Consumer electronics "war stories"

[Jeroni Paul]

Mark Zacharias wrote:

OK, so it appears there is very little to discuss on this group in areas
like repairing audio components, amps, receivers, power supplies, etc these
days.

I "tune in" here almost daily and rarely find anything of interest to me.

Maybe we could share some "war stories" of cool repairs we have done in the
past.

Re-live some past glories?

The first time you traced down a bad reset line for a microprocessor?

That integrated amp that blew a channel about once a year until you caught
that bias diode occasionally opening up?

Sansui 5000A's? (yuck)

Crappy Euro caps in Tandberg tape decks?

Those times you sweated whether you could even get this thing put back
together?

Any more recent successs stories to brag about?

C'mon, don't we all enjoy patting ourselves on the back, really?


Mark Z.

I was in a block of flats to look at a curious problem in their terrestrial TV reception. Whenever the communal stairs/hall lights were on, all TV sets in the block lost signal.
The stairs lights were controlled by a timer relay that kept the lights on for a few minutes after any push button was hit, so every time someone entered and hit the light the neighbors TV signal went out for a few minutes.

I started checking the terrestrial antenna head amplifier and found it lost mains power whenever stairs lights were on. I also observed that four or five lights in the stairs did not illuminate and some push buttons didn't activate the lights. That one had me thinking for a while and I drew this diagram to understand what could possibly be going on there:

Head amplifier wall plug
N L
| |
| |
|--light bulb--| |
|--light bulb--| |
|--light bulb--| |
X | |
|--light bulb--| |
|--light bulb--| |
|--light bulb--| |
| | |
| relay |
| | |
| +-----+
| |
N L
Mains supply

That turned out an accurate representation of the problem, I found "X" was a badly burned electrical terminal inside a connection box. With relay open, the bulbs happened to be in series in the neutral going to the head amplifier and because its small current draw it had enough voltage to work. With relay closed, only light bulbs before the break illuminated and the head amplifier got the L pole in the N wire through the non-working bulbs, so no voltage to work.

 

[Mark Zacharias]

Sometimes a small victory makes you feel just as good as a big one.

Picked up a somewhat non-functional Micronta 22-220A multimeter. A little
rough but the FET meter circuit worked - voltage readings weren't too far
off and the zero control did it's job so I knew all that stuff was OK.

But the resistance function acted as though there was a 4 ohm or so resistor
across the leads all the time, and the battery was draining at about 100 mA
in Ohms function even with no leads attached.

Of course the 9.1 ohm Rx1 resistor was bad, but replacing it did NOT change
the symptom.

After finding a schematic (not many out there...) I did find a component
labelled "SA1" shorted at 4 ohms or so. The item resembled an MOV and I can
only assume SA stood for spark or surge arrestor.

Removing it mostly fixed the ohms function, and I decided a couple of
back-to-back 25 volt zeners would offer enough protection to satisfy my
needs.

Still the ohms zeroing was erratic. Cleaning the function / range switch and
ohms pot til I was blue in the face did not resolve the problem. It was
kinda usable but it kept bugging me.

I tried putting a current meter in series with the test leads but couldn't
really get a usable correlation between pushing, poking wiggling the
function switch etc and the action of the meter which might zero fine, then
show up to several ohms even seconds later with probes shorted.

It occurred to me that I could put a resistor (say 4.7 ohms on this range)
across the probes and put a 'scope across that resistor to better see what
the DC voltage there was doing.

Oh, yeah. the voltage as viewed on the 'scope varied wildly and looked
"noisy" as the funtion switch was wiggled or tapped.

But I had cleaned that switch umpteen times.

Well, there was another switch - a leaf switch, going to the negative
battery terminal hiding under the front face and also actuated by the
function knob.

A quick cleaning of those contacts and the meter works like new.

A small victory to be sure, but made me feel as good as a big one.


Mark Z.

 

[Gareth Magennis]

"Mark Zacharias" wrote in message news:LFW7y.253701$4M.32862@fx17.iad...

