Mystery Total Meltdown

[Trout]

SO,
This old time ( handicapped) friend of the family buys a brand new computer from me, Her first new PC in 10 yrs.

We take it to her home, Plug in everything, Activate her cable connect and set up her Express Scribe (http://www.nch.com.au/scribe/) So she can work at home as a medical transcriptionist.
Plug in her foot pedal control yada yada. Thing works perfect. 2 hrs after we get home, we get a call. The computer is acting up.

OK, whats wrong? " The keyboard wont type" Im in the middle of a scribe and i need to have it done within 2 days to get paid.
I Run Over there 70 Miles~!! Pick it up , Bring it home, Plug it in and it works fine. So I drop it off again Hook her back up. Everythings great.
2 weeks later. I get a call, " My Computers acting up, It wont turn on"
I go pick it up,, EVERY Cap on the motherboards BLOWN.
OK, So now, I replace EVERY componet other than the CDRW Drive and floppy.

Reload Everything, Install her scribe junk This PC is really damn nice.

3 weeks later i get a call, " This G*d D**n Computers not working" It wont turn on.
I went to bed it was on, I woke up it was off And It wont restart."Now mind you this 2nd NEW PC was made from entirely different case/power supply and componets.

OK,, now im really getting upset.
I get the PC here, Motherboards Fried, Does NOTHING!

I Grab yet a 3rd motherboard off the shelf. Another brand entirely Different.
Set her back up,Once again, The PC passes my 24 seal of approval.

1 Hr after I Get Home. " This PC keeps shutting off after 10 mins or less"
The screen goes black, only the green led is lite, monitor lite turns yellow.

Yet here, It ran 18 hrs of DVD and MP3 Files without a glitch. I Powered Up And Down No Less than 20 times .

Now, This Is Outside my expertise. The Only Constant is the monitor, And Her Foot pedal. a 2 axes 3 button ( Game controler). Utilizing the game/joystick port.

At This point, We have gone threw 3 motherboards, 2 power supplies* 2 AMD 2400XP processors, 2 512 meg PNY Chips*, 2 sony DVD combo Drives* 2 WD 80 gig HDs* Yada Yada you get the picture 2 1/2 computers worth of stuff.

*= All these items test perfect here. and have been run for no less than 6 hrs each. Motherboards are dead.

SO,, tomorrow morning @ 9AM im picking up the PC.
Any Ideas?

[Matridom]

SO,
This old time ( handicapped) friend of the family buys a brand new computer from me, Her first new PC in 10 yrs.

We take it to her home, Plug in everything, Activate her cable connect and set up her Express Scribe (http://www.nch.com.au/scribe/) So she can work at home as a medical transcriptionist.
Plug in her foot pedal control yada yada. Thing works perfect. 2 hrs after we get home, we get a call. The computer is acting up.

OK, whats wrong? " The keyboard wont type" Im in the middle of a scribe and i need to have it done within 2 days to get paid.
I Run Over there 70 Miles~!! Pick it up , Bring it home, Plug it in and it works fine. So I drop it off again Hook her back up. Everythings great.
2 weeks later. I get a call, " My Computers acting up, It wont turn on"
I go pick it up,, EVERY Cap on the motherboards BLOWN.
OK, So now, I replace EVERY componet other than the CDRW Drive and floppy.

Reload Everything, Install her scribe junk This PC is really damn nice.

3 weeks later i get a call, " This G*d D**n Computers not working" It wont turn on.
I went to bed it was on, I woke up it was off And It wont restart."Now mind you this 2nd NEW PC was made from entirely different case/power supply and componets.

OK,, now im really getting upset.
I get the PC here, Motherboards Fried, Does NOTHING!

I Grab yet a 3rd motherboard off the shelf. Another brand entirely Different.
Set her back up,Once again, The PC passes my 24 seal of approval.

1 Hr after I Get Home. " This PC keeps shutting off after 10 mins or less"
The screen goes black, only the green led is lite, monitor lite turns yellow.

