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Thread: Very Strange PC Error?? |
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Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 7
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themoonscrescent
Veteran Cruncher UK Joined: Jul 1, 2006 Post Count: 1320 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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I thought I would post this for no other reason bar the fact it's so weird (sorry for it being quite long).
----------------------------------------Got a Dell Dimension E520, and am crunching with it (on and off), for a couple of years... Anyway, with the current spell of heat in the UK, I thought it would be a good idea to take the PC off the floor and place it on my worktop. Reason for this was to assit in keeping it as cool as possible (worktop is right next to the window). A few days later I did a Windows Update and had to restart the PC and then the problems started!.. Simply it wouldn't restart, it would get to the Dell Splash-screen, the bar would get 2 thirds across and stop. The Diag LED's (according to Dell's website), told me the problem was a Catastrophic Motherboard Malfunction (or words to the effect of), but I couldn't investigate further at the time as the PC I was using was at a friends house. Anyway, I decided it was time for an upgrade, so I bought a new PC, the new one arrived and I placed the old Dell on the floor again, to make room for the new one. Just out of curiosity I started the Dell up one last time and it worked, it booted into windows?? Shocked, I restarted the Dell and it fully booted again... Placed the Dell back on the worktop, restarted it and it failed, same problem as before. Back on the floor it went and again it fully booted first time... I've repaired many a PC in my time, but never have I come across such a strange fault (all cables had plenty of slack on them), I can't work out why this is happening??, the new PC works perfectly on the worktop (touch wood!). Anyone come across this before??   |
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Sekerob
Ace Cruncher Joined: Jul 24, 2005 Post Count: 20043 Status: Offline |
Over here they call it Terra, in inglese Ground
---------------------------------------- Could be the worktop is not as even as the floor or v.v. Slight stress in the frame enough to make a break somewhere to open.
WCG
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
You say the cables had plenty of slack, however, when on the ground the 'angle' of a cable may change enuff to make a contact, use your new PC cablees one at a time to see if there is a faulty cable....
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Hello themoonscrescent,
This reminds me of a really peculiar fault I ran into around the turn of the century. When I took it in to the shop, they could not find anything. I insisted on paying for their bench time, which made me feel good when I got home and changed the cable. (I had left the cable at home.) Sure enough, the problem was in the cable. Lawrence |
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themoonscrescent
Veteran Cruncher UK Joined: Jul 1, 2006 Post Count: 1320 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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Cheers for the responces, I will start looking into Cable testing. I used a spirit-level to check the worktop and floor, and the table is within tollerance but the angle is a little off when compared to the angle of the floor.
---------------------------------------- P.S. The Dell would return a maximum of 6 results a day, my new PC has sent back 20 in it's 1st 24 hours (inc restarting the machine a lot due to updating), so I am still happy I upgraded  [Edit 1 times, last edit by themoonscrescent at Jun 17, 2009 9:31:50 PM] |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Reminds me of having a 286 on a rolling desk. When we spun the desk with the front to the North, the computer turned itself off. Would not restart. Turned the computer so the front was East and it worked great. We eventually got so we could start to turn it and the computer would start to die and we then quickly turned it back and everything kept going. We found a magnetized wire loose in the internal power supply.
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GavinLeigh
Cruncher Joined: Dec 9, 2008 Post Count: 13 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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I've seen some Dells where the heatsink puts a lot of stress on the motherboard and causes failures. You can google it.
----------------------------------------A friend of mine brought me a Dell that would not boot (similar to yours) to see if I could repair. I laid the unit on it's side to open the case and examine the unit, tried the power switch and it would boot perfectly like that. It seems the weight of the heatsink pushing down would make the motherboard connections work. If it was standing upright... it wouldn't work. I told the owner the trick to making it run and now he just continues to use the machine in the horizontal position. Computers are strange things.  |
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