Memtest fatal blow to marginal mobo??

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Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

e machines PIII 500 mhz, 128 megs stick, ECS P6BAT-A+ mobo.
Computer was dodgy when I received it from a customer.
Unstable everywhere. Errors during fresh win98 install, etc.

I ran memtest which indicated 220 errors and other problems.
After that test, I could not get that thing to boot. I suspected I
pushed possibly partially working ram over the edge with memtest, but
I replaced the ram and vid--no joy. Replaced everything except CPU and
mobo. Boot fail every time--nothing, blank screen--sometimes a long,
short, short beep code (vid but sometimes mobo error for Award BIOS).

I'm thinking the mobo was actually in the process of failing and
memtest pushed it over the edge. Ideas?
Dave

 

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Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

On Wed, 21 Apr 2004 17:35:35 -0700, DaveH <ddhartwick@earthlink.net>
wrote:

>e machines PIII 500 mhz, 128 megs stick, ECS P6BAT-A+ mobo.
>Computer was dodgy when I received it from a customer.
>Unstable everywhere. Errors during fresh win98 install, etc.
>
>I ran memtest which indicated 220 errors and other problems.
>After that test, I could not get that thing to boot. I suspected I
>pushed possibly partially working ram over the edge with memtest, but
>I replaced the ram and vid--no joy. Replaced everything except CPU and
>mobo. Boot fail every time--nothing, blank screen--sometimes a long,
>short, short beep code (vid but sometimes mobo error for Award BIOS).
>
>I'm thinking the mobo was actually in the process of failing and
>memtest pushed it over the edge. Ideas?
>Dave

It's extremely unlikely that you "pushed possibly working ram over the
edge with memtest".

Perhaps the memory was/is a problem, but if it'd worked previously it
generally won't just get worse without external factors, like the power
supply or motherboard dying (slowly).

Since you replaced everything except CPU and mobo, and since the CPUs
generally don't fail unless heatsink comes off or extreme temp with a fan
failure, the odds are that the motherboard is the culprit.

I'm not suggesting the memtest or anything else "pushed it over the edge"
though. Most likely the machine had be flaky but suddenly worsened, and
at the point where you received it, it would've degraded further no matter
what was running, even sitting at windows desktop.

If it were my box I'd consider hunting down an everything-integrated
PLE133T (chipset based) motherboard and run a Celeron Tualatin 1.4GHz in
it. That's about the most performance you could hope to squeeze out of
the existing power supply, chassis/cooling, and still be able to reuse the
PC100/133 memory.