SM5 Happenings

[Cyclonite]

Okay. First I'd like to apologize for letting her slip this long. I thought she was doing work, because most everytime I checked, something was being folded. Unfortunately, I think there were issues with the results being submitted, along with random lockups. I had been troubleshooting the lockups, but couldnt pinpoint it. I thought it was a temperature issue, but it turns out it wasn't. Granted, I should have done more than I actually did to troubleshoot. I work on computers all day long, so I didn't want to look at another when I got home. Of course, that's a poor excuse. I apologize again.

So, now that this school semester is over, I feel a lot less stressed and don't mind working on this thing. I'll be sure to take better care of her from now on.

Now, on to my problem:

She just stopped turning on a little over a week ago. I thought, "alright, dead PSU... No problem." So, I ordered an inexpensive one off eBay. It's still on the way, but I pulled a brand new working Antec 350W PSU from one of my other systems and tested that with SM5. She blew it up. My house smelled like the burning of electronics for about 2 hours. Good thing it was cool out and we had the windows open.

Anyway, it's fairly obvious it wasn't the power supply. It was brand new and had been running for a couple days in another system. I'm trying to hunt down another motherboard to test, but I'm afraid of frying anything else. Does anyone have any ideas of what I could try? I'd like to keep my electronic casualties to a minimum too if possible. :)

Thank a lot, everyone, and I'm really sorry this happened.

[shwaip]

check for swollen/leaking caps on the mobo...esp. around the cpu socket.

[Cyclonite]

You know, that's the first thing I usually do. Haha. I don't know why I didn't think about it this time. I'll have to check when I get home.

Also, now that I think about it, the computer booted. It made it all the way to the Windows XP splash screen, then I hear a pop from within the computer, the screen goes blank, and the smell begins. It wouldn't POST after that, but it would power on. The PSU definitely blew though. You don't even have to get your nose close to it to smell.

[Cyclonite]

Well, guess what... I've got about 4 capacitors that are bulging or leaking along with a diode that's actually blown up and cracked in half. How the hell does that happen?!

[shwaip]

the diode or the caps?

The caps just have bad electrolyte...the diode is likely rated for a max forward/reverse voltage or forward current, which can be exceeded if the caps are no longer filtering high freq. signals.

I may have a replacement board at home, depending on the processor/ram in SM5.

[profdlp]

...I may have a replacement board at home, depending on the processor/ram in SM5.
This is what's in there according to the last update:

Processor= AMD XP1600+
Motherboard= ECS K7S
Ram= 128MB PC100

[shwaip]

This is what's in there according to the last update:

Processor= AMD XP1600+
Motherboard= ECS K7S
Ram= 128MB PC100


Well then I don't :P

[Cyclonite]

That's what is currently in there. And yes, caps and a diode have blown. I know how it happens, heh. I was just surprised it happened. :)

[muddocktor]

I just looked in the refurb section at the Egg and they have a Soyo KT600 mobo for $36 shipped. Also, since the Soyo board needs ddr ram, I see we are showing a 256 stick of pc2100 in the parts bin. I think that would be the best and cheapest course to get her back up and running.

I guess we have the money in the SMx fund to get a replacement mobo, but Marc handles that.

[Straight_Man]

Um, would an MSI KT4VL run a 1600+ ??? Note, I hopped on MSI's site, yes it should, it can handle FSBs of 200\266\333(and in THEORY FSB of 400 with lots of limits at that bus speed), so not only will it run the CPU, it should run the RAM Cyclonite has also. I happen to have a retired but working one of those here.... And I now know (thank you, Map Quest) how close Cyclonite is to a single-zone ship for UPS or USPS Priority Mail from ZIP CODE 33950 (Florida West Coast, about 200 miles south of Tampa, in Punta Gorda), it should be only a couple days ship time max. Don't be surprised if the silly thing comes in an Abit IC7-Max3 box, though, inside the outer box....