OK, so it appears there is very little to discuss on this group in areas
like repairing audio components, amps, receivers, power supplies, etc these
days.

I "tune in" here almost daily and rarely find anything of interest to me.

Maybe we could share some "war stories" of cool repairs we have done in the
past.

Re-live some past glories?

The first time you traced down a bad reset line for a microprocessor?

That integrated amp that blew a channel about once a year until you caught
that bias diode occasionally opening up?

Sansui 5000A's? (yuck)

Crappy Euro caps in Tandberg tape decks?

Those times you sweated whether you could even get this thing put back
together?

Any more recent successs stories to brag about?

C'mon, don't we all enjoy patting ourselves on the back, really?


Mark Z.







A very distant fellow band member of mine once confided in me that he one
day discovered his next door neighbour had the same television that he had.
He had many hours of glee from sneaking up to their window and randomly
firing his remote control at their TV.


He also ended up being prosecuted for stealing commission cheques meant to
be mailed to our management company.

Not a particularly nice bloke.



Gareth.

 

[N_Cook]

On 13/12/2015 22:31, Gareth Magennis wrote:

"Mark Zacharias" wrote in message news:LFW7y.253701$4M.32862@fx17.iad...

OK, so it appears there is very little to discuss on this group in areas
like repairing audio components, amps, receivers, power supplies, etc these
days.

I "tune in" here almost daily and rarely find anything of interest to me.

Maybe we could share some "war stories" of cool repairs we have done in the
past.

Re-live some past glories?

The first time you traced down a bad reset line for a microprocessor?

That integrated amp that blew a channel about once a year until you caught
that bias diode occasionally opening up?

Sansui 5000A's? (yuck)

Crappy Euro caps in Tandberg tape decks?

Those times you sweated whether you could even get this thing put back
together?

Any more recent successs stories to brag about?

C'mon, don't we all enjoy patting ourselves on the back, really?


Mark Z.







A very distant fellow band member of mine once confided in me that he
one day discovered his next door neighbour had the same television that
he had.
He had many hours of glee from sneaking up to their window and randomly
firing his remote control at their TV.


He also ended up being prosecuted for stealing commission cheques meant
to be mailed to our management company.

Not a particularly nice bloke.



Gareth.

On practical joking, this was to wind-up my parents , when I was aged
about 10.
A syncronous mains driven/timed mantle clock . I was intrigued by this
little flipper/kicker thing that operated when you turned on the power.
If you disengaged it with a match, then half the time , when switching
back on, the clock would go backwards.

 

[Ralph Mowery]

"N_Cook" <diverse@tcp.co.uk> wrote in message
news:n4m1un$jkq$1@dont-email.me...

On practical joking, this was to wind-up my parents , when I was aged
about 10.
A syncronous mains driven/timed mantle clock . I was intrigued by this
little flipper/kicker thing that operated when you turned on the power.
If you disengaged it with a match, then half the time , when switching
back on, the clock would go backwards.

That reminds me of a clock we had when I was growing up. On the back was a
small wheel and you had to spin it in the direction you wanted the clock to
run when it was plugged in.

 

[MJC]

In article <EuadnXCyGaPJR_PLnZ2dnUU7-c-dnZ2d@earthlink.com>,
rmowery28146@earthlink.net says...

"N_Cook" <diverse@tcp.co.uk> wrote in message
news:n4m1un$jkq$1@dont-email.me...

On practical joking, this was to wind-up my parents , when I was aged
about 10.
A syncronous mains driven/timed mantle clock . I was intrigued by this
little flipper/kicker thing that operated when you turned on the power.
If you disengaged it with a match, then half the time , when switching
back on, the clock would go backwards.

That reminds me of a clock we had when I was growing up. On the back was a
small wheel and you had to spin it in the direction you wanted the clock to
run when it was plugged in.

If only one could "turn the clock" back and recapture one's long-gone
youth that way...

Mike.

