Barebones system blue screened and rebooting

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

On 2 Sep 2004 22:05:31 -0400,
webbslider@yahoo-dot-com.no-spam.invalid (webbslider) wrote:

>:shock: Anybody! My neighbor lady has a barebones clone - only a
>network card - all on-board stuff. Lightning struck between her
>house and neighbor and knocked out her phone - she was on dial-up at
>the time. Phone was dissed but nothing else. She switched to
>comcast broadband shortly after. Then the PC started BSOD with a new
>stop error after each reboot. I fdisked and formatted the HD at
>least 5-times and tried to load XP, then 2K, then even, ugh, 98/2nd -
>got XP PRO to load but when I tried to install the mainboard drivers
>- crash! Swapped out HD and tried new HD - same result. Memory
>seems okay - 256mb SDRAM and the power supply too. I'm beginning to
>think the lightning did more than hurt the phone considering the
>modem connection. I know this is broad but any suggestions on what I
>can do next? What to test and how? System is AMD Duron 1.4ghz on an
>ECS K7SOM Socket A mother.

Those old ECS/PCChips et al boards with the vertical row of
mosfets to the left of the CPU socket tend to wear out the
capacitors faster than many boards due to heat build up. It's
even worse when the heatsink isn't exhausting towards them or in
a case with poor ventilation. You might examine them for signs
of swelling, venting, leaking, residue, etc.

Because your post has the word "lightning" in it, eventually
it'll turn into a flame war and little will be accomplished if
history is any indicator, a thread will grow out of bounds and
end result can only be that you need a way to test individual
components since there could be subtle damage to more than just
the modem.

Particularly, be sure about conclusions you'e already made, that
if you declare memory "seems ok", that you've tested it for
several hours, like with http://www.memtest86.com

For the hard drive, the HDD manufacturer's diagnostics (available
from their web site) should be used.

bsod and stop errors may have nothing to do with hardware damage,
could simply be a driver or other windows config problem.

If you are following same sequence in setting up system, try
altering it. Disable everything running in background, and enter
bios menu and disable all onboard components. Start out with
only a minimal system, video card/memory/heatsink fan/hard drive
(with windows installation files copied to it) and nothing more
connected yet.

Do not install any software after installing OS, before
installing chipset drivers... not even video card driver. If
video driver requires a certain DirectX version, install that
first.

you might also try clearing the CMOS if you hadn't already.
Ultimately it might help to have a 2nd working system to swap
parts back and forth to/fro.

If the ONLY time it crashes is a certain chipset (or whatever)
driver, isolate that situation and give us precise details about
it.