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RePost: Sony PCV-RZ14G computer

Original post:

"Twice a day or once a month or whatever, this computer goes dead. The LCD monitor goes black and the keyboard becomes non-responsive (Caps Lock does not light the LED). The USB ports also seem to go dead as disconnecting/reconnecting them does not produce the audio bong. The fans are running and the LED on the mother board is lit.

Pressing and holding the front panel power switch will shut it down and then pressing it again will power it back up and it ALWAYS boots normally.

Have tried:

1/dismounting all the boards and reseating them (including RAM) 2/dismounting the processor and reseating it 3/cleaning out the dust bunnies 4/reseating all the connectors 5/pushing and tapping all over the place when it is normal trying to force it to fail but that never happens."

Now, on to what I have just learned. While chatting on Skype, I clicked on the video button (the one that starts and stops video transmission) and the computer entered its dead mode. Amazingly, I can repeat this behavior! It sometimes takes many clicks on that button, by the way.

I am thinking that the Skype software call to the video card (it is a NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440) is one heck of a clue. But, what is actually happening? Is the card putting the processor into an endless cycle of interrupts? Is the card jamming the bus?

By the way, the computer does not have to be running Skype to fail.

Any ideas out there?

Reply to
Charles Schuler
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Try a new PSU ! See if that helps.

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Baron:
Reply to
Baron

Thanks Baron, but why would the power supply be an issue in this case?

Reply to
Charles Schuler

You seem to be describing a sudden change in power loading that would cause the PSU to shutdown if it was close to the limit of its power handling capability.

The way to test this is to swap out the PSU and see if the problem goes away.

I had a client that was having problems burning a DVD. Within a few seconds of starting to burn, the machine shut down. New PSU cured the problem. The original PSU was only 190 Watts !!! The machine never had a burner originally. The installation of the DVD burner just pushed an already marginal PSU over the top.

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Baron:
Reply to
Baron

That is an extra load (burning a DVD), but in my case the computer will often fail when it is just sitting there. Granted that it is on the Internet and could be downloading a virus update at the time. However, hard disk activity seems to be unrelated to the failure mode that I am experiencing.

So, you would recommend changing the power supply before the video card?

Reply to
Charles Schuler

I assume you're running Win2K or WinXP

Take a look in C:\WinNT\Minidump and see if there are any crash dump files. These are a snapshot of what's going on as the computer crashes. If it's a straight hardware failure, you won't have crash dumps. In that place I'd probably lean towards swapping out the power supply. BUT if it's in any way software-related (which it seems to be given that it's reproducible by performing a particular SW activity such as you relate with Skype) you'll have a crash dump. The dump files are named according to the date and time of occurance. To analyze the dump:

  1. Install windows debugging tools from the Microsoft site.
  2. Run WinDbg and configure according to docs (i.e. you'll have to either download the symbol libraries (huge) or link to the MS symbol server). Set both the symbol and image source directories.
  3. Open up the crash dump file. You'll get an abbreviated explanation. Type "!analyze -v" and scan the output... it will normally tell you what file is causing the fault.

Good luck, these things can be a bastard to track down.

Dave

Reply to
Dave

Yes I agree ! I was just trying to illustrate that it takes/took very little to cause a problem !

As I originally suggested just swap the PSU our with another one and see if that changes or alters the situation. Obviously you need to use a PSU that is of equal or greater wattage rating.

I doubt that the video card itself is the culprit !

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Baron:
Reply to
Baron

I agree ! The trick is to discover if its hardware or software ! But in my opinion, if the hardware is dodgy, then the software will never be right !

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Baron:
Reply to
Baron

I am using XP home. There is no Minidump folder. I went to the control panel and the computer is configured to dump. I search for .dmp files and found three very old ones in a Temporary folder.

Thanks for your help.

Reply to
Charles Schuler

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