IOW, yeah, I'll donate it. Seth, it might be fastest if I shipped it direct to Cyclonite unless you want SM5 shipped back to you and to have me ship the motherboard up the east coast to you.... Consider it an X-Mas present for the SM group. :D

[mmonnin]

So John, you want to donate the MSI board then? If so he would need a stick of DDR. That would work for me.

I think we can trust you John and let you ship it directly to Trekky. He then can replace the motherboard. No real reason to have it shipped twice. It would costs more and fold less. Not the best combination.

[Geeky1]

any chance of fixing the K7S? I mean caps and diodes are cheap... might as well try to fix it and get it in another machine, yeah?

[Cyclonite]

I can take a stab at fixing it. I think I have a stick of DDR at home also. Let me check when I get off work tonight.

[GrayFox]

Well, guess what... I've got about 4 capacitors that are bulging or leaking along with a diode that's actually blown up and cracked in half. How the hell does that happen?!
Did you buy a abit ;D
Motherboard= ECS K7S

nvm that would be it ;D

[Cyclonite]

I've actually got an Abit NF7-S in my main system. Best motherboard I've had.

[shwaip]

Did you buy a abit ;D


Every mention of swollen/burst capacitors brings a similar comment from you. A lot of manufacturers had the exact same problems. It was the fault of the dielectric manufacturer, NOT the motherboard companies.

[Straight_Man]

So John, you want to donate the MSI board then? If so he would need a stick of DDR. That would work for me.

I think we can trust you John and let you ship it directly to Trekky. He then can replace the motherboard. No real reason to have it shipped twice. It would costs more and fold less. Not the best combination.

A-- to Marc and Seth: Yes, the likelihood of someone wanting a box built with a 2500+ or less in it is fairly low. This board does not OC extremely, but it is real stable (I had a 2500 running at 2800+ rates, ABOUT). Therefore, I think the best thing is to donate it to a good cause. Folding is a good cause, team or not. So, given it will be folding, sure I will donate it.

I'll even go one step further-- I have one stick of Crucial DDR266 RAM here that is a 512 MB stick. I'll ship that with it. It is in good shape. IF someone has a 256 MB stick of that speed or of DDR200 speed to ship, it can be shipped back to me some time or shipped to Seth via USPS. That stick can be a loaner or part of Team inventory, your choices (Team leadership group choice). I run and stock and sell mostly DDR333 or DDR400 RAM now, and this stick is an orphan. The only question I have is this-- have folks run RAM ASYNC and also faster than CPU base on an MSI KT4VL (the 1600+, IIRC, is a 200 FSB chip, right?)??? The RAM can be run slower if need be, and be stable, but ideally it should be run at at least full speed to native. It is CAS Latency 2.5 Lifetime Crucial and DOES test good as of when I stuck it in its antistat RAM holder that came with a Stick of Crucial DDR333. Possibly, if the team has one in stock, upgrading to a 2400+ or 2500+ CPU might be a good idea also, but I sold mine so cannot supply right now.

B: Geeky, as far as repairing, that is a good idea, but what I would do is this: R&R motherboard, so it gets back to folding. THEN ship the old board with bad components to maybe Seth or someone who is milspec soldering qualified, get that board repaired if possible and keep as a spare part. My strategy, given Team standing, is to try and get the SM boxes folding as much as possible, and have spares. The ECS board, if it is repairable and not in reality further damaged than is apparent now, could be one such spare part. The stick of RAM on the ECS board now also could be a spare.

Does that make sense???

[Straight_Man]

Every mention of swollen/burst capacitors brings a similar comment from you. A lot of manufacturers had the exact same problems. It was the fault of the dielectric manufacturer, NOT the motherboard companies.

