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Author Topic: Death On Arrival & Long Flight  (Read 2621 times)

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Offline asian1Topic starter

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Death On Arrival & Long Flight
« on: June 30, 2004, 02:50:14 AM »
Hello

After waiting for 4 months, my new PC motherboard had arrived from UK (16 hours flight). Unfortunately there is no beep, no light, no post, no BIOS, no HD/CD activity.

Anyone have similar experience?
What is the cause of this problem:
1. Extreme temperature on Cargo bay.
2. Shock during takeoff & landing.
3. Cosmic radiation.
4. X-Ray Inspection
5. Bad quality of components.
6. Bad luck.

Will the same problem occur on MicroA1 shipment from UK to Asia?
Thank you.
 

Offline Hyperspeed

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Re: Death On Arrival & Long Flight
« Reply #1 on: June 30, 2004, 03:09:00 AM »
The X-Ray machine might be to blame...

I once took a laptop through customs and the LCD screen got a strange
aura in the middle like a ghostly circle.

Also, I've had a RAM chip with one DRAM apparently not working -
although I have yet to confirm this is a fault or just an
incompatibility.

One thing's for sure, X-Ray's are the highest energy scanning out
there and they do manually check baggage if you specify you have
sensitive electronics. Otherwise it's blasted like everything else.

Was your kit in an anti-static bag with a warning sticker or
something? I don't know if it's possible to kill a chip with X-Rays
but maybe it had a rough ride on the loading truck.

You know, the APC in Aliens was a Heathrow luggage truck?

Let's rock!!!!  

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Offline adolescent

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Re: Death On Arrival & Long Flight
« Reply #2 on: June 30, 2004, 03:25:06 AM »
I've ordered lots of hardware from overseas and never had a problem.  Perhaps it's just bad luck or the board was abused in transit.  Although, without it even powering up I'd suspect something is hooked up wrong, or another component is damaged (power supply).  I have a few damaged mainboards and they all at least give power to the drives (so at least the ATX power circuit is working).
Time to move on.  Bye Amiga.org.  :(
 

Offline TjLaZer

Re: Death On Arrival & Long Flight
« Reply #3 on: June 30, 2004, 03:27:15 AM »
It's not an Amiga that's the problem. LOL  Cheap PC mobos.  Nothing like "high quality Amiga computers" huh? lol
Going Bananas over AMIGAs since 1987...

Looking for Fusion Fourty PNG ROMs V3.4?

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Offline Glaucus

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Re: Death On Arrival & Long Flight
« Reply #4 on: June 30, 2004, 04:03:14 AM »
No HD activity? Do they at least spin up? If not, then it could just be your power supply. A HD should spin up if connected to power, even if not connected via IDE.

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YOU ARE NOT IMMUNE
 

Offline Cymric

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Re: Death On Arrival & Long Flight
« Reply #5 on: June 30, 2004, 08:34:20 AM »
Well, this might be a long shot but still... I recently changed the case of my PC to something a little more snazzy. When I hooked everything up and turned it on, there was zero activity. No lights, no fan noise, no nothing. Figuring I had either fried the main board or the power supply, I exchanged the latter for the one from my old case. Nothing. I just could not believe that carefully removing the mother board, taking care to follow proper procedures to eliminate static, could have damaged it.

Then I noticed something funny. The little block of pins where all the connectors to main switch, reset switch, LEDs and so forth went, was missing a pin. One of the tiny connectors had just a single pin connected to it. I looked in the manual, yes, orientation was correct, so it must have broken off. Bummer. But no, that wasn't the solution either: those pins are strong, and require a lot of force even to bend them. Then I decided to see what would happen if I turned the picture in the manual upside down, and connected everything that way. Lo and behold, the empty space was no longer occupied, and when I pressed the power button, everything started bleeping, turning, humming and buzzing. First time I ever followed instructions to find out it didn't work.

The moral of this story: are all of the connectors really properly attached, in the correct orientation, to the right socket?
Some people say that cats are sneaky, evil and cruel. True, and they have many other fine qualities as well.
 

Offline kevh100

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Re: Death On Arrival & Long Flight
« Reply #6 on: June 30, 2004, 09:44:49 AM »
Hello,

Make sure that the motherboard is not touching the case or any other bare metal in the case. The symptoms you dexcribe sound like this could be an issue. If possible try and get the motherboard up and running before you put it in the case. Place it on a big book (like the yellow pages) and make sure that you don't put any computer bits on the carpet.