 

[Phil Hobbs]

On 12/14/2015 10:08 AM, MJC wrote:

In article <EuadnXCyGaPJR_PLnZ2dnUU7-c-dnZ2d@earthlink.com>,
rmowery28146@earthlink.net says...

"N_Cook" <diverse@tcp.co.uk> wrote in message
news:n4m1un$jkq$1@dont-email.me...

On practical joking, this was to wind-up my parents , when I was aged
about 10.
A syncronous mains driven/timed mantle clock . I was intrigued by this
little flipper/kicker thing that operated when you turned on the power.
If you disengaged it with a match, then half the time , when switching
back on, the clock would go backwards.

That reminds me of a clock we had when I was growing up. On the back was a
small wheel and you had to spin it in the direction you wanted the clock to
run when it was plugged in.

If only one could "turn the clock" back and recapture one's long-gone
youth that way...

Mike.

I wouldn't be 21 again on a bet.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics

160 North State Road #203
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510

hobbs at electrooptical dot net
http://electrooptical.net

 

[Cydrome Leader]

Jeroni Paul <JERONI.PAUL@terra.es> wrote:

Chuck wrote:
In a similar vein to your remote story, we sold an $1800 Tandberg
cassette deck that came to the shop over and over again for not
responding to the transport keys. In the shop it always worked
perfectly. I decided to go to the customer's house after work to see
what the problem was. At his house, the keys didn't work. I spotted
a light dimmer on the wall. Turning it off and the deck worked
perfectly.


I have a SABA music system (radio + cassette + turntable + audio in/out plugs + remote control), time ago I had it connected to a desktop PC to play music from the PC. One day the printer attached to the same PC was taken out for repair due to clogged heads.

The next day I found the SABA turned on with the MUTE activated (the radio was selected so the FM display etc was all lit, but no sound). Since I never used to use the MUTE button and I was the only one at home to use that thing I was quite surprised. I unmuted it and turned it off, all appeared to work correctly. The same day in the evening the same again, that made it obvious it was not me. In the next few days the same kept happening at random times but never when I was there, and because it would turn on with the mute set I could not hear when it happened.

Finally one day it was off, I went to the kitchen and when I came back it was on and muted again, so I guessed a relation had to exist. Turned it off and went to the kitchen again - no joy. Repeated a few times and surprise - again on and muted. Some more experiments revealed that switching off the kitchen light sometimes would cause the SABA to turn on and activate the mute at the same time.

The kitchen light consists of two 36W fluorescent tubes, apparently the inductive kick at turn off found its way into the SABA digital controls. They were two rooms apart, so not exactly next to the kitchen switch or lights. The issue did not reoccur after I plugged the printer back.

Ha!

Was noise filtering on the always on printer was somehow supressing the
interference?

 

[amdx]

On 12/14/2015 9:15 AM, Phil Hobbs wrote:

On 12/14/2015 10:08 AM, MJC wrote:
In article <EuadnXCyGaPJR_PLnZ2dnUU7-c-dnZ2d@earthlink.com>,
rmowery28146@earthlink.net says...

"N_Cook" <diverse@tcp.co.uk> wrote in message
news:n4m1un$jkq$1@dont-email.me...

On practical joking, this was to wind-up my parents , when I was aged
about 10.
A syncronous mains driven/timed mantle clock . I was intrigued by this
little flipper/kicker thing that operated when you turned on the power.
If you disengaged it with a match, then half the time , when switching
back on, the clock would go backwards.

That reminds me of a clock we had when I was growing up. On the back was a
small wheel and you had to spin it in the direction you wanted the clock to
run when it was plugged in.

If only one could "turn the clock" back and recapture one's long-gone
youth that way...

Mike.


I wouldn't be 21 again on a bet.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

On the other hand, a recent comic had an old man and a young child,
the child ask, "Grampa, how old are you?"
Grampa replied, "I'm 89 years old, and I don't recommend it!"
Mikek

 

[Phil Hobbs]

On 12/14/2015 11:58 AM, amdx wrote:

On 12/14/2015 9:15 AM, Phil Hobbs wrote:
On 12/14/2015 10:08 AM, MJC wrote:
In article <EuadnXCyGaPJR_PLnZ2dnUU7-c-dnZ2d@earthlink.com>,
rmowery28146@earthlink.net says...

