I work in keeping the computers fit and healthy in what was previously a gaming center. Last week, however, there was a power cut which must have surged the server in the room (luckily enough, or stupidly enough, the only one not connected to a surge protector) which has now left the room with 22 paperweights.
The problem was that the machine wouldn't boot at all, but with a single stick of ram various memory error codes appeared before loading windows. Sometimes allowing a successful load into windows and sometimes not, but reducing the remaining 512mb ram stick into some 100mb and making the machine unusable.
Having done some reading up thanks to people with similar problems, it seems to have been the memory controller, and that a motherboard replacement ought to have done the trick. An identical motherboard was ordered in (wrapped in bubblewrap, eek!) and I got to replacing it, but I noticed one of the pins on the second CPU to be bent completely over as I removed it, I attempted to fix it with a precision screwdriver only to snap it off altogether. I figured it worked beforehand so it should be fine now, so all was put in place and now we are given a lovely black screen on startup.
I can't find the exact model of the 3.2Ghz Dual Core Xeon to look up the pin placement to see if it's needed, but I've heard that fixing a stripped piece of copper from a Cat5 cable into the slot might be enough to make contact (if it was me that bent it, I was careful so I don't think so, but maybe worth a shot).
My questions before doing this though, are firstly, am I overlooking something stupid? And is bubblewrap THAT bad static wise that it could have messed up the board before it arrived?
Any help is much appreciated,
Darran.
The problem was that the machine wouldn't boot at all, but with a single stick of ram various memory error codes appeared before loading windows. Sometimes allowing a successful load into windows and sometimes not, but reducing the remaining 512mb ram stick into some 100mb and making the machine unusable.
Having done some reading up thanks to people with similar problems, it seems to have been the memory controller, and that a motherboard replacement ought to have done the trick. An identical motherboard was ordered in (wrapped in bubblewrap, eek!) and I got to replacing it, but I noticed one of the pins on the second CPU to be bent completely over as I removed it, I attempted to fix it with a precision screwdriver only to snap it off altogether. I figured it worked beforehand so it should be fine now, so all was put in place and now we are given a lovely black screen on startup.
I can't find the exact model of the 3.2Ghz Dual Core Xeon to look up the pin placement to see if it's needed, but I've heard that fixing a stripped piece of copper from a Cat5 cable into the slot might be enough to make contact (if it was me that bent it, I was careful so I don't think so, but maybe worth a shot).
My questions before doing this though, are firstly, am I overlooking something stupid? And is bubblewrap THAT bad static wise that it could have messed up the board before it arrived?
Any help is much appreciated,
Darran.
