Saturday morning my computer went toes up.

I leave my computer on 24/7. At 6:15 when I woke it up by wiggling the mouse, everything seemed normal. I had received e-mail during the night. I double clicked on the mail icon in the SysTray and Outlook popped up.

I was able to delete two pieces of mail. Then I moved the mouse to the start button, but I never got to click on it. Everything froze. I could not do anything, including CTRL+ALT+DEL. Finally I waited an hour to see if anything would "break loose". Finally I powered off by pressing and holding the power button.

I was working with all day yesterday so I didn't get a chance to look at it until this morning. When you power it up, it goes through the BIOS diagnostics, but ends with "1 2 3" displayed in the diagnostic lights. And the Video Card BIOS data is displayed on the monitor.

I shutdown and (using proper static suppression techniques) reseated everything, cables, cards, memory modules, power connectors. Nothing helped, so I called DELL and got to spend 2 1/2 quality hours talking with Michael. I doubt Michael was his real name, but his English was very very good and he seemed pretty knowledgeable, although he wasn't aware that the memory modules in my system must be installed in pairs. And he asked me to back-up my personal data, even though we couldn't use the computer. I asked him how I could do that and he suggested I take the drives to another computer. That wouldn't work either, since the pair of drives in this system are set up as (sort of worthless) RAID-0 configuration.

ANYWAY

He is going to send a mother board, replacement memory modules and a video card to a local technician. Then the tech will come to my house and replace whatever needs to be replaced. I should hear from the local tecnician by Wednesday AM and then I have to schedule that home visit.

I have an extended warranty that is good until July this year, or I would just buy a newer system. There isn't anything wrong with the performance of this system, so I'm happy with the concept of the repair.

I'm using Mrs. RB's computer to do this update.

I guess I'll be a little out of touch for a few days.
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RunnerBiker ¿
"Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip." - Will Rogers

Motherboard, Ram and Video (I doubt it will be video but you never know). Well that'll about cover it. Did they run any HDD diag, from the sounds of it I'd be looking at that first.
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You can't hold a liberal responsible for their words because it's character assassination.

Hope all is well and you don't lose anything RB. Got my fingers crossed for you.
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Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea. - Robert Heinlein

Dont ya hate it when ya gotta start over??

Good luck RB
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Actually I don't mind it, clears out all the crap I installed and don't want to uninstall, then you can put it back in when you actually need it. How much stuff is on your puter that you don't really use anyway?
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You can't hold a liberal responsible for their words because it's character assassination.

1-2-3 - DMA page register write/read

That's a motherboard error. Looks like the DMA controller on your Main board has failed. Bummer!
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"Linux is more than an OS, it's a state of mind."

DELL shipped the parts to a service tech in Greenville. It was delivered to the Tech this morning bu DHL. I expect a phone call today to set an appointment to come here to fix it.

The DELL web site has diagnostic info on the 1-2-3 code at BIOS boot up time. It says everything is done, and it is time to boot up, but it never accesses the disk drives. When disks fail, they make all sorts of noises and rhythemic patterns. I can hear the disks spin up and initialize, but they don't move the heads like they were trying to boot.

GW - If it is a DMA page register failure, a new motherboard will fix it and the hard drives won't have been affected.

Fortunately my Christmas present was a pair of 500 GB external disk drives, and I backed up all my data (twice) on December 29th, so I won't really lose much. I got them on sale at newegg.com for $125.00 each.
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RunnerBiker ¿
"Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip." - Will Rogers

RunnerBiker wrote:

Fortunately my Christmas present was a pair of 500 GB external disk drives, and I backed up all my data (twice) on December 29th, so I won't really lose much. I got them on sale at newegg.com for $125.00 each.

Cool! That's a big relief.
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Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea. - Robert Heinlein

Do you suppose my computer knew I did the backup and crashed on purpose just to show me how important it was to have done the backup?
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RunnerBiker ¿
"Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip." - Will Rogers

DMA is the protocol used for transferring data from a hard drive through the computer's bus to RAM. So, it's not surprising that you would have those kinds of drive issues when the DMA controller fails. It wouldn't have affected the data on your drive, it would have just kept you from getting at it.
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"Linux is more than an OS, it's a state of mind."

RunnerBiker wrote:

GW - If it is a DMA page register failure, a new motherboard will fix it and the hard drives won't have been affected.

Right, as long as the technician doesn't do anything stupid.
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You can't hold a liberal responsible for their words because it's character assassination.

RunnerBiker wrote:

Do you suppose my computer knew I did the backup and crashed on purpose just to show me how important it was to have done the backup?

Well, that's a possibility. They usually crash first and then you KNOW how important backups are.
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Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea. - Robert Heinlein

Moon Puppy wrote:

RunnerBiker wrote: GW - If it is a DMA page register failure, a new motherboard will fix it and the hard drives won't have been affected. Right, as long as the technician doesn't do anything stupid.

My configuration used a built-in RAID controller to manage the boot devices. Unfortunately it is just RAID-0, not RAID-5. (RAID-0 spreads the data across two drives to improve response time, but it doubles the risk, since a failure of either drive will result in the loss of all data on both drives.)

Since the failure, I can not get into BIOS SETUP. (DELL Computers - Press F2 during BIOS boot)

During a normal boot, after the BIOS finishes it's initialization, you get a chance to manage the RAID controller. I don't remember the keystrokes, but I imagine it is important to do that before the BIOS attempts to boot from a hard drive.
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RunnerBiker ¿
"Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip." - Will Rogers

Oregonian wrote:

RunnerBiker wrote: Do you suppose my computer knew I did the backup and crashed on purpose just to show me how important it was to have done the backup? Well, that's a possibility. They usually crash first and then you KNOW how important backups are.

O
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RunnerBiker ¿
"Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip." - Will Rogers

RunnerBiker wrote:

Moon Puppy wrote: RunnerBiker wrote: GW - If it is a DMA page register failure, a new motherboard will fix it and the hard drives won't have been affected. Right, as long as the technician doesn't do anything stupid. My configuration used a built-in RAID controller to manage the boot devices. Unfortunately it is just RAID-0, not RAID-5. (RAID-0 spreads the data across two drives to improve response time, but it doubles the risk, since a failure of either drive will result in the loss of all data on both drives.) Since the failure, I can not get into BIOS SETUP. (DELL Computers - Press F2 during BIOS boot) During a normal boot, after the BIOS finishes it's initialization, you get a chance to manage the RAID controller. I don't remember the keystrokes, but I imagine it is important to do that before the BIOS attempts to boot from a hard drive.

I played long and hard on Raid0 for a long time. To many hdd crashes with IDE drive and when one's down, all are down. I was running two fujitsu drives once and had one fail. Did everything I knew to do then tried the one last ditch effort. I put the drive in a zip lock and stuck it in the FREEZER over night. Came back in, fired it up, BINGO. Got in and was able to grab my data off to another location. Funny, once it was back up and running I wanted to see how long it would last. It ran for another 2 months before craping out again. I really got my money worth out of that drive.
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You can't hold a liberal responsible for their words because it's character assassination.