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MAJOR system failure
10 days ago i ran Tech Tools and saw that my main system drive had “minor problems”. it said the solution was to click on “repair on” and let it fix itself . . . although i never saw a place to check or uncheck the box labeled “repair on”. looked in the book, the help menu, etc.
so i figured i would just back up that drive and reformat it and start over.
oops!
after about 15 attempts to reinstall OS X, i finally took the computer to the Mac store. the local store couldn’t do anything with it and sent it to their regional store. 3 days later, the reg store called to say they were going to reformat the drive and the problem should be fixed. i got it back monday, fired it up, filled in my profile info, all seemed to be well…but it wouldn’t read my e-SATA card (that has two drives plugged into it), and then i smelled something hot. also, the drive(s) sounded like they were flying fast, so i took off the side cover and found that my graphics/display card was SUPER hot. i called the local store, took it over there, they couldn’t figure it out (though found that the computer wasn’t reading ANY of the PCI slots), and they sent it back to the reg store.
i’m guessing a bad motherboard? any ideas here? i’ve lost 10 days of editing (so far) and have gotten quite frustrated. my clients are hanging tough and being very understanding, but this is pretty embarrassing…
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2 Replies
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What kind of a computer do you have? Mac Pro, G5…?
Your computer is designed to turn off automatically if it gets too hot, but it sounds like your motherboard may be bad. Personally I would take all my esata drives off the computer and make sure they are fine and try replacing the motherboard its a good guess though if your computer boots the mother board is at least to some extent fine. It could also be a bad GPU. have you tried your esata card and GPU in another computer to rule out the esata card and GPU being bad?
Hope this helps
Simon Carlson-Thies,
Complex Technology Development -
thanks for the ideas, here is what i found out today…
as usual, the “MAJOR problem” was the operator…ME! the problem with the computer not reading my e-SATA card was that i hadn’t installed the drivers for the card from the disc yet. simply solved.
the heat issue with the graphics card was solved for the time-being by the Mac Store tech moving the adjacent card away from the graphics card so it could get more ventilation. the odd thing about that one, though, is that these cards have sat side-by-side with no issue for the past 4 months. oh well. it’s all working great tonight…
but i think i will start looking around for a second system for backup use in the future…
thanks for helping out a bonehead!
__________________________dual 2 GHz PowerPC Mac G5
2GB MB DDR SDRAM
GeForce FX 5200 graphics card
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