out their exact purpose! Chumbawumba4ever97 fucked around with this message at 16:04 on Apr 9, 2021 |
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Apr 9, 2021 16:01
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redeyes posted:That is a Microsoft gently caress up. I've seen it on 4 computers. What happened is the connected MS account got changed on the server side and the persons name is now EMAIL SERVICE. You can fix it by changing the name in the account itself.. and then disconnect the loving online login from win 10. What a stupid loving problem. It was 100% this, but it also busted the internet , shoved it into Airplane mode and there were no options to change it. So, I'm not really sure how I could have changed the account name, when I couldn't even log into an account. It's far past time for me to build them a new PC. The building isn't the problem, it's setting everything back up with their work flow. As for someones MSN comment, I suspect that is the reason no one will help me. They want to kill off MSN accounts.
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Apr 9, 2021 16:50
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Chumbawumba4ever97 posted:Yeah it's exactly everything you just mentioned. Plus I needed a good desoldering tool anyway because like I previously mentioned, I have and own arcade cabinet monitors I want to fix. The amount of capacitance you need to smooth out a hundred watts is inherently bulky, so the choice is between a bunch of medium-size capacitors all connected together or some really big ones. Medium-size ones are easier to deal with, easier to hook up with lower total resistance, and they let you get better placement.
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Apr 9, 2021 19:12
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CaptainSarcastic posted:Wow, I haven't seen an ECS board in a long time. I think the last one I had had S3 integrated graphics. My first PC build was in 2005 and there were a lot of ECS and Foxconn boards on Newegg for pretty cheap. They were cheap for a reason, those two brands were trash-tier at the time. I went with A-Bit.
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Apr 9, 2021 19:16
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ABIT were godlike at the time.
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Apr 9, 2021 20:40
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GRINDCORE MEGGIDO posted:ABIT were godlike at the time. I'd still buy boards from them if they existed
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Apr 9, 2021 20:59
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Same, an nf7-s is going to be my retro build board. What a trooper. Dfi made some great overclocking boards too. But I never owned one of those.
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Apr 9, 2021 22:09
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Dylan16807 posted:The amount of capacitance you need to smooth out a hundred watts is inherently bulky, so the choice is between a bunch of medium-size capacitors all connected together or some really big ones. Medium-size ones are easier to deal with, easier to hook up with lower total resistance, and they let you get better placement. For argument's sake (and so I understand it better) what would happen if I removed these bulging caps and literally just bridged them? Of course I'm not going to do that. I'm just curious.
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Apr 9, 2021 22:32
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Chumbawumba4ever97 posted:For argument's sake (and so I understand it better) what would happen if I removed these bulging caps and literally just bridged them? Of course I'm not going to do that. I'm just curious. Capacitors aren't supposed to actually conduct. They store a charge. If you leave them out, you'll probably get worse instability than you already have. And if you bridge the contacts you'll create a short circuit that'll most likely cause your PSU to cut off. Or maybe you'll start a fire like those NZXT riser cables.
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Apr 10, 2021 00:03
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Chumbawumba4ever97 posted:For argument's sake (and so I understand it better) what would happen if I removed these bulging caps and literally just bridged them? Of course I'm not going to do that. I'm just curious. You don't want to do that. Power doesn't flow through a capacitor -- if it's doing that the capacitor is either in the process of exploding, or it has failed in a really rare way. (Capacitors are generally designed to fail open, not short circuit.) Capacitors stand between voltage and ground in many simple circuits. I don't know if that's the case for these ones, but I'm pretty sure the load (the CPU) is standing between the two legs of the capacitor. So it would probably be pretty spectacular since VRMs are a high-current circuit. Rather than thinking of capacitors as power storage like batteries, I think a good analogy is that they're tiny water towers for electorns. You push electrons "up" into a capacitor through one leg, then later they come "down" and out the same pipe. The other leg of the capacitor is supplying positive charge that keeps the electrons in the water tank. So in your PC VRM, the capacitor is smoothing voltage: when there are too many electrons they go up into the water tank, then flow back out when the voltage drops.
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Apr 10, 2021 00:18
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