True, even Abit had some batch-bad problems, one thing in Abit's favor though, is that they random sample test incoming parts and do not buy by price first as much as some other mfrs-- thus some batch problems get caught at door and not in field. I take your point, though, every mfr has some lemons go out, some of them not at all obviously so. Even Dell has had to recall laptops due to batteries that proved defective and dangerous in the field, due to battery mfr's fault. IBM has recalled things also. Everybody has things that have issues built-in sometimes. BUT, the one very worst motherboard mfr I have ever had parts from, is PC-Chips. They, overall, have absolutely the most uneven QC and worst integration designing for motherboards I have ever seen. They make strictly value-grade motherboards compared to majors.

[profdlp]

That's a nice donation, John. :thumbsup:

I agree with your comments about Quality Control, but have one bone to pick with you:
...the one very worst motherboard mfr I have ever had parts from, is PC-Chips. They, overall, have absolutely the most uneven QC ...
I think their QC is actually quite consistent - EVERY board I've seen from them had something wrong with it. :vimp:

I am not exaggerating.

[primesuspect]

And they just bought Soyo's motherboard division! :D

[Straight_Man]

That's a nice donation, John. :thumbsup:

I agree with your comments about Quality Control, but have one bone to pick with you:

I think their QC is actually quite consistent - EVERY board I've seen from them had something wrong with it. :vimp:

I am not exaggerating.

Out of three in one year, one lasted more than 6 months, one lasted two weeks, and one lasted about 5 months. Not exaggerating at all, either. Although terrible, they varied in how fast they failed... :D Agreed they are junk, though. Some of thier stuff is sold OEM only and warrantied 90 days. That's about right given thier overall QC. The trick in understanding value, is that it can be value for the profit line of mfr and not true good value for consumer. Performance grade is better for consumer in longer run, over a year or so.

Happy to make the donation, would Trekky email me at jdii1215 at johndanielsonii.com??? With the destination address??? Or forward same to an admin here and have the admin PM me??? Or give it to Prime and have Prime get a hold of me with it (he knows several ways)??? I know where Temple Terrace is, not what real name and what address to send it to. I will have it out of here tomorrow or Thursday, Tomorrow is a"work on the house day" for me and my brother.... So, if tomorrow it will have be late, or Thursday in morning. But I can completely pack it as soon as I have address to gen a label.

[Cyclonite]

E-Mail sent from cyclonite at gmail dot com. Let me know if there are any problems or I need to contact someone else.

[Straight_Man]

E-Mail sent from cyclonite at gmail dot com. Let me know if there are any problems or I need to contact someone else.

You should have my reply now. As said there, it will go out late tomorrow or Thursday AM as I am committed to help my brother tomorrow working around the house-- amongst other things the pool filter timer will get replaced tomorrow.

Not a problem at all. And if Marc says it should be alright, it should be fine. Seth can rule on what happens to the old board. I'll just leave that to you folks.

[mmonnin]

Sounds good to me.:)

So Cyclonite, do you have a stick of DDR you can us or do you need to get one from Seth? Or is John sending a stick along with the motherboard?

[Cyclonite]

I looked last night and was unable to find a stick. I *think* it's at my parent's house, but I'm not completely sure about that. If John is willing to send that stick he was talking about, I'll send it back to him as soon as I'm able to acquire a stick better suited for a folding machine that doesn't use 512MB of RAM.

[Straight_Man]

Well, it is en route, sent DIMM stick and motherboard with manual and the backplate for case, driver CD, and some HD cables. Box is mostly P-Nuts, stuff is in an Abit IC7-Max3 box. Sent Priority mail insured (UK folks know this as ensured, AFAIK). Expect Monday or Tuesday at latest, Post Office here has been warning folks that things are backed up due to Christmas package flow-- but they finally got the trailer\portable building set up so they have a real indoor Post Office for sending packages and buying stamps, etc. PO boxes are still in a big tent, and some sorting is being done in tent also. Main post office building here in Punta Gorda is uninhabitable still for the most part.

[Cyclonite]

Alright. I got the board, and was able to hunt down a PSU today. She's up and running, but... this is very disappointing... whatever helped take out the other two power supplies and motherboard, ended up taking the processor with it. I have a Duron 1200 I dropped in it. Windows is installing as I type this.

