Planks on Ebay

[rans6andrew]

Having exhausted most of the possibilities for finding the fault in my best computer system I had resigned myself to getting a replacement motherboard. The problem is either the i7 930 chip or the motherboard, every thing else inside the box has been swapped out with parts from another machine. The supply of new motherboards at dealers has dried up so I turned to Ebay to see what turns up. I have found a few suitable items listed but on looking at the photos in the adverts I am appalled at how few of them show any concern for static protection. This week I have seen pictures of motherboards balanced upon pillows and bedding, on bare mattresses and this morning, one spread out with all of the original parts on a blue carpet.

I can't bring myself to spend proper money on something that has been treated that badly.

In the meantime, is there a way to draw attention to the issue?

How do you get to post something in the questions and answers area at the foot of each advert? I asked a question via the "Ask a question" link, on an advert last week, but the question only got sent to the vendor's email account, it did not appear on the advert page.

Rans6......

[munster]

When you ask an eBay seller a question. The seller has the choice to add the question and answer to the listing. If you got no answer back from him, He's chosen to ignore your question.

[rans6andrew]

I did get an answer, by email, but nobody else got the wisdom imparted!

So there is no way to ask embarrassing questions so that everyone can see them?

Just so that the Planks might learn to take static precautions seriously,you understand.

Rans6.....

[M.Mouse]

There are many idiots on ebay amongst the intelligent sellers and buyers. I bought an electric piano keyboard for a song because a) the description was vague and b) the pictures utterly awful. I e-mailed a couple of questions to the seller and it took several e-mails to elicit a reply which actually made sense! Similar items were selling for considerably more than I paid so the seller did himself no favours.

I am not quite sure why you feel the need to try and educate the ignorant. I would just move on and find a sensible seller!

[rans6andrew]

As much as anything I want to wake up potential purchasers to the risks, especially those who fail to see beyond the description text while caught up in the excitement of the bidding.

Rans6.......

[ShyTorque]

I would never buy something so delicate second hand from a private seller, full stop.

Despite how it seems in the photo, you have no idea how it's been handled before or since. :(

However, surely anyone with enough knowledge to swap a motherboard would understand what you were trying to put across to the seller.

[Saab Dastard]

I would never buy something so delicate second hand from a private seller, full stop.
I've bought motherboards (3), hard disks (5), memory (10), CPUs (6), sound cards (3) and several graphics cards 2nd hand, and I've only had a couple of problems, with a graphics card and a sound card. That "failure rate" is not dissimilar to what I've seen on new HP server kit over the last few years.

Over the last 20+ years, I've found most computer components to be quite robust and surprisingly resistant to careless handling (not by me of course ;)).

I've seen lots of failures of PC components "in action" but none that I can remember through poor handling.

That's not saying it never happens, just that it is perhaps less of a problem than it may be made out to be.

SD

[onetrack]

rans6andrew - I've just spent a frustrating week trying to pin down a complete desktop failure. Screen just went totally black when in use, and attempts to restart showed the bios startup page, then the Windows start page - then black again.

I'd only totally rebuilt the computer in August 2012 with new Gigabyte H77 M/board, new i7 3770 CPU, new Corsair Vengeance RAM and new Gigabyte graphics card.

