> Hugo Mills wrote:
> I've got a (nearly) new mini-ITX motherboard, made by Jetway, for
> my media box. It seems to be having some trouble:
>
> On Saturday morning, the machine crashed. Nothing appeared in the
> logs. On trying to restart it on Saturday night, the machine wouldn't
> come back up at all (no POST), but the case fan started when the
> machine was plugged in (which it normally wouldn't do). After
> unplugging everything from the back of the box and reapplying power,
> it finally came back and booted without a problem.
>
> This morning, it did the same thing, and so far hasn't come back,
> despite being unplugged from everything for some time. The only thing
> that seems to be "working" is the case fan -- which is permanently on
> when the machine has power.
>
> I'll be speaking to the vendor tomorrow about this, but has anyone
> else seen this sort of behaviour? Is the motherboard completely
> shagged? If so, why did it run fine for 12 hours or so last night
> after its first failure?
>
> Hugo.
Be suspicious of the power supply. In the last 8 months I have had to
replace two power supplies (both from Novatech!) after a Pc started crashing
with increasing regularity until it didn't even get beyond the POST test. I
didn't suspect it at first because the screen always had a striped pattern.
Having a spare PS to hand I changed it and the problem disappeared. I got a
replacement PS from Novatech which worked for 6 months then the crashes
started reoccurring. New power supply and all is well again.
Even if the fan is still turning, there could be noise or failure on the
other voltages supplied.
Roger
