So I've recently run into an aging custom built gaming rig (about 4 years old I think) that seems to be in its death throes.
The History:
Up until a couple of hours ago, it was running Linux Mint just fine. However odd things like settings not saving and the wallpaper not loading started to happen and a few reboots later everything went pear shaped. After that, booting from a live-usb worked for a time before that too was rejected as mainstream.
The Symptoms:
Booting from the HD or a live-usb of Mint 12 results in hanging at 'Boot from CD :' at startup. Oddly, I can boot from a CD
The Suspects:
The PSU. After coming falling into my hands I replaced the aging PSU (that was making horrible noises) with a brand new Seasonic M12II 620W (the same wattage as the previous one). All was well until connecting an old SATA HD and turning it on, at which point the HD started smoking. Since that HD already made terrible noises too, I wrote it off as either a HD problem or that the power to the port on the PSU (as it's partially modular) I was using had been wired incorrectly. Note that this is a different HD to the one currently 'running' the OS. The PSU's fan spins fine, and it did seem to power the rest of the system without any sparks, fires or blackouts.
The HD. An attempt to format the HD from the live-usb resulted in 'daemon is inhibited' errors. It seems unlikely that this is the HD's fault but it might be worth a mention.
The Motherboard. I can still access the BIOS, but with all the different problems there could be an issue here.
So who wants to catch the culprit?
The History:
Up until a couple of hours ago, it was running Linux Mint just fine. However odd things like settings not saving and the wallpaper not loading started to happen and a few reboots later everything went pear shaped. After that, booting from a live-usb worked for a time before that too was rejected as mainstream.
The Symptoms:
Booting from the HD or a live-usb of Mint 12 results in hanging at 'Boot from CD :' at startup. Oddly, I can boot from a CD
The Suspects:
The PSU. After coming falling into my hands I replaced the aging PSU (that was making horrible noises) with a brand new Seasonic M12II 620W (the same wattage as the previous one). All was well until connecting an old SATA HD and turning it on, at which point the HD started smoking. Since that HD already made terrible noises too, I wrote it off as either a HD problem or that the power to the port on the PSU (as it's partially modular) I was using had been wired incorrectly. Note that this is a different HD to the one currently 'running' the OS. The PSU's fan spins fine, and it did seem to power the rest of the system without any sparks, fires or blackouts.
The HD. An attempt to format the HD from the live-usb resulted in 'daemon is inhibited' errors. It seems unlikely that this is the HD's fault but it might be worth a mention.
The Motherboard. I can still access the BIOS, but with all the different problems there could be an issue here.
So who wants to catch the culprit?