98SE & stability

[gerald_weigel]

I had a major foul up on my pc, ended up replacing everything except mobo, FDD, and video. A surge from my PS killed it all, I also noticed that afterwards, my onboard sound was dead, and now 98SE is locking up about once a day. I'm thinking I should replace the mobo, any thoughts?

[meese]

Was it a lightning strike or AC power surge in your area? How did you PS surge? If it was a lightning strike or something you may have fried a few things in the pc. You could try a PCI audio card, but you most likely are better off replacing the motherboard.

[nukes]

If you had a power surge, it probably did some damage to the mobo as well. Its probably best to replace it, unless it works when you disable the sound.

[gerald_weigel]

The mobo works even though the onboard sound wouldn't. I put in a PCI sound card, and it's ok.

The surge originated from the PS. And Yeah, I was thinking I should replace the mobo, but then I gotta listen to my wife "You want to spend MORE money on computer parts?!"

[dunbar]

Did you try to reset the BIOS?

[John Prophet]

When I was at a comp store, we used to see lots of lightning damage....more than once I saw a modem make a whole system lock up..you take the bad modem out and everything was fine.

Maybe just pull out your pci cards one by one and see of the problem goes away when you pull out a certain card etc.


You can also physically look at your motherboard..there are little things on it called "capacitors"

Sometimes when you have a surge, some of the capacitors will "blow"...usually when they do they will bulge out at the top

I found you a picture of a bulged out cap

If you look here -----> http://www.feistworks.com/3comfix/

the 2nd pic down, the 2nd capacitor from the left...the one that has "470uf" marked on it...you'll notice it is bulged out on the top..normally they are flat...so you can look at your motherboard and see if any of the capacitors are bulged out like that...it is possible to replace them but I have no clue what someone would charge. Plus if they are damaged there could be other damage to the board as well.

JP

JP

[gerald_weigel]

I didn't see anything damaged, and everything that was plugged in was "onboard" so there is no card I could pull to check. Everything runs fine otherwise. It's just Win98 locks up every once in a while, it looks like it's loading up: you get the desktop, icons, and most of the system tray, and then the hourglass pointer takes over the regular pointer, and there she sits. It works after a reboot, though.

I'll just have to let it get under my wife's skin so she agrees with me that we need to get it fixed At least then it's not my fault I had to buy more parts.

[jmichna]

Originally posted by gerald_weigel
...I'll just have to let it get under my wife's skin so she agrees with me that we need to get it fixed At least then it's not my fault I had to buy more parts.

I'll bet you're married more than 10 years

Your strategy is a sound one (as judged by someone who was sentenced.... er, married on 12/12/81)