"N_Cook" <diverse@tcp.co.uk> wrote in message
news:n4m1un$jkq$1@dont-email.me...

On practical joking, this was to wind-up my parents , when I was aged
about 10.
A syncronous mains driven/timed mantle clock . I was intrigued by this
little flipper/kicker thing that operated when you turned on the
power.
If you disengaged it with a match, then half the time , when switching
back on, the clock would go backwards.

That reminds me of a clock we had when I was growing up. On the back
was a
small wheel and you had to spin it in the direction you wanted the
clock to
run when it was plugged in.

If only one could "turn the clock" back and recapture one's long-gone
youth that way...

Mike.


I wouldn't be 21 again on a bet.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

On the other hand, a recent comic had an old man and a young child,
the child ask, "Grampa, how old are you?"
Grampa replied, "I'm 89 years old, and I don't recommend it!"
Mikek

It's true, being really old is no fun either.

http://dilbert.com/strip/2008-01-30

But then I'm a Christian, so I don't have to hang on with my fingernails.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics

160 North State Road #203
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510

hobbs at electrooptical dot net
http://electrooptical.net

 

[Gareth Magennis]

"Phil Hobbs" wrote in message
news:99idndpGh9yHQPPLnZ2dnUU7-W-dnZ2d@supernews.com...

On 12/14/2015 10:08 AM, MJC wrote:

In article <EuadnXCyGaPJR_PLnZ2dnUU7-c-dnZ2d@earthlink.com>,
rmowery28146@earthlink.net says...

"N_Cook" <diverse@tcp.co.uk> wrote in message
news:n4m1un$jkq$1@dont-email.me...

On practical joking, this was to wind-up my parents , when I was aged
about 10.
A syncronous mains driven/timed mantle clock . I was intrigued by this
little flipper/kicker thing that operated when you turned on the power.
If you disengaged it with a match, then half the time , when switching
back on, the clock would go backwards.

That reminds me of a clock we had when I was growing up. On the back was
a
small wheel and you had to spin it in the direction you wanted the clock
to
run when it was plugged in.

If only one could "turn the clock" back and recapture one's long-gone
youth that way...

Mike.

I wouldn't be 21 again on a bet.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs





Youth is wasted on the young.

Being young again with an old mind though .......



Gareth.



Gareth.

 

[Jeff Liebermann]

About 3 weeks ago, I was blessed by the addition of a Samsung
Syncmaster 243T 24" 1920x1200 LCD monitor to my repair backlog. It
had been sitting around the donors office for a year or two, so nobody
could recall why it was retired. I plug it in and it appears that
everything is working. I have two similar LCD monitors at home for
running my flight simulator. A third monitor would make a start on a
wrap around cockpit window view. (actually 4 is about right).

So, I take home the monitor, being careful not to bash in the screen
like I did the last monitor I took home by planting the groceries dead
center in the middle of the panel. It arrive safely, I plug it in,
and nothing works. No power, no pilot light, no messages, no nothing.

I'm not exactly equipped at home to fix monitors, so I drag it back to
the office where it sat around for a few days. I plug it, and
everything works normally. I check for intermittents by beating on
the monitor, but nothing happens.

At this point, a sane and rational person would tear the monitor
apart, look for problems, probe around with a volts-guesser, determine
the culprit, and fix it. Nope. I'm out of bench space and have no
room to work on a big monitor. So, I drag the monitor home again, and
once again, it's dead on arrival. So, I drag it back to the office
for the 3rd time, where it once again works perfectly.

This would be a good time to guess the cause (although I haven't
really revealed enough info to make a proper deduction).

