28 Apr
2012
28 Apr
'12
1:22 a.m.
On 28/04/2012 00:54, Toby Thain wrote:
And *still* it's rarely done.
In fact the PC is often thrown out when the pre-installed operating
system "rots" or the hard drive dies.
Drive rot seems to be getting common. I have lost a few drives that way
recently. No particular pattern, just failing to find files on boot.
However I have had to throw out a couple of systems recently.
Individually the systems seemed to work fine, but when I put an OS on
them, after a while they start to corrupt disks. Where I work one
symptoms is that the AV starts to complain about corruption to the
signature files. You re-install but after a few days its back. Then
some time later you start to get odd errors about missing DLLs and
eventually the system won't boot. I have tried replacing RAM but it
seems to make no difference.
I get the feeling its the DMA controller but these days as every thing
is in a couple of chips you can't do much at that stage and as they are
older systems CPUs and Mother Boards aren't easily obtainable.
On 27/04/12 4:38 PM, Eric Smith wrote:
> Tony Duell wrote:
>> No, those don;'t turn it into a PDP8. I want blinkenlights,
>
> Modern PCs often give you millions of those.
>
>> either POSbus, NEGbus or Omnibus I/O,
>
> Modern PCs have a positive bus.
>
>> and most importantly, compoennts i can replace individually. -tony
>
> Modern PCs do have components you can replace individually. There is
> some variation, but typically the replaceable components are:
>
> * system unit
> * monitor
> * power cable (typically two)
> * video cable
> * keyboard
> * mouse
>
I think you can add CPU although many laptop/netbook CPUs are soldered
in. I just replaced the motherboard in my IBM T41 (actually with a T42
mother board) and much to my surprise the CPU was socketed. Perhaps
because IBM gave 3-year warranties with these beasts.
Then there's the bad caps problem. Almost NONE of
these get replaced
even though it's a trivial *component level* repair that doesn't need
a schematic. It seems very likely that more than 99% of LCDs that fail
in this way unnecessarily end up in landfill, when most of the
components would outlive the owner.
There is some hope. A search on E-Bay reveals that many folks are
selling capacitor kits for a wide range of gear. The trouble is we are
lazy and if folks have enough money then its easier and nicer to bin the
old one and get a new one. Perhaps the turn-down will change attitudes
in Europe but I think not. I may be old fahsioned but I can't see how a
country can exist on shopping and finance "industry" which is what it
seems my (UK) government thinks. From what I can see any profit a bank
makes is money that could have been spent on tangible assets ....
I have had a new PSU in my 42" TV , I assume because of caps blowing but
it was covered under warranty. I have an LCD computer display that has
had the caps re-done. Some times it doesn't work. I lost an ADSL router
that way, but something else must have been damaged. However replacing
the caps on a motherboard isn't as straight forward as it sounds.
Getting the old ones out and getting holes clean enough to get the new
ones in is challenging. My usual trick of using propelling pencil lead
didn't work and I eventually resorted to a drill bit in a pin vice.
However one CPU board I did for a friend
--T
Dave
G4UGM