[NTLUG:Discuss] Homemade machine locking up at swap

[Steve Baker]

gin wrote:

> I swapped out the motherboard, and everything worked fine. But I also
> changed something else I that I thought might not have been a good idea: I
> had laid out the power cable to the motherboard under the drive. I was
> wondering if the power cable might have interfered with the IDE ribbon? I
> really don't know if the magnetic field from the power cable is significant
> enough to cause problems, but I decided to not take chances.

Well, it *shouldn't* be enough to cause problems - and if it is, then that
would imply that *something* is extremely borderline.

One thing I could think of would be if the drive cable is not being
correctly terminated on the drive.  I wonder if your drive has a
jumper not correctly set or something?

If that is the cause then almost anything could change the behaviour - 
a different case, a longer cable, different temperature, alternative
(but supposedly identical) motherboard - wrong phase of the moon -
anything!

> I pulled it over to the other side of the chassis, well away from
> the drive and ribbon when I installed the new motherboard.

Well, if that *does* fix it - then don't stop looking for problems.
It's likely that you'll end up with a system which is still somewhat
flakey - and on the next full moon...kablooie!

-- 
Steve Baker                  http://web2.airmail.net/sjbaker1
sjbaker1 at airmail.net (home)  http://www.woodsoup.org/~sbaker
sjbaker at hti.com      (work)