I still haven't ripped it apart to see what's going on, but I do have
a good guess what's wrong. It probably has the usual bulging
capacitor problem in the power supply. I keep the office at 72F (22C)
to keep the customers happy. At home, I prefer something around 65F
(18C). The workbench, where I do my testing is not very well heated,
and is probably colder. Outside temperature is now about 43F (6C).

Bulging electrolytics are detected by measuring the ESR, which
increases as they leak. Heating the caps lowers the ESR back down.
Cooling the caps raises the ESR back up. Incidentally, this is why
some devices run merrily when warm, but won't turn on when allowed to
cool off. The Samsung monitor is likely teetering between working
when warm, and not running when cold.

I'll disclose what was really wrong after I fix it, probably next
year.

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

 

[Jeff Liebermann]

One of the advantages of my office location is that it's very
centrally located. Within about 500ft is the intersection of 3
freeways, the main drag into Santa Cruz city, and smaller roads
leading directly to nearby cities. All roads lead to my office, which
is both a benefit and a problem. Besides making it easier for my
customers to drop in, it also attracts a motley assortment of people
that just happen to be driving by my dead end street, and just happen
to in the mood for trashing my day with inane conversation.

One memorable day, I had 4 of these visitors perched on benches and
chairs (I only have two chairs in the office to make sure they're not
very comfortable). I was working on replacing some caps in an ATX
power supply. Of course, I wasn't paying attention and accidentally
soldered the caps in backwards. With the cover off, I plugged in the
power supply, and continued the discussion with my visitors. Suddenly,
several of the caps decided this would be a excellent time to explode
and launch oily confetti all over the office. Everyone, except me,
dived for cover under or behind tables and boxes. I just continued
talking as if everything was perfectly normal and nothing unusual had
happened. The visitors soon made a rather hasty exit. Oddly, they
must have told their friends, because my office was free of unwanted
visitors for at least a week or two.


--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

 

[Ralph Mowery]

"Jeff Liebermann" <jeffl@cruzio.com> wrote in message
news:0r9v6b5fq4unaprjln8f3ugeshrpj0t83n@4ax.com...

About 3 weeks ago, I was blessed by the addition of a Samsung
Syncmaster 243T 24" 1920x1200 LCD monitor to my repair backlog. It
had been sitting around the donors office for a year or two, so nobody
could recall why it was retired. I plug it in and it appears that
everything is working. I have two similar LCD monitors at home for
running my flight simulator. A third monitor would make a start on a
wrap around cockpit window view. (actually 4 is about right).

So, I take home the monitor, being careful not to bash in the screen
like I did the last monitor I took home by planting the groceries dead
center in the middle of the panel. It arrive safely, I plug it in,
and nothing works. No power, no pilot light, no messages, no nothing.

I'm not exactly equipped at home to fix monitors, so I drag it back to
the office where it sat around for a few days. I plug it, and
everything works normally. I check for intermittents by beating on
the monitor, but nothing happens.

At this point, a sane and rational person would tear the monitor
apart, look for problems, probe around with a volts-guesser, determine
the culprit, and fix it. Nope. I'm out of bench space and have no
room to work on a big monitor. So, I drag the monitor home again, and
once again, it's dead on arrival. So, I drag it back to the office
for the 3rd time, where it once again works perfectly.

This would be a good time to guess the cause (although I haven't
really revealed enough info to make a proper deduction).

I still haven't ripped it apart to see what's going on, but I do have
a good guess what's wrong. It probably has the usual bulging
capacitor problem in the power supply. I keep the office at 72F (22C)
to keep the customers happy. At home, I prefer something around 65F
(18C). The workbench, where I do my testing is not very well heated,
and is probably colder. Outside temperature is now about 43F (6C).

Bulging electrolytics are detected by measuring the ESR, which
increases as they leak. Heating the caps lowers the ESR back down.
Cooling the caps raises the ESR back up. Incidentally, this is why
some devices run merrily when warm, but won't turn on when allowed to
cool off. The Samsung monitor is likely teetering between working
when warm, and not running when cold.

I'll disclose what was really wrong after I fix it, probably next
year.