I'm really sorry, guys. I had the computer on a surge protector, so I wouldn't say that a power surge took it, but it's looking nasty. The only things that made it that I can tell was the CD-ROM and HDD. I don't have any means of testing the SD-RAM module immediately at my disposal. I'll try in a machine at work if I can.

And now as the CD is really spinning, it sound like the CD-ROM is fubar too. Cripes!

//Edit: Alright. CD-ROM got nailed too. Haha! I replaced it, and she's chugging along now installing Windows. We'll see if the hard drive made it. If not, I've got a small replacement that I grabbed from work the other week. No worries, it was going to be thrown out. :) I'll let you guys know what's going on as soon as I get her up and running again. And I'll give you configuration change information as soon as I'm sure what's in there is going to stay running.

[primesuspect]

Use memtest to test the ram :)

[Cyclonite]

Haha. Yes, prime, I follow the memtest philosophy as well. My problem is having the hardware in which to insert the memory. I don't have any SDRAM boards here.

Oh, also... It seems the hard drive went as well. Blah!

[primesuspect]

oh yeah, you're gonna let a little thing like no sdram board stop you? Pfff... you're no memtester! ;D

[shwaip]

Do we want to have all the SMx owners check for swollen/leaking caps on their mobos so that something like this doesn't happen again?

[Cyclonite]

That might be a good idea. I'm thinking the PSU may have been going and ended up taking everything with it. I could be wrong, but since pretty much everything went, that seems like a fairly high probability.

[Straight_Man]

Right, and once the first PSU and other things managed to damage each other the second PSU died partly because it was overloaded.

HD bad, or just HD CABLE???? Might be worth a quick check if that has not been done....

Happy it is coming back together, though. Did someone offer a 2400+ or did I remember wrong???? That WOULD run on this board I sent..... So, if there is one available, would be more productive in short and long run....

[Cyclonite]

I switched cables and everything. The HDD went. Heh. This kind of turned into a disaster. She's good now, though.

[Straight_Man]

What's most important is that she's BACK to folding.... Good WORK! Thanks, Cyclonite.

[Cyclonite]

What's most important is that she's BACK to folding.... Good WORK! Thanks, Cyclonite.

No, thank YOU. Much appreciated on the donation.

I'm going to let her run a couple days to make sure everything is operating properly, then I'll post an updated parts list.

[Cyclonite]

I'm having some troubles now with actually returning results. Here's an excerpt from my recent log:

[16:01:35] + Attempting to send results
[16:02:12] Finished a frame (173)
[16:03:04] Finished a frame (174)
[16:03:56] Finished a frame (175)
[16:04:13] - Couldn't send HTTP request to server
[16:04:13] + Could not connect to Work Server (results)
[16:04:13] (171.64.122.133:8080)
[16:04:13] - Error: Could not transmit unit 01 (completed December 26) to work server.


[16:04:13] + Attempting to send results
[16:04:48] Finished a frame (176)
[16:05:40] Finished a frame (177)
[16:06:33] Finished a frame (178)
[16:06:50] - Couldn't send HTTP request to server
[16:06:50] + Could not connect to Work Server (results)
[16:06:50] (171.65.103.100:8080)
[16:06:50] Could not transmit unit 01 to Collection server; keeping in queue.


[16:06:50] + Attempting to send results
[16:07:25] Finished a frame (179)
[16:08:17] Finished a frame (180)
[16:09:09] Finished a frame (181)
[16:09:28] - Couldn't send HTTP request to server
[16:09:28] + Could not connect to Work Server (results)
[16:09:28] (171.65.103.148:8080)
[16:09:28] - Error: Could not transmit unit 02 (completed December 27) to work server.


