On Tuesday 28 August 2012 21:57:43 Alex Schuster wrote:
> I wrote:
> > Well, all I can do now is to get a new board and see if things will
> > be okay then.
> [...]
> So I had to wait. And when it became available, I wondered if it
> might be the processor instead that has the problem, so I let the PC
> shop diagnose CPU and board. This took until today, and they
> confirmed it was the board indeed, not the CPU.

Let me get this straight. The shop ran tests and concluded that the
motherboard was faulty, not the CPU?

> Fine, I bought the board

...it having been tested and found faulty!

> guess what - it doesn't work.

Sorry, but I must be misreading this. You've said that the board was
diagnosed faulty, but you bought it anyway and it turned out faulty.
Where is the mystery?

Is this a problem with the English language? I thought I knew it inside-
out, upside-down and back-to-front. I still think so. Yet your account
has you tying yourself in knots over a known fault.

--
Rgds
Peter

On Tue, Aug 28, 2012 at 8:15 PM, Peter Humphrey
<peter@humphrey.ukfsn.org> wrote:
> On Tuesday 28 August 2012 21:57:43 Alex Schuster wrote:
>> I wrote:
>> > Well, all I can do now is to get a new board and see if things will
>> > be okay then.
>> [...]
>> So I had to wait. And when it became available, I wondered if it
>> might be the processor instead that has the problem, so I let the PC
>> shop diagnose CPU and board. This took until today, and they
>> confirmed it was the board indeed, not the CPU.
>
> Let me get this straight. The shop ran tests and concluded that the
> motherboard was faulty, not the CPU?
>
>> Fine, I bought the board
>
> ...it having been tested and found faulty!
>
>> guess what - it doesn't work.
>
> Sorry, but I must be misreading this. You've said that the board was
> diagnosed faulty, but you bought it anyway and it turned out faulty.
> Where is the mystery?

The test would have been done on his old board, which the shop
diagnosed to be faulty. Having had that diagnosed, he proceeded to buy
a new board, which also failed.

>
> Is this a problem with the English language? I thought I knew it inside-
> out, upside-down and back-to-front. I still think so. Yet your account
> has you tying yourself in knots over a known fault.

Too many uses of the insufficiently-explicit "the board"...but (in
English) such ambiguities are usually resolved by surrounding context.

--
:wq

On Wed, 29 Aug 2012 01:15:30 +0100
Peter Humphrey <peter@humphrey.ukfsn.org> wrote:

> On Tuesday 28 August 2012 21:57:43 Alex Schuster wrote:
> > I wrote:
> > > Well, all I can do now is to get a new board and see if things
> > > will be okay then.
> > [...]
> > So I had to wait. And when it became available, I wondered if it
> > might be the processor instead that has the problem, so I let the PC
> > shop diagnose CPU and board. This took until today, and they
> > confirmed it was the board indeed, not the CPU.
>
> Let me get this straight. The shop ran tests and concluded that the
> motherboard was faulty, not the CPU?
>
> > Fine, I bought the board
>
> ...it having been tested and found faulty!
>
> > guess what - it doesn't work.
>
> Sorry, but I must be misreading this. You've said that the board was
> diagnosed faulty, but you bought it anyway and it turned out faulty.
> Where is the mystery?
>
> Is this a problem with the English language? I thought I knew it
> inside- out, upside-down and back-to-front. I still think so. Yet
> your account has you tying yourself in knots over a known fault.
>

No, not at all. He means (just read the whole mail with a view to
understanding the communication, not finding the grammar faults) that
the shop diagnosed the old board was faulty so he bought a new board
which involved a week's wait.

That board now might be faulty too.
Most obvious cause: Something is breaking the motherboards.
Most obvious root cause: PSU

Rule #1 in dealing with odd weird strange computer faults is ALWAYS
test with another PSU of at least twice the capacity you think you need.





--
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com

On Tue, 28 Aug 2012 20:28:31 -0400
Michael Mol <mikemol@gmail.com> wrote:

> > Is this a problem with the English language? I thought I knew it
> > inside- out, upside-down and back-to-front. I still think so. Yet
> > your account has you tying yourself in knots over a known fault.
>
> Too many uses of the insufficiently-explicit "the board"...but (in
> English) such ambiguities are usually resolved by surrounding context.

<evil thought>
hey, here's an idea, let's fix that by using Hungarian decorators on all
English nouns!