Going to look bad when it is a bad power cable or socket.

Could be the capacitors. A number of years ago when the bad capacitors were
in many computers a friend had a computer in his basement that sometimes
came on and sometimes not. He left the cover off of it and would put a
light bulb next to the computer to heat it up. The computer wold come on
and work fine unless he shut it off , then he had to heat it up again with
the light bulb.

 

Ralph Mowery wrote: "
"Jeff Liebermann" <je...@cruzio.com> wrote in message
news:kf717bp4p5j377q45i5t8qvfq51q500cj7@4ax.com...

I'm getting that now on my home desktop computah. I don't bother to
heat the house much at night. When I wake up, it's about 45F (7.2C)
inside the house. When I turn on my desktop computah, the fan makes
some odd noises but eventually quiets down. The hard disk seems to
boot normally, but usually some programs add oddly or crash. I reboot
and they then act normally. It's probably read errors on the hard
disk, but SMART shows nothing interesting. At this time, I boot to
the BIOS screen, wait about 10-15 mins, and then boot normally.

If I got out of bed and it was 45 F, I would be looking into the heating
system first. I don't function when it is that cold.

Sounds like you may want to look into a solid state drive for the computer
so it will start up cold. "


If I got out of bed and it was that cold, I would be looking
into some INSULATION first! Something 'Murricans seem
to be averse to, even after decades of evidence in favor
of it.

 

8:29 PMMichael Terrell wrote:
"- show quoted text -
I've woken up to -40F, during survival training.

I've installed more fiberglass batts than I care to think about,
starting in the early '60s. "

Then you must almost never turn your heat on.

'Murricans, thinking they all tough by never
using heat in the winter...

 

[Clifford Heath]

On 16/12/15 03:09, Ralph Mowery wrote:

"Jeff Liebermann" <jeffl@cruzio.com> wrote in message
news:0r9v6b5fq4unaprjln8f3ugeshrpj0t83n@4ax.com...
About 3 weeks ago, I was blessed by the addition of a Samsung
Syncmaster 243T 24" 1920x1200 LCD monitor to my repair backlog. It
had been sitting around the donors office for a year or two, so nobody
could recall why it was retired. I plug it in and it appears that
everything is working. I have two similar LCD monitors at home for
running my flight simulator. A third monitor would make a start on a
wrap around cockpit window view. (actually 4 is about right).

So, I take home the monitor, being careful not to bash in the screen
like I did the last monitor I took home by planting the groceries dead
center in the middle of the panel. It arrive safely, I plug it in,
and nothing works. No power, no pilot light, no messages, no nothing.

I'm not exactly equipped at home to fix monitors, so I drag it back to
the office where it sat around for a few days. I plug it, and
everything works normally. I check for intermittents by beating on
the monitor, but nothing happens.

At this point, a sane and rational person would tear the monitor
apart, look for problems, probe around with a volts-guesser, determine
the culprit, and fix it. Nope. I'm out of bench space and have no
room to work on a big monitor. So, I drag the monitor home again, and
once again, it's dead on arrival. So, I drag it back to the office
for the 3rd time, where it once again works perfectly.

This would be a good time to guess the cause (although I haven't
really revealed enough info to make a proper deduction).

I still haven't ripped it apart to see what's going on, but I do have
a good guess what's wrong. It probably has the usual bulging
capacitor problem in the power supply. I keep the office at 72F (22C)
to keep the customers happy. At home, I prefer something around 65F
(18C). The workbench, where I do my testing is not very well heated,
and is probably colder. Outside temperature is now about 43F (6C).

Bulging electrolytics are detected by measuring the ESR, which
increases as they leak. Heating the caps lowers the ESR back down.
Cooling the caps raises the ESR back up. Incidentally, this is why
some devices run merrily when warm, but won't turn on when allowed to
cool off. The Samsung monitor is likely teetering between working
when warm, and not running when cold.

I'll disclose what was really wrong after I fix it, probably next
year.