[16:09:28] + Attempting to send results
[16:10:01] Finished a frame (182)
[16:10:53] Finished a frame (183)
[16:11:45] Finished a frame (184)
[16:12:06] - Couldn't send HTTP request to server
[16:12:06] + Could not connect to Work Server (results)
[16:12:06] (171.65.103.100:8080)
[16:12:06] Could not transmit unit 02 to Collection server; keeping in queue.


[16:12:06] + Attempting to send results
[16:12:38] Finished a frame (185)
[16:13:30] Finished a frame (186)
[16:14:22] Finished a frame (187)
[16:14:44] - Couldn't send HTTP request to server
[16:14:44] + Could not connect to Work Server (results)
[16:14:44] (171.64.122.129:8080)
[16:14:44] - Error: Could not transmit unit 03 (completed December 28) to work server.


[16:14:44] + Attempting to send results
[16:15:14] Finished a frame (188)
[16:16:06] Finished a frame (189)
[16:16:58] Finished a frame (190)
[16:17:22] - Couldn't send HTTP request to server
[16:17:22] + Could not connect to Work Server (results)
[16:17:22] (171.65.103.100:8080)
[16:17:22] Could not transmit unit 03 to Collection server; keeping in queue.


[16:17:22] + Attempting to send results
[16:17:51] Finished a frame (191)
[16:18:43] Finished a frame (192)
[16:19:35] Finished a frame (193)
[16:19:59] - Couldn't send HTTP request to server
[16:19:59] + Could not connect to Work Server (results)
[16:19:59] (171.65.103.148:8080)
[16:19:59] - Error: Could not transmit unit 04 (completed December 28) to work server.


What could I do to attempt to alleviate this problem?

[Lincoln]

errmm... still working on that log? ;)

[muddocktor]

Looks like you must be having problems attaching the log. ;)

[Cyclonite]

Haha. I tried attaching it from SM5 last night and it wouldn't go. I finally got fed up with it and went to bed. I've been going to bed late and getting up early, so I was super tired. Let me try again now.

//Edit: Okay. Attached. Pain in my rumpus! Hah.

[mmonnin]

Have you tried restarting the client?

[muddocktor]

OK, which client are you using and what do you have the config set up like? Do you have the "Use IE settings" question answered "yes" by any chance? If so, reset the config with that question set to "no" and see if it will send the wu's. I've had problems before with that question set to "yes" before; it could get work but couldn't return results reliably, for some reason.

Also, add the -verbosity 9 line to the target on your startup shortcut so you print out as detailed a log as you can, if ou don't already have that set.

[Cyclonite]

I've restarted the client many times. I'll try what mud said. :)

I'm using the latest text only client.

//Edit: I added the verbosity switch, but it was already set to no for use IE settings. I turned it on just for the hell of it, and did a send all. It didn't change anything.

[primesuspect]

Perhaps we're looking at something weird like a bad or dying processor.

Is the system stable in Prime95?

[muddocktor]

Also, have you tried a different nic in the machine? If the board has onboard lan, then maybe it's giving problems.

[mmonnin]

But its getting WUs. The NIC/motherboard/CPU is fine then. It just cant send Wus back. But I dont think several different servers would all be down like that.

Is it running any type of firewall?

[Cyclonite]

Only thing that could be blocking traffic is maybe my router, but I've never had issues with it before.

[muddocktor]

Can you try running it directly into your broadband connection, bypassing the router as a temporary measure?

[Cyclonite]

Yeah, I'll have to try when I get off.

[Cyclonite]

Alright. After a lot of troubleshooting, and my obvious lack of thought, I've discovered that it was my router causing the problem. I was apparently running on nearly 2 year old firmware, and it was causing a lot of other problems as well. I could have sworn I updated the firmware a while ago, but realize now I did that on *my* router of the same model. Anyway, she's sending in all her WU's right now, and we shouldn't have this problem anymore. :)

[muddocktor]

Great! :thumbsup:

[QCH]

Sweet!!!! :D

[mmonnin]

Thats good to hear.:)