--
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com

On Tue, Aug 28, 2012 at 8:37 PM, Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 28 Aug 2012 20:28:31 -0400
> Michael Mol <mikemol@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> > Is this a problem with the English language? I thought I knew it
>> > inside- out, upside-down and back-to-front. I still think so. Yet
>> > your account has you tying yourself in knots over a known fault.
>>
>> Too many uses of the insufficiently-explicit "the board"...but (in
>> English) such ambiguities are usually resolved by surrounding context.
>
> <evil thought>
> hey, here's an idea, let's fix that by using Hungarian decorators on all
> English nouns!

What, and get Esperanto? (Or Latin. Or Italian. Or Spanish.)


--
:wq

Alan McKinnon wrote:
> Rule #1 in dealing with odd weird strange computer faults is ALWAYS
> test with another PSU of at least twice the capacity you think you need.

+1 I always start with the P/S. Well, unless I see something else
unrelated letting the smoke out. Even then tho, a bad P/S can cause the
smoke to get out of something else too. It's good advice all the way
around.

Why not let the computer shop test the P/S? If it blows up something of
theirs, it's bad. ;-)

Dale

:-) :-)

--
I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how you interpreted my words!

On Wednesday 29 August 2012 01:29:00 Alan McKinnon wrote:

> No, not at all. He means (just read the whole mail with a view to
> understanding the communication, not finding the grammar faults)

That's what I did. I read the words he wrote, several times. Grammar
faults? I noticed none.

--
Rgds
Peter

On Tue, 28 Aug 2012 20:04:55 -0500
Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com> wrote:

> Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > Rule #1 in dealing with odd weird strange computer faults is ALWAYS
> > test with another PSU of at least twice the capacity you think you
> > need.
>
> +1 I always start with the P/S. Well, unless I see something else
> unrelated letting the smoke out. Even then tho, a bad P/S can cause
> the smoke to get out of something else too. It's good advice all the
> way around.
>
> Why not let the computer shop test the P/S? If it blows up something
> of theirs, it's bad. ;-)



You obviously have a much better opinion of the average repair techie
than I do. The average repair techie would know how to fault find his
way out of a paper bag - the "change bits till it starts working" is
the only technique they know.

That's not to say you don't get good ones - you do - but they are rare.





--
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com

On Tue, 28 Aug 2012 20:43:29 -0400
Michael Mol <mikemol@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Aug 28, 2012 at 8:37 PM, Alan McKinnon
> <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Tue, 28 Aug 2012 20:28:31 -0400
> > Michael Mol <mikemol@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> > Is this a problem with the English language? I thought I knew it
> >> > inside- out, upside-down and back-to-front. I still think so. Yet
> >> > your account has you tying yourself in knots over a known fault.
> >>
> >> Too many uses of the insufficiently-explicit "the board"...but (in
> >> English) such ambiguities are usually resolved by surrounding
> >> context.
> >
> > <evil thought>
> > hey, here's an idea, let's fix that by using Hungarian decorators
> > on all English nouns!
>
> What, and get Esperanto? (Or Latin. Or Italian. Or Spanish.)
>
>

Or Fanagalo.

It exists - go on, google it :-)



--
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com

Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On Tue, 28 Aug 2012 20:04:55 -0500
> Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Alan McKinnon wrote:
>>> Rule #1 in dealing with odd weird strange computer faults is ALWAYS
>>> test with another PSU of at least twice the capacity you think you
>>> need.
>> +1 I always start with the P/S. Well, unless I see something else
>> unrelated letting the smoke out. Even then tho, a bad P/S can cause
>> the smoke to get out of something else too. It's good advice all the
>> way around.
>>
>> Why not let the computer shop test the P/S? If it blows up something
>> of theirs, it's bad. ;-)
>
>
> You obviously have a much better opinion of the average repair techie
> than I do. The average repair techie would know how to fault find his
> way out of a paper bag - the "change bits till it starts working" is
> the only technique they know.
>
> That's not to say you don't get good ones - you do - but they are rare.
>
>

I worked on a friends rig a couple months ago. It would reboot at
random. She runs windows so I tried booting a Linux CD. It did the
same thing. Eliminates a bad OS, well, windoze is still bad but
anyway. lol I checked for dust bunnies, reseated the memory stick,
only one of them, and it did the same. So, off to the computer shop I
go. I got a P/S and a new stick of ram, she only had 512M so it was dog
slow. The computer place tested both parts on the spot for me. They
actually plugged the P/S into a mobo and turned it on for a few
minutes. Anyway, put in the ram which gave her 1.5Gb and in goes the
new P/S. It has worked ever since.

The two best tools to diagnose a computer problem is this. Smoke and
the beep codes. Most important one is first. I also HATE random
problems. If you are going to die, just don't cut on at all. At least
we know where to start. ^_^

Dale

:-) :-)

--
I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how you interpreted my words!