Going to look bad when it is a bad power cable or socket.

Could be the capacitors. A number of years ago when the bad capacitors were
in many computers a friend had a computer in his basement that sometimes
came on and sometimes not. He left the cover off of it and would put a
light bulb next to the computer to heat it up. The computer wold come on
and work fine unless he shut it off , then he had to heat it up again with
the light bulb.

We had a couple of old Fujitsu "Eagle" disk drives - 500MB or so -
inherited when we started a company in 1990. These were about 25-30kg,
and 500x350x700mm in size - so you needed two strong sets of hands to
get them on and off the rack mountings (they were on slides).

Anyhow, as they got older, the spindle bearings became sticky, so they
wouldn't spin up after a power fail that was long enough for them to
cool down. We used to get them off the racks, with one bloke at each
end, then power them up and give a sudden lateral rotation to break the
stiction of the bearings. Quite a risky business, coordinating two
blokes to do that suddenly enough without dropping the drive, but it
worked a number of times before we made enough money to afford to
replace them.

We started a software company with 25 initial employees (staff buy-out)
and a grand total of 2.2GB of storage - in the entire company. Imagine that!

Clifford Heath.

 

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Tue, 15 Dec 2015 11:09:55 -0500, "Ralph Mowery"
<rmowery28146@earthlink.net> wrote:

>Going to look bad when it is a bad power cable or socket.

Nope. Both passed the wiggle test.

Could be the capacitors. A number of years ago when the bad capacitors were
in many computers a friend had a computer in his basement that sometimes
came on and sometimes not. He left the cover off of it and would put a
light bulb next to the computer to heat it up. The computer wold come on
and work fine unless he shut it off , then he had to heat it up again with
the light bulb.

I'm getting that now on my home desktop computah. I don't bother to
heat the house much at night. When I wake up, it's about 45F (7.2C)
inside the house. When I turn on my desktop computah, the fan makes
some odd noises but eventually quiets down. The hard disk seems to
boot normally, but usually some programs add oddly or crash. I reboot
and they then act normally. It's probably read errors on the hard
disk, but SMART shows nothing interesting. At this time, I boot to
the BIOS screen, wait about 10-15 mins, and then boot normally.

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

 

[Clifford Heath]

On 16/12/15 10:15, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

On Tue, 15 Dec 2015 11:09:55 -0500, "Ralph Mowery"
rmowery28146@earthlink.net> wrote:

Going to look bad when it is a bad power cable or socket.

Nope. Both passed the wiggle test.

Could be the capacitors. A number of years ago when the bad capacitors were
in many computers a friend had a computer in his basement that sometimes
came on and sometimes not. He left the cover off of it and would put a
light bulb next to the computer to heat it up. The computer wold come on
and work fine unless he shut it off , then he had to heat it up again with
the light bulb.

I'm getting that now on my home desktop computah. I don't bother to
heat the house much at night. When I wake up, it's about 45F (7.2C)
inside the house. When I turn on my desktop computah, the fan makes
some odd noises but eventually quiets down

Take the fan out and refit it, rotated 90 degrees.

The bushings wear the holes elliptical, and the rotation changes the
vibration modes.

 

[Ralph Mowery]

"Jeff Liebermann" <jeffl@cruzio.com> wrote in message
news:kf717bp4p5j377q45i5t8qvfq51q500cj7@4ax.com...

I'm getting that now on my home desktop computah. I don't bother to
heat the house much at night. When I wake up, it's about 45F (7.2C)
inside the house. When I turn on my desktop computah, the fan makes
some odd noises but eventually quiets down. The hard disk seems to
boot normally, but usually some programs add oddly or crash. I reboot
and they then act normally. It's probably read errors on the hard
disk, but SMART shows nothing interesting. At this time, I boot to
the BIOS screen, wait about 10-15 mins, and then boot normally.

If I got out of bed and it was 45 F, I would be looking into the heating
system first. I don't function when it is that cold.

Sounds like you may want to look into a solid state drive for the computer
so it will start up cold.