Yet here, It ran 18 hrs of DVD and MP3 Files without a glitch. I Powered Up And Down No Less than 20 times .

Now, This Is Outside my expertise. The Only Constant is the monitor, And Her Foot pedal. a 2 axes 3 button ( Game controler). Utilizing the game/joystick port.

At This point, We have gone threw 3 motherboards, 2 power supplies* 2 AMD 2400XP processors, 2 512 meg PNY Chips*, 2 sony DVD combo Drives* 2 WD 80 gig HDs* Yada Yada you get the picture 2 1/2 computers worth of stuff.

*= All these items test perfect here. and have been run for no less than 6 hrs each. Motherboards are dead.

SO,, tomorrow morning @ 9AM im picking up the PC.
Any Ideas?

http://www.apc.com/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=BR1000

That's my guess

[Trout]

http://www.apc.com/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=BR1000

That's my guess


Thats My First guess too. She lives in an older upper 1/2 of a home in rockford Illinois. ( Power supply Salesmens paradise)

I had been In a local tech shop,, and we talked about that possibility, His comment was, Then Shes just going to be blowing the APC unit,, Bypassing the Unit to run the PC And Crying to get both fixed.
Financially, She just barely afforded the PC, So, Getting her to make another purchase is not exactly easy.

Oddly Her old POS compaq 133mhz Runs fine there. Though Its not capable of running the programs she rerquires.

But,, Im very inclined to Agree With You~!!
Trout

[Matridom]

Thats My First guess too. She lives in an older upper 1/2 of a home in rockford Illinois. ( Power supply Salesmens paradise)

I had been In a local tech shop,, and we talked about that possibility, His comment was, Then Shes just going to be blowing the APC unit,, Bypassing the Unit to run the PC And Crying to get both fixed.
Financially, She just barely afforded the PC, So, Getting her to make another purchase is not exactly easy.

Oddly Her old POS compaq 133mhz Runs fine there. Though Its not capable of running the programs she rerquires.

But,, Im very inclined to Agree With You~!!
Trout

With the service calls, the replacement hardware, you've already lost money on the sale. I would just buy it myself and give it to her, if it solves the problem, have her pay for it later, if it does not.. then you have a UPS for one of your servers. Eitherway, saves you money in the long run.

That UPS also has a circuit breaker, should never need to reset unless it's totaly blown.. just tell her if it stops working, call you before connecting different stuff.

[Trout]

With the service calls, the replacement hardware, you've already lost money on the sale. I would just buy it myself and give it to her, if it solves the problem, have her pay for it later, if it does not.. then you have a UPS for one of your servers. Eitherway, saves you money in the long run.

That UPS also has a circuit breaker, should never need to reset unless it's totaly blown.. just tell her if it stops working, call you before connecting different stuff.

Might Be a good idea.

Im hoping (possibility) That its got something to do with her monitor really.
The ONLY variable I Havent Run here. Though Its not likely the problem,, I actually owned an old viewsonic monitor once that blew out a couple motherboards.
Oddly,, Nothing else in her homes been affected recently, Nor in the past 6 months. You would think that if it was power related, At least Something else would have fried, Im going to take a line meter over there And Check her voltage, And also take a ground fault checker.
Do you know If Com-ed (power company) Does in home line checks?
Seems to me there might even be fire potential at this point.
Trout

Edit,, Think THIS ONE (http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/APC-Back-UPS-ES-Battery-Backup--BE500U-/sem/rpsm/oid/67909/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do) Would Get Her By?

[Matridom]

the reason i picked the model that i did was for this reason...

Boost and Trim Automatic Voltage Regulation (AVR)

Automatically corrects low and high voltage conditions, allowing you to work through brownouts and overvoltages without discharging the battery. This saves battery life, increases uptime, and improves your productivity.

[Atodini]

Had a case a couple of years back with a homeworker who's PC had died in a very similar way, just about every cap on the mobo had exploded.

This was a service call (new customer). Replaced the mobo and as a precaution, the original generic PSU with an Antec. Get called back a couple of weeks later - same thing, mobo fried.

In this case I ran supply and earth leakage tests on her power supply and found a couple of serious earth faults so before I deployed the newly repaired machine I insisted she get the electricity supplier in to rectify.

They rewired and updated her system, including as per current regulations, an earth trip, which under test constantly tripped out. They traced the fault to her fridge freezer.

Oddly, this was plugged in to the same outlet in the utility room as her computer.... I guess that the spikes it was putting back into the wiring were somehow getting through the PSU and blowing the mobo.

This was over 2 years back and all is still fine - still get to see the machine every few months, mainly to clean up etc.

I still might recommend a UPS to her next time I'm over there though.

John

[Trout]

Todays plan of attack,

Going to pick up her computer, BUT, Im giving her an old Compaq DesKpro 4000 To Run While I have her good PC here.

I put Her Word 2000 And Express scribe in the compaq ( those are needed for her job), Plan is to see If she possible blows it. Though its an old 233mhz /128 meg ram, If it gets her running this weekend, She can get her scribe caught up enough to be down a few days.


Then Im going to run her good PC here a few days, One of my daughters is going to dictate with her Scribe proggie a few days and See what turns up.

If everything works here fine, She's going to have to get the power company over there to check her lines.
Mind you, She paid only 325.00 for this machine, An AMD XP 2400 W/512 PC 2100,80Gig WD CDRW/DVD Combo Drive, Case w/matching Keyboard And Speakers,Optical Mouse,included.
Her Work supplied the XP & SP2 CDs, And She already owned Office 2000.
Buying a $200 power back-up just isnt an option at this point. She could however buy the cheaper one.

Oh,, BTW,, after several conversations with her,, Running her microwave While running a hair dryer in bath room Blows circuit breaker controlling her TV in the living room??? This place cant even be close to code~!!!! I Suspect Multi-tapped Breaker box.
When I asked her about her landlord possibly helping com-Ed on access for power checks,, She Said The Guy Doesnt even supply furnace filters~!!

Not A good situation I Guess.
Trout

[Trout]

OK,,
Got The PC Here,, Interestingly,, After nearly 1 hour of use, Its functioning perfectly. Ran Defrag,, Made 2 copies of a MP3 disk from my library, Now Running A DVD (6th day)haha.

Her Scribe footpedal functions perfectly, Had our daughter type one out for her,, I Cant Seem to get it to Error at all !!

So,, Its narrowed down to #1 Cable modem,, #2 Monitor #3 Power Source.

Giving the situation on power source. Im Pretty sure you guys are correct.
Trout

[SolApathy]

You can purchase a decent UPS for under $100. She does not need something extremely fancy, a 500-650va system from Belkin or APC(around $50-70) would be more than enough & save a lot of hassle.

[Trout]

You can purchase a decent UPS for under $100. She does not need something extremely fancy, a 500-650va system from Belkin or APC(around $50-70) would be more than enough & save a lot of hassle.


OK,, Ive Run The PC on my bench about 24 straight hrs.
This Is Getting More Ridiculous as time goes on.
I Had My Kids Type out several of her Transcripts, We Played a few games,, Burned several more CDs, Yada Yada, Cant Even Get a hint of failure.

I returned her pc. She went home, Plugged everything in to an APC unit
(El-Cheapo) She bought the cheapest battery unit they make.
About 5 Minutes,, PC shuts off, NO Alarm from the APC. Unplug the APC unit, Alarm sounds.

Mind you THIS time, I Sent one of my proven reliable bench monitors, MY bench speakers, And My Bench keyboard . All of which we used while running the PC here.

She has now gone so far as to run an extension cord from her basement nearest the power box to the PC, Only to yeild about 10 minutes.

Solution,, Simple,, Im going to Refund her original money and telling her go buy a F**** E Machine.

Its Still going to leave her dead in the water, No matter what she buys the outcome will be the same,, But Just Cutting my loses.
trout

[SolApathy]

Perhaps you should consider plutting a multimeter in the socket & see what kind of fluctuations you may be getting. Unless you have an o-scope or a decent UPS with software that shows you freq/voltage on the line you will not be able to monitor the line frequency.

As somone stated before it could be wiring, and to further narrow your search it could be something , as stated before that "cycles" like the fridge, an AC unit, heater, electric stove, dryer (heat cycles on/off), washing machine....etc that may not be running when you plug the computer in.

Running the extension cord from the basement is going to be useless as most houses uses a common neutral throughout the house. Any device that is causing problems could still affect the machine.

I know this is a drastic measure, however you can go through the steps of monitoring the multimeter as other devices in the home turn on. The only prob, as I said is that you will not be able to see if you are getting dirty or clean power without an o-scope. You can really only monitor the actual voltage.

If her neighbor will alow her to, have an extension cord run from their hose over to hers to see if the same problem presents itself.


If you do manage to track down the problem you might have lose money on the sale, but that will be one hell of a reference :)

[Trout]

As somone stated before it could be wiring, and to further narrow your search it could be something , as stated before that "cycles" like the fridge, an AC unit, heater, electric stove, dryer (heat cycles on/off), washing machine....etc that may not be running when you plug the computer in.

Running the extension cord from the basement is going to be useless as most houses uses a common neutral throughout the house. Any device that is causing problems could still affect the machine.

I know this is a drastic measure, however you can go through the steps of monitoring the multimeter as other devices in the home turn on. The only prob, as I said is that you will not be able to see if you are getting dirty or clean power without an o-scope. You can really only monitor the actual voltage.

If her neighbor will alow her to, have an extension cord run from their hose over to hers to see if the same problem presents itself.


If you do manage to track down the problem you might have lose money on the sale, but that will be one hell of a reference :)

Welp,
Heres what I personally witnessed.
Turn On The PC IN her home.( PC minus cable modem or Ph line connection)
Everything appears normal, Reponse is normal, Programs open and close as expected,
Suddenly, Without any warning at all. The PC starts running like a P100. Sluggish, Huge delay when you click on anything. About 15 seconds of this, The Screen goes black, Green power LED on case stays on, Monitor LED swiches from green to amber(standby) No Drive activity.
Turn it off,, unplug it, It restarts and repeats above scenerio only thing that seems to vary is the length of time beore it "HITS" 3 -10 minute generally.
Ive never heard or seen anything like this before. Nothing in her home shows any sign of being affected.

EDIT: Elcheapo APC unit did not go to alarm. Nor did it switch to battery, It seemed to sit there doing nothing, Until i pulled the power cord from the wall, Then It went to battery. At that point, I gave up further risk/testing at her home.

I actually DO have an oscilloscope, An old BK, I know it works,, but honestly, I have no manual for it, and really dont know exactly how to use it. I bought it at an estate auction and planned on trying to locate manuals ect for testing a home brew guitar tube project im building.


I feel bad for this gal,, 3 motherboards,2 power supplies fried ,Tried 2 entirely different CPUs And Ram Chips hard drives, and modems. And Ive gotten nowhere. Shes lost 2 Transcript clients, 2 weeks pay ( They Pay Bi-weekly ) And her patients has worn extremely thin as well as mine.

I See no resolution other than refund her and let someone else give her the bad news.

[SolApathy]

well as I said, see if her neighbor will let you run the test. You may have to place the computer in the garage or something to make the cord reach, but at this point all you can do is attempt to rule out her house wiring. Unless she lets you bring the machine inside.

It could very well be a ground fault issue, bad neutral...etc...

If you have any electrical experience at all you might consider looking at the breaker box & check out the neutral bar. YOu might be suffering from a loose connection there.


But I would see if the neighbor is willing to cooperate, first.





Here is another question or two.. how hot is it in her house, is the area she places the computer well ventilated?

Is the power cord possibly faulty?

[Trout]

Here is another question or two.. how hot is it in her house, is the area she places the computer well ventilated?

Is the power cord possibly faulty?

Temps about 70 degrees, Case Has lower Front fan blowing in, A HS fan is rated for an AMD XP3200 on a XP2400
PS fan blowing out. Setting no floor next to desk. Clear of all furniture no carpet.
Power cord is the one I used here.

I checked case and CPU temp via bios, Everything was normal for that setup.
Com ED ( power company ) Is going to check her lines IN,, But they wont touch the internal.
Have you ever heard of an EMI/RFI Noise Filtering problem that might be the source?
Im looking for a ferrit cored Powercord now,, To try to see if its perhaps something thats needing filtered out.

Though Im Very Inclined to think its the wiring, Short of renting a generater Ive Bout hit the wall on this.

[gazzak]

Like most opinions here I have to go 100% with power. A long time ago a company of mine had serious issues with a copier at a Government building. It would blow A/C power boards once a month regularly. After the 4th one went some bright spark decided to test the power supply. The live and neutral were reversed. However, the copier would put up with it and work OK until it just seemed to have had enough and then go bang. This looks sort of what you're getting with power. Just one more thought, does this woman live near a mobile phone transmitter, I mean REALLY near, as I've heard rumours of those seriously affecting some PC's.

[RejectionMan]

you can get a chepo tester that just plugs into the wall out let fro places lke radio shack.
here (http://www.tripplite.com/products/static/ct120.cfm)

it will tell you if there is a major big time problem with the wireing.

I have heard of sillimar problems with people that live in rural areas or on city outskirts where their power is delived by under ground cable. It turns out that a burried cable can act as a capacitator when one leg of a 3 phase circuit is considerably longer than the others. This results in a massive discharge every so often usualy blowing all sensitive electronics on the long leg.

The fact that your UPS does nothing is interesting, it should have some kind of reaction... do the lights in the house happen to get dimmer / brighter ? The UPS may be unable to detect a fault due to cross wireing (Nutral/hot revers, or missing ground, or ground nutral reverse...)

In any event Your best plan of action is problay to do what you have done, and bail out on the client giving her a full refund, something is obviously wrong on her end and you should not be resoponible for any site problems that may be causing this. especialy if there are going to be problems getting her to investigate a possible issue, some times you just cant win.

[Puke]

Temps about 70 degrees, Case Has lower Front fan blowing in, A HS fan is rated for an AMD XP3200 on a XP2400
PS fan blowing out. Setting no floor next to desk. Clear of all furniture no carpet.
Power cord is the one I used here.

I checked case and CPU temp via bios, Everything was normal for that setup.
Com ED ( power company ) Is going to check her lines IN,, But they wont touch the internal.
Have you ever heard of an EMI/RFI Noise Filtering problem that might be the source?
Im looking for a ferrit cored Powercord now,, To try to see if its perhaps something thats needing filtered out.

Though Im Very Inclined to think its the wiring, Short of renting a generater Ive Bout hit the wall on this.


Gee, what a thread. Go by a constant voltage transformer with a meter.
I have never in my life seen a situation where an item that is supposed to work on 120vac was replaced because it wouldn't work on 90??? (actually, most heavy duty equip. gives you the exact voltage you cannot go below before frying it).
The catch is, you are usually very lucky to find out that there was inadequete power. Attempting to run ANY UNIT (be it power tool , computer, television, guitar amplifier,e tc.,) on something other than the rated voltage, is classified as abusel, and that should be the end of that.
Another note; we had a studio for a long time, and even before computers became common, we always used "JUICE GOOSE" transformers to keep the voltage right at 117, tubes lasted much longer. and things behaved much better. The voltage could get down to under 90 volts (this is at close to 500 watts) before the voltage would even come down one volt).
After the first replacement, I would be asking her for payment for ALL repairs. It is VERY REASONABLE to assume that the power is at least somewhat close to what it should be. I agree computer power supplies are garbage compared to real ones, but they don't pull enough power to affect the voltage themselves.
it is WINTER, and if she is running a little elctric heater or something, that would easily pull the voltage down a few volts...especially if her a/c is not that hot..And especiallhy if it was wired with 14 ga instead of 12 ga.
OK , enough babble. I know little about computers, but a whole lot of experience with repairs caused by inadequete power.