back to basics

[murphy1]

Hi everybody.
just wanted to pass a little story on here.

I built and sold an older machine to a little old lady, she just wanted to get on the net and have room for exspansion for the future. I built a pentium class machine with an abit board(soft bios) amd k62 233
32 megs ram, and all the ussuall items. This machine ran flawless for 6 weeks in my basment work shop, I do mean flawless, not 1
lockup. When she had saved enough for the machine, took it too her house and set it up, and tutoured her for about 3 hours,(for free, she is a senior after all). for two days all was fine, the she called, the computer keeps locking up on her. It only locked up on the web. she had a friend install netscape.AHA!! i though, i hate nutsctrape so it is the proplem. noT!!!
though it might be just a web page she was viewing...not!!! i spent more than a week trying to track it down. I would go to her house, it would lock up. i would take it home, it would be perfect....what the heck i though.......One night while i was over there working on it, i though WHEW it is HOT in here...ding ding ding. hmmm it is cold in my basment, hot in here..i wonder..

I slowed down the cpu to 200 mhz( i love soft bios) and viola!!! problem solved.. I found out that she keeps her thermostat at around 78 degrees, but turns it down when company comes....I installed a bigass heatsink, and the problem was cured.

I guess the moral is don't forget the basics, heat can be a real tricky one to diagnose.Especially on an amd or cyrix system
thanks for reading...Murphy

[Garfeild_Cat]

murphy1:

It has been a little while since I last posted here. But I had a little free time and found your post.

Serious question ~ ~ ~ What in darn HECK do you mean you installed a heatsink on the cpu??? That should have been standard!!!!!! (with a fan)..

You were very considerate to put together a base system for a senior but you could have save yourself and her time by doing it right first! (You are a tech after all)

That is almost as bad as the person that could not get their "Komputor" to boot in the daytime. (Light switch controlled the outlet also ~ ~ funny part is they were an electrician!!! )

[shawnMt]

uuhhh - hey Garfeild??

I think what murphy means is he installed a BIG heatsink/fan to replace the average sized heatsink/fan. Lets try not to jump overboard ok?

[Shinma]

Now, now, he said,"BIGASS" heatsink! Let's be precise.

[SavagePenguin]

So I'm assuming that the old lady had a small hot *** before, right?