In a last ditch attempt to verify the problem was with the motherboard, I pulled out the video card I was using, and used the built-in video on the motherboard.
Holy Smokes! It's been running for several hours now, and hasn't locked-up once.
One thing I noticed the other day when I was under the hood was that a corner of the video board looked like it had oil dripped on it. I just looked at it under magnification, and one of the heat pipes on it had sprung a leak, and the coolant (silicone oil, I believe) leaked out. Why the hard drive was active during the lock-ups remains unknown. I suppose the video could have locked up the PCIe bus by sending out garbage and hanging up the bus, but I have no way of testing for that.
I still need to upgrade this computer in the workshop, so the $$ budgeted for my main PC can be put towards that.
Now I have to transfer all my stuff from the hard drive that was in that PC to the new Solid State hard drive I put in it.
Hang in there, it's Wednesday, and that means it's all downhill to the weekend. And we're forecast to have a VERY wet (1~2") weekend!
Yay for finding the issue!
ReplyDeleteIt's still a good motherboard, and the built-in video is plenty "good enough".
DeleteAnd I "saved" about $700....
Drives with no moving parts are the best! My laptop has a 500GB solid state C: drive and I use an external 2TB Samsung drive for archival.
ReplyDeleteTry and keep dry and send some of that rainfall down this way.
The first SSD I used was in my little sever for my weather station. Between the SSD and a fast Ethernet connection, the install from bare metal blazed along. All the drives I've bought new in the last 7 years have been SSDs.
DeleteNow I have a collection of 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB drives just sitting around! They're still good, but what to do? Might build a Home Media Server!
Congratulations, drjim!
ReplyDeleteYou all be safe and God bless.
Thank you, Ma'am!
DeleteThere is a germ of a snarky reply involving on/off switches and battery chargers but it isn't forming. Glad it wasn't a motherboard.
ReplyDeleteThat actually took a few minutes to sink in! I was just out in the garage charging my Optima Stand By batteries, and I wondered how you knew......
DeleteYeah, that was embarrassing.......What's worse is I have a drop-in charger for a TYT radio, and yours didn't fit! Mine has a thicker battery pack, so your just wobbled around in there, not making contact.
The Motherboard I had my eye on was about $250, but I'd need a new processor $350, and new memory for $175, so I'm happy I didn't have to layout the $$ for the parts.