d530 sff - freezes with blocked screen pattern - any thoughts?

[mikeb77]

hello

my d530 sff freezes occasionally with a strange blocked screen pattern - like psychedelic colored chessboard squares on a blue background. The squares shimmer a little (implying some procesing?) but he system is totally unrersponsive.  The fault appears randomly, and does not appear related to how long the machine has been run, nor its current task (as far as I can tell). I can't induce the fault.

It runs xp pro. I've reinstalled xp on a different HDD and get the same, making me think its not software/drivers.  I've upgraded the BIOS, run memtest 86+ and prime 95 for hours and some Inquisator and Ultimate Boot CD hardware tests. They are all fine, making me think the basic hardware is OK.  I considered the onboard video but I can play movies over a network which is pretty intensive..  With the lid off nothing in the box gets too hot to touch tho some chips and caps must be near 60 degrees celcius.  CPU heatsink fine to touch.

It would be easy to give up and say its a weird motherboard fault, but before I do any ideas?  The software keyed to the machine has more value than the box so I'd rather not throw it away.

Thanks for your ideas, Mike

[erico]

Go to Control Panel --> Administrative tools --> Event Manager.

Take a look at the events that have Errors or Warnings to determin if Windows reports that the event related to your system freeze is hardware or software related.

It could be a video driver that is corrupt causing this issue or perhaps a dicey (near failure) memory module.  You should consider carefully reseating the memory modules.

[mikeb77]

thanks for the reply 

there are no events (of note) in the event viewer. i updated all drivers including video and monitor drivers - no change.  i disabled parrellel and serial ports in the bios - no change.  i added an agp card which disables onboard video (i checked it is disabled in bios) - the only change is when it freezes there is no strange pattern on the screen suggesting the weird video pattern was not significant. It definately freezes - repeated ctrl-alt-del gets no beeps and num lock doesn't work on the keyboard.  i've had the memory modules in and out, with one then the other - no change.

any further suggestions....???

[RoyalSerpent]

Are you sure the AGP card is good?  Run with the case open.  If possible, have a small desktop fan blowing into the MB.  No joy?  I'd swap to a known good PSU and retest.

That PC is approaching end of life.  I would backup important data on the hard drive right now just in case you can no longer boot into windows.

[erico]

That is interesting. I don't recall having a hang/freeze without an accompanying system or application error or warning in the Event Viewer. YOu might want to run chkdsk to see if there are system file problems or bad sectors. A hard disk going bad will cause strange behavior as well.

Message Edited by erico on 02-19-2009 09:34 AM

[erico]

Something just occurred to me. You might want to reinstall the chipset drivers.

I have fought with a pair of d530 pcs before. I finally got them working and it turned out that the solution was the proper combination of BIOS version and video driver.

They are intractible beasts. Do you happen to have the original discs that the computer came with?

My aplogoies to you, I should have thought of this when I first read your post. You should be in the Business support forum with this. Here is the link to a thread I authored when I was fighting with the d530. It includes the solution and links to the proper BIOS and graphics driver combination with version numbers for both. 

Message Edited by erico on 02-19-2009 10:18 AM

[mikeb77]

thanks for the replies.  i've been running it with the lid off - its a sff.  I’ve gone back to the onboard video as the other agp didn't solve the problem (tho it does work fine on another system). 

Ercio - i found your post in the business support forum interesting. I've found i don't appear to get crashes when i have only one memory module in. two will more likely crash. I’ve swapped in reliable memory from other pcs and found the same, and worse - faster memory (DDR400) gives more problems. Even tho the memory has passed a few hours of memtest86+.  So perhaps it’s the whatever it is that controls the memory.  I guess that’s the chipset or maybe the 82865G “Graphics and Memory Controller Hub”.

 I installed the Intel chip update utility for the 800 series (mine also 865G chipset) which also installed the 82865G v14.17 video controller (driver 6.14.10.4396). I noted the suggestion to avoid 14.17 but the intel package for 14.16 refused to install on this machine... i guess it wanted the hp version of the driver.  the hp site only offers the 14.17 and even then says its not for 865G.  So i'm left wondering how you installed it.  I've been running the exe, not unpacking the zip. Its also unclear to me if the 14.16 vs 14.17 makes any difference as it appears in your post getting the Intel graphics controller was the battle (which I have acheived). I'm still testing this thing - tricky as i haven't found a reliable way to crash it yet.  A couple of questions:

1. How can I check if the correct memory controller is installed.  Device manager / system devices / memory access controller is 82801. If the 82865G controller does manage memory how would I know if that too had been installed
2. When you say you installed Intel Chipset driver ver. 1.1.15.0 how did you confirm this? in device manager/...?
3. Can you direct me to any more info on the bad caps that may be in some d530s.  Do you know if any SFFs were affected?

 Thanks for your help

Mike

[erico · Accepted solution]

I extracted the zip to install Intel package 14.16 and installed them manually from within the Device Manager. Intel package 14.17 absolutely did not work on either d530 box. It was the root of the instability problem that I was facing.

You can identify the controller by checking the properties of the devices in System Devices.Look for X's or exclamation marks next to the drivers or if you see instances of "unknown device"

SisoftSandra Lite will also identify the devices installed in the hardware section.

As far as the bad capacitors goes a close visual inspection should suffice. look for leaks, bulging, distortion, a brown substance on or near the caps. 

So...in your systray you see an Intel graphics icon? That is what you should see if the graphics driver install went well. 

[mikeb77]

well i think i have it solved and will mark the thread accordingly.

i can now run the faster RAM, either one or two modules. I've been running a game demo for a stress test (it previously passed various tests like prime95 and memtest86+ despite the fault) and no problems so far.

The likely solution: i found 5 bulging capacitors so set to replacing them.  the bulging ones were branded nichicon and teapo.  3 were right next to the memory sockets.  i must say it was the trickyest soldering job i've ever done - i've got an old fashioned soldering iron from the analogue days and I've never worked on a motherboard before. Also I had to put some caps in parrellel to get the necessary values. But it works (so far).  HP says they got rid of all suspect caps from 1/3/04 so this pc must be really old.  I have some other d530s which have different brand caps which all look fine - maybe they are newer.

I have the intel graphics thingy in the system tray and no problems under device manager so I'll say with the 14.17 video driver for now.  I still don't know it it updated the memory manager but currently i don't need to find out.

So thanks for all the help, especially to erico, and good luck to anyone esle with a similar problem.

Mike

[RoyalSerpent]

Per my previous post, that board is approaching the end of its life-cycle.  You can only repair those bulging/leaking electrolytic caps.  There are probably more on that board that could go any day.  I've seen cap that exploded inside the case.  You said that you have important data on that HDD.  Now is the time for a full backup to CDs/DVDs/USB stick.  Next step is to get rid of that PC.  It's a time bomb.

Remember that the cap formulation issue only affected cheap Taiwanese/Chinese products.  There is some major overheating/overvoltage on that board when you see bulging Japanese Nichicon (probably VRM stuffs) caps.