Re: [Hampshire] [OT] Hardware Diagnosis

On Wednesday 06 February 2008 19:08:58 Tim wrote:
> On Wednesday 06 February 2008 18:57:46 Rob Malpass wrote:
> > Evening all
> >
> > I'm experiencing a couple of problems with what has up to now been my
> > most stable of PCs. It does run XP but (as some of you will know)
> > that's because I run some special software for the visually impaired
> > which doesn't exist for Linux... yet.
> >
> > Anyways back to the plot, it's developed a strange error on boot. It
> > either:
> > 1) Says I have a disk read error and please Ctrl+Alt+Del. If I do this
> > 3-4 times, hey presto - it boots up ok - no safe mode or anything.
> > 2) Says I have a missing registry component. This is usually curtains
> > on an XP box but again, a few soft reboots has (thus far) fixed it.
> > Quite why this should be is beyond me.
> >
> > What I need really is a double check of my diagnosis (and yes - a backup
> > is in progress).
> >
> > I'm thinking 1) above is caused by a flat CMOS battery. I've seen this
> > exact same behaviour on a PC a while back - however in that case, the PC
> > was ancient - some 8 years old - this is only 3 years old.
> > Interestingly I went into the BIOS and it can still see all the drives -
> > so I may be wrong about a flat battery.
> >
> > If not a flat battery, then it points to a faulty primary hard disk.
> > The one in question is 40Gb PATA and has been in use for 3 years also.
> > The odd thing is if it's an error on the disk, it's seemingly broken one
> > moment, then fixed after a reboot - most odd.
> >
> > Do these conclusions seem sound or have I missed something obvious?
> >
> > Cheers
> > Rob
>
> I would start with the hard drive, if you know the manufacturer of the
> drive, pop over to there web site and download a diagnostic disk (normally
> a bootable floppy but will work from a bootable cd) and let it test your
> hard drive. Also worth check the data cable on the hard disk and
> motherboard for cable creep. Just unplug it and plug it back in again.
>
> Tim

Have a look at the power supply. It may be possible that the power supply is
having a problem supplying enough switch on current.

Hard disks as they age may start to draw more current as they switch on.

John Eayrs