[CS-FSLUG] Mobo dying?

[Ed Hurst]

Jerry VanBrimmer wrote:

>>Three different souncards, detected and driver working. System thinks 
>>the sound is going through, but there's nothing. Speakers work fine with 
>>other systems.
> 
> I know your smarter than this Ed, but is the mixer volume turned up?

Of course, but I'm not insulted by that. I've gotten pretty good at 
sound under FreeBSD, and it's *really* gone.

>>Five different NICs. Same story. Detected, configured, working according 
>>to system info, but nothing happens. Ping says it can't get past the 
>>card, and the lights don't flash on the switch. I've been careful to 
>>configure each one, and establish a proper route in the tables, and 
>>everything shows it ought to be there.
> 
> Did you try bypassing the switch?

According to what another message said, I'd have to have a different 
cable. All my donated ones are for use with switches, as far as I can tell.

>>ISA cards, bridged via PCI, aren't detected at all. All other hardware 
>>seems to be working fine.
> 
> Did all of this happen all of a sudden, or slowly?
> Did you zap the mobo with static electricity?

There were some other symptoms, but alone they never got my attention: 
screen display would shift a bit from time to time. Once I began playing 
with NICs, it would occasionally shut off for just a few seconds, then 
come back as if nothing had happened. I'm pretty careful about static 
electricity. I don't have a ground strap, but I usually grab a large 
metal shelf next to the machine first, then pull the power cord, etc.

Now, I've pulled all the PCI and ISA stuff, with only my AGP slot 
occupied. I also downgraded to FreeBSD 4.9, just to make sure it wasn't 
something undocumented in the new 5.x series. While the system works 
better, the PCI and ISA slots are still near dead.

> That's all I can think of. Possibly your suspicions are correct. Sorry. :(

Between you and Fred, I'm already making a backup plan. I have the 
laptop, but I prefer the big monitor, so I'll be prepping an old 
Prosignia next week, adding another SCSI drive and so forth. It has 
maybe 128MB RAM (compared to my current half-GB), and a Pentium 233Mhz. 
As long as I run IceWM or XFce 3.x, it'll be just fine. Even got a nice 
old Compaq Glory 8MB video card.

-- 
Ed Hurst
-----------
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