my old system (still works!)

[fra77x2]

I had a situation today, well my old PCI system with a Pulsar2 and a Scope SRB stopped working.

It wasn't a big deal because i mainly work with the Xite but the last couple of
months i was using it alongside because i liked to have 2 scope systems working at the same time.

Now the old computer is paleolithic, it is a Pentium 4 and it made strange noises
(i thought due to the CPU fan) so it was located in my closet to limit the noise.

Also during the transition period (when i got the Xite) it had started to misbehave,
some times it didn't see the hard disk, sometimes it crashed when i plugged a USB device,
in general it seemed like the motherboard was getting really old.

Anyway i used it the last period without any serious problem but today it didn't started and after around 50 reboots
i decided to mess with it a bit more.

So because the monitor didn't opened i decided to switch the graphics card.
I had a spare one (AGP) from an old PC of a friend and i made the adventurous move to replace the old one.

The old one was so old and dirty i had problem taking it out of the motherboard...

During the process i noticed that the motherboard had also a secondary SATA channel
and i noticed that i was using the SATA-1 channel so i plugged my hard disk to sata-0.

Miracle! It worked.

I had to make some more reboots because at first it didn't find the pulsar card but after some "magical touch"
on the card and some "coddling" to the stdm cables everything is back and working fine..

Also i noticed that the noise was created by the fan of the old graphic card and now the system is very quite,
inside the closet is barely heard at all...

[astroman]

this all doesn't make any sense, but one....
your system lives, it just wanted some attention, felt neglected as set back to the closet ...
just keep some respect for it in your mind and it will be much happier and work longer

cheers, Tom

[fra77x2]

I know what you are saying... true

well i respect it a lot, the amount of work done on this machine is invaluable...

When i got the Xite my mind got occupied, i had to transfer my procedures,
and then discover the new possibilities, this together with the degradation of my old system
made me put it in the back a bit, but now that i feel comfortable again i use both of these and
i feel like i have a very big studio, indeed

think that i have only one vst effect (Glitch2 and i barely use it), everything is based on Scope...

I suppose the aftermath is that scope hardware is made to last long and that intel motherboards of around 2006
have a very strong backbone

[ronnie]

Dust and oxydation. Just needed a litle THC ... Uh TLC.

[fra77x2]

[JoPo]

20 years ago, I didn't know much about computers... I had my 1° pc since around 2 years and the screen freezed... Impossible to reboot... I decided to open it and found so much dust in the cpu fan that it couldn't work anymore ! Fortunatelly, it was the cpu overheat security that stoped itself -> nothing was broken...

Since that, I clean all inside my computer every year... Especially fans..!

[fra77x2]

Another thing i noticed is that before there was a strange
smell inside my closet when or after the computer has worked,
not exactly something plastic that burns, but a subtle strange "mechanical" /toxic-like smell.
It seems that the graphic card
with a misworking fan was gradually getting burned.
It worked nonetheless in this situation for a couple of years.

The "new" card (it's from an old pentium 3 in reality)
does not have a fan only a heatsink.

JoPo yes, cleaning the fans is a good idea, i couldn't do it because the old graphics card was situated very close
to the Pulsar so i haven't really noticed that it had a fan.

[JoPo]

On my new pc, I found a graphic card without a fan ! Geforce 720. It's really very rare ! And it's only for 'small' graphic card : I don't play with video games. I've seen some 2000€ graphic cards and even a 3000€ one ! I'm totally unable to understand what more those expensive cards have, but I noticed they have 2 fans !... That's a mystery to me : I can see clearly what there is on my 2 screens with a 75€ card.

[garyb]

that's a high-performance card for intense graphics in games, totally unnecessary for your use. two fans because it makes a LOT of heat...