- Oct 26, 2001
- 1,068
- 0
- 19,280
I have this ancient, let's say 7 yr old system that I use mainly as a file server. It is based on an Iwill DVD266u-RN motherboard with two 1.28 GHz P3 Tulatian processors and 1GB RAM. It contains 10 hard drives, with 3 RAID controllers and two network cards. Recently it started locking up, no BSOD just freezing. After running a multitude of tests on it I found that the voltage for CPU1 is varying, it should be 1.42 but it's averaging around 1.34. A look at the motherboard shows two large capacitors next to CPU1 with significant bulges in the top. After pulling CPU1 the system runs stable on just CPU0. My conclusion is that the old capacitors are shot and are causing voltage fluctuations that cause CPU1 to lock up the system.
I'd like to keep the system running, I've no desire to replace the hard drives yet, even though they are aging they may still run another 5 years. The question is what to do about it, I've pulled out CPU1 and the system runs fine, so I could just leave it with one CPU, although sometimes it gets a little sluggish with just 1CPU. Alternatively I could try to remove the old faulty capacitors and put new ones in. I've never done that before although I have soldered a broken circuit on a hard drive back together so maybe it'd work, or maybe I'd screw up and beak the entire board. Buying a new or second hand board might possible but probably not worth it given the age of the rest of the systme. Alternatively I could just face up to reality - it's a 7 year old system after all - and buy an entirely new processor, RAM and motherboards with PCI slots I can plug my RAID cards into / and or upgrade to new drives /RAID system in the coming future.
I'd like not to spend too much money so I'm leaning towards either leaving it as it is or putting new caps in. Or I could splurge $300 on a AMD X2 setup and be ready to put new SATA drives in as my old PATA drives wear out. What do you think? Vote!
I'd like to keep the system running, I've no desire to replace the hard drives yet, even though they are aging they may still run another 5 years. The question is what to do about it, I've pulled out CPU1 and the system runs fine, so I could just leave it with one CPU, although sometimes it gets a little sluggish with just 1CPU. Alternatively I could try to remove the old faulty capacitors and put new ones in. I've never done that before although I have soldered a broken circuit on a hard drive back together so maybe it'd work, or maybe I'd screw up and beak the entire board. Buying a new or second hand board might possible but probably not worth it given the age of the rest of the systme. Alternatively I could just face up to reality - it's a 7 year old system after all - and buy an entirely new processor, RAM and motherboards with PCI slots I can plug my RAID cards into / and or upgrade to new drives /RAID system in the coming future.
I'd like not to spend too much money so I'm leaning towards either leaving it as it is or putting new caps in. Or I could splurge $300 on a AMD X2 setup and be ready to put new SATA drives in as my old PATA drives wear out. What do you think? Vote!
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