I have had 2 motherboards, 3 hard drives, 1 cd writer, one dvd writer
and 5 3.5 inch floppy drives go belly up. I have another hard drive
that is showing signs of premature aging (it stops spinning, usually
when doing back ups).

The measured line voltage for the outlets that serve the computer is
123.2 volts while the Central Air is on and 123.5 when it is off. The
failures all have happened between June and September over the past 6
years.

1. Is the over voltage of my household lines the probable cause of the
failures?
2. Would a UPS help in reducing the failure rate?

Thanks,

Rich

The voltage variation is minimal with the A/C on or off. The line voltage
does not appear to me at least to be your problem. Since these all happen
in summer, I'd ask about the ambient environment and cooling for the system.
Is it located in a room that is very dusty/dirty and/or gets hot in summer?
Is the unit in a corner, in a desk or some type of restricted airflow
cabinet? Do all system cooling fans work properly? Are the intake and
exhaust grills/filters clean and unobstructed? When was the last time you
opened up the unit and vacuumed out the dirt?Have you attempted to determine
the internal box temperature?

Bob



"Richard Henne" wrote in message
...
I have had 2 motherboards, 3 hard drives, 1 cd writer, one dvd writer
and 5 3.5 inch floppy drives go belly up. I have another hard drive
that is showing signs of premature aging (it stops spinning, usually
when doing back ups).

The measured line voltage for the outlets that serve the computer is
123.2 volts while the Central Air is on and 123.5 when it is off. The
failures all have happened between June and September over the past 6
years.

1. Is the over voltage of my household lines the probable cause of the
failures?
2. Would a UPS help in reducing the failure rate?

Thanks,

Rich

The room ambient temperature is less than 80 degrees F. All 6 internal
fans are working and the cpu temperature is less than 100. The box
temperature is less than 85. The Box currently contains 2 60 Gig Maxtor
drives in a RAID Mirror configuration used for all programs, a 160 Gig
Western Digital Drive for data, A DVD Writer and a DVD Reader, A 3.5
inch Floppy drive, the mother board (for the past year) is a Gigabyte 7
with onboard drivers for RAID, 10/100 ethernet, USB, Firewire, and
Audio. There is no accumulated dust, as I have used dry air to blow out
the dust about once a week. The computer is used primarily for Adobe
Photoshop, followed by web surfing and gaming. The area the computer
is in also has a large room fan blowing directly towards the computer
when it is in use.

The most recent failure, about 3 weeks ago was the DVD Writer. The
motor that spins the DVD failed.

The failed motherboard was a Soyo Dragon Ultra, and the caps around the
CPU literally blew their tops. This was last year in August. It
followed the original power supply that blew out in July almost 3 days
after the warranty period expired.

Bob Shuman wrote:

The voltage variation is minimal with the A/C on or off. The line voltage
does not appear to me at least to be your problem. Since these all happen
in summer, I'd ask about the ambient environment and cooling for the system.
Is it located in a room that is very dusty/dirty and/or gets hot in summer?
Is the unit in a corner, in a desk or some type of restricted airflow
cabinet? Do all system cooling fans work properly? Are the intake and
exhaust grills/filters clean and unobstructed? When was the last time you
opened up the unit and vacuumed out the dirt?Have you attempted to determine
the internal box temperature?

Bob


Thanks,

Rich

Hi!

1. Is the over voltage of my household lines the probable cause of the
failures?

I don't see anything wrong with the voltage on your household lines as per
your reported readings.

In fact (little story time here) I had the neutral burn out on the power
pole outside my home. This led to wildly unstable voltage in my house and I
continued to run things for a while as I didn't immediately understand what
the problem was. Sometimes the voltage dropped to 90 and soared as high as
150. I know I was lucky, but the only things that were lost were a few fuses
and a surge protector that failed in a smelly way. I later opened it to see
that all three MOVs inside were burned to ash.

Long story short, computing equipment is usually tough stuff. It will
oftentimes take a lot of abuse before finally dying...and that brings me to
the other point. Have you examined your computer's power supply to be sure
*it* is functioning properly? Perhaps the regulation is off or it is
overloaded. It could also be overheating. I've seem some where the fan
inside turned so slowly that it was a wonder the supply didn't cook.

A new power supply is cheap and may solve your problem. It is also possible
that cleaning, replacing or speeding up the fan to better cool the rest of
your existing supply might solve your problems.


2. Would a UPS help in reducing the failure rate?

Probably not. It sounds like your voltage readings are right where they
should be.

William

No. The power supply in your computer regulates the voltage. If your line
power were causing problems, the PC power supply would be the point of
failure.

Look however at temperature and ventilation issues. Is something wrong with
the air circulation in your PC?

The statement that caps on the main board blew out the tops indicates either
excessive voltage from the power supply, or else you got one of the
motherboards with the bad caps that used the stolen electrolyte formula. Either
problem would cause all kinds of random failures.

"BWL" wrote in message
...
The statement that caps on the main board blew out the tops indicates
either
excessive voltage from the power supply, or else you got one of the
motherboards with the bad caps that used the stolen electrolyte formula.
Either
problem would cause all kinds of random failures.

One other possibility that might be seasonal, is lightning strikes in the
neighbourhood. In fact, the lightning could be many miles away but a pulse
of energy in the power or phone lines can cause random failures in computer
equipment over a very wide area. These spikes might even happen at night and
can even kill a PC when it's switched off. I suppose it wouldn't hurt to
make sure the houshold electrical system is properly earthed and if you live
in mountain country, pull out the plugs at night.
Of course it might just be normal random failures which do occur in this
sort of equipment from time to time but I must say 2 MoBo's and 3 Hdd's is a
bit too much.
Best of Luck,
Pete

Hey Richard Henne )! You wrote in message
, at group sci.electronics.repair, on the date of
Tue, 10 Aug 2004 15:46:34 -0700:


The failed motherboard was a Soyo Dragon Ultra, and the caps around the
CPU literally blew their tops. This was last year in August. It
followed the original power supply that blew out in July almost 3 days
after the warranty period expired.

SOYO had problems with bad capacitors in their motherboards, at least in older
SOYO's. Don't know if this is the case for this one, but as I've never owned a
PC with a Soyo motherboard...

[]s
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