For all of us undertaking A+, lets do some work together...

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They do actually tell you in the A+ write down a library of all the faults you have fixed for future use and as a reference point.

To some that may mean the answer is in the book.

 

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How about getting one of these, it might help diagnostics your problem if do not hearing any beep codes or 4led code devices I used which my motherboard uses rather than beep codes.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&_trksid=p284.m185&_trkparms=algo%3DSI%26its%3DI%26itu%3DUCI%26otn%3D4%26ps%3D42&item=290272979432&refwidgettype=osi_widget&itemcount=4&sspagename=MERCOSI_VI_ROSI_PR4_PCN_BIX_Stores&refwidgetloc=closed_view_item&refitem=280279139700&viewitem=&salenotsupported

 

POST cards

Thats what i use, however, not seen that make before. I might try one of those.

Mine also checks bus voltages and also has a diagnostic option rom for burn in tests, ram test, etc

i see that one does voltages

 

Hello everybody.
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you all.
Josiahb, yes, I have already given the motherboard a good look and the capacitors seem in good perfect condition however I must admit that I didn’t yet taken it from the tower, that'll be my next steep.
The motherboard is a WINFAST 761GXK8MB with a AMD Athlon 64.

I have reset the BIOS to default but haven't yet changed them to optimum settings.
It has been a bit of rushing about lately but this pc is proving to be a great experience.

Sorry you all for the delay in getting back to you all and very much appreciated for all your comments.

Will post more about it soon and maybe about the video on YouTube, never really thought about it, I just might do it just need the time to.

Take care everybody,
Great comments, keep them coming,
Albert, C

 

All of that is irrelevant when all we would need to do is pick up the phone and ask for warranty support. Processor/RAM/PSU/component arrives, we swap, we box up the old one and return it (if they wanted it back).

And besides... it's good to be the senior tech on staff, because then you get to help set policy instead of having to answer to a seemingly irrational one.

 

Not sure what your level of experience is so I apologise if this information is nothing new, badcaps can be difficult to spot as a help here is an image showing blown motherboard caps. They can also blow at the base so having a look with the mobo out of the case is definitely a good idea.

If you take a look at the caps and find the name of the manufacturer on them and compare it to this list that may give you an idea of whether you need to replace them. If you do, that site has all the info on how to go about it if the board is no longer under warranty.

Just as an extra note if you do replace caps it is at your own risk this poster accepts no responsibilty should you turn the board into no more than an odd looking christmas tree decoration!

 

Good info on the blown cap front dude, I haven't yet had to check any and had images of them bulging at the sides in quite an obvious manner when somebody mentioned it in this thread, so seeing the pic is very helpful as it is actually not the obvious if your not looking for it.

 

We were the warranty support, worked for a small company that had contract for national retail company.

But the last place I worked was so large we almost had the DELL man once a week to sort that side of things out.

 

Thanks Markyboyt, I only discovered all this fairly recently when dealing with a few blown TFTs in the office.

My thanks go to all the guys at www.badcaps.net for helping me save the company I work with a few hundred pounds and earning me a hefty amount of browny points in the process

 

If you have come across bad capacitators yourself a number of times how does the pc react each and every time that this is the fault?

Doe the pc boot into windows with one or more bad capacitators?

Does the machine start up at all?

Are there blue screens at anytime?

There is no point just saying bad capacitators,but not giving the list of symptoms related to that fault.If the pc can never boot to windows with bad capacitators then that isn't the fault for instance.

At least i gave the results and what you would expect to see with each fault i've listed.

Tell us what the symptoms are of bad capacitators? if the topic is to learn,and use our experience ,it makes sense to debate the problem.

I have never come across bad capacitators,how many times have you seen them?

I can talk about power surges,and damaged processors,and various other faults,as i've come across them before, and the symptoms are repeated each time.

 

Some times bad/blown caps cause no problems, but from my time with dell they ranged from intermittent shutdowns to no post.

 

Bad capacitors can look a lot like PSU failure. Essentially the gunk from the leaking capacitors causes a short on the motherboard and more often than not - irrepairable damage to the board itself. I have seen bad capacitors quite a lot on older machines.

 

Dell used to inculde them free of charge in the older Optiplex's

 

Leaking capacitors?...

 

This is why I included links to other resources, my experience with bad caps is largely related to monitors as I said above but the symptoms list available on badcaps.net are fairly comprehensive. As was said above, cap failure can look a lot like a power supply failure, with failure to boot and random restarts etc. You will probably see high CPU temps under moderate load and erratic Vcore and other system voltages as well, but obviously to get a reading on these you system has to be able to boot.

On a slightly different topic, the tone of your post could use a little work, if I was a more sensitive personality type I may have found it offensive. At no point did I say 'its bad capacitors' I followed up on a suggestion earlier in the thread regarding visible damage to the board which had not been ticked off the list of checks, fault finding must be structured, one test or change completed before the next is undertaken and all must be documented or else you find yourself checking the power supply voltages without first checking the machine is plugged into the wall .

I would guess your reply was coloured by my previous post on the subject of fault lists which was the result of wasting many hours of my college career listing possible faults and their solutions with no practical examples. Maintaining a list of the faults and solutions you've come across 'in the wild' is one thing, listing faults and solutions with no real basis in reality is another.

 

At least you have given some information now about what to expect with bad capacitators,my post may have come across as strongly worded but you gave no real reason for the bad capicator speech in the first place.
It's like me saying the fault is possibly caused by the processor and then not explain to anyone why i felt it was the processor.

 

Hello everybody. I am back with some more news and questions. Sorry for getting back to your comments so late but I am still here and unfortunately the problem still lies ahead

1-On power up and going into CMOS it states CPU=21C System=24C CPU Fan=2083

2-Startup in safe mode, loads windows Vista and works for about 20 minutes and then shuts down

3-It won't boot up again unless I clear CMOS.

4-Startup once again, not in safe mode and it loads windows Vista. Works fine for another 20 minutes and then again dies.

5-Before it dies on me like after 15 minutes just browsing through files and surfing the net I then restarted it and went into BIOS to recheck the system info. It reads CPU=41C System=35C which I believe are perfectly acceptable temperatures. The settings are to shutdown on 65C. I know it's not a temperature problem for sure as it reads in CMOS settings and I am almost certain that if it was a temperature issue that the onboard speaker would beep as always has in the past but different motherboards, would this one be different?

6-When powering up the system the floppy drive lit up the green light even though there is no power connecting it. Is this normal? Never seen this before.

Anyways I have purchased a motherboard bundle from eBay for a second machine of mine and it is the same socket as this one socket A (399), so I'll be testing the CPU and memory on another motherboard.

By the way all the caps seem pretty solid, so I’d say no problems there.

Thank you all for all of your comments and wow have I learned from this. Thanks a bunch everybody and please keep your comments coming. Information is the weapon on IT.

You all take care,
Albert, C

 

It must be connected otherwise there would be no light, are the cables the correct way around? improperly connected cables can cause crazy issues like this. It could also be a data cable the wrong way around or not connect properly.

 

Hi there,
well it sounds to me like the PSU has gone Kaput and has probably taken the mainboard with it. This is a favourite pass time for the despicable 'e machines' and ones of similar ilk. Cheap nasty under powered PSU's eventually frying the mainboard. Am I correct?

 

No, it is not connected to it as I have personally unplugged it myself and remember that this was happening when the systems on PSU was physically connected to it but I was using another exterior PSU and no power was being provided to the systems unit, no power cord going to the systems PSU.