If it still doesnt power up you can rule out shorting on the case.

HTH

Kev
...
 

Offline spirantho

Re: Death On Arrival & Long Flight
« Reply #7 on: June 30, 2004, 11:13:13 AM »
If there's absolutely no problem, that suggests one of two things:
A grounding problem (like kevh suggested above) - if there's a short circuit, like the PCB touching the case, then no power will get to any of the components, and nothing will happen.
Alternatively, you've not wired up the front panel correctly. In an Amiga, the power switch is connected to the PSU directly, but in an ATX system, the PSU gets its power switch from the motherboard, which in turn is connected to the front panel. In fact the motherboard always has power, and tells the PSU when to supply the other power connectors. Hence if the front panel switch isn't connected to the motherboard correctly, then pressing the front switch won't be telling the motherboard to supply power to anything else (including the disks). This is probably your problem, as even a knackered motherboard will usually be able to signal the PSU to power up when the switch is pressed.

Good luck!
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Offline bloodline

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Re: Death On Arrival & Long Flight
« Reply #8 on: June 30, 2004, 11:37:52 AM »
Does anyone have any links regarding the risks of sending Laptops/PDA/Digital cameras through an Airport X-Ray machine?

I sent my Digital camera through last year with no ill effects... but I'm worried about the Hard disk in my laptop!

Offline MAD

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Re: Death On Arrival & Long Flight
« Reply #9 on: June 30, 2004, 12:12:48 PM »
Hoya!

X-Rays are not magnetic, are they?

They can be a hazard to films but not to HDs I think...

Be funky

M A D
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Offline bloodline

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Re: Death On Arrival & Long Flight
« Reply #10 on: June 30, 2004, 12:25:45 PM »
Quote

MAD wrote:
Hoya!

X-Rays are not magnetic, are they?

They can be a hazard to films but not to HDs I think...

Be funky

M A D


I just don't feel comfortable with hi energy electrons bumping into the magnetically alligned Atoms on the surface of my hard disk!


Offline minator

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Re: Death On Arrival & Long Flight
« Reply #11 on: June 30, 2004, 12:35:29 PM »
No links but I've been through a few airports with an iBook and it survived every time.

In fact they'll often ask you to take it out of the bag before it goes through the machine so it's completely unprotected.
 

Offline ShawnDude

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Re: Death On Arrival & Long Flight
« Reply #12 on: June 30, 2004, 12:39:39 PM »
One possible problem may be the BIOS is set incorrectly for your setup.  Look up the BIOS resetting procedure, usually setting a jumper or pressing a button for a few seconds.  Cause this happened to my boss's son's computer, nothing would work, no beep, blank screen, and non responsive.  So he bought a new motherboard and CPU and I switched them for him and took the bad parts home with me.  Just for the fun of it, I reset the BIOS and it came right on.  So now I'm the owner of the "bad" parts. ;-)
The only thing that gets me mad about the situation is that the son whined enough while his computer was down, that he got himself a $3,000 Alienware laptop.  And now that his fixed desktop just sits in the corner with a Radeon 9800XT in it going to waste.  :boohoo:
 

Offline bloodline

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Re: Death On Arrival & Long Flight
« Reply #13 on: June 30, 2004, 12:48:56 PM »
Quote

ShawnDude wrote:
One possible problem may be the BIOS is set incorrectly for your setup.  Look up the BIOS resetting procedure, usually setting a jumper or pressing a button for a few seconds.  Cause this happened to my boss's son's computer, nothing would work, no beep, blank screen, and non responsive.  So he bought a new motherboard and CPU and I switched them for him and took the bad parts home with me.  Just for the fun of it, I reset the BIOS and it came right on.  So now I'm the owner of the "bad" parts. ;-)
The only thing that gets me mad about the situation is that the son whined enough while his computer was down, that he got himself a $3,000 Alienware laptop.  And now that his fixed desktop just sits in the corner with a Radeon 9800XT in it going to waste.  :boohoo:


The wrong memory timing settings in the BIOS will cause that. reset them and all will be fine.

Offline vpcs

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Re: Death On Arrival & Long Flight
« Reply #14 on: June 30, 2004, 02:15:29 PM »
Xrays will not effect HDs at all. They (XRay Machines ) Are non Magnetic.. and do not damage HD's
Greg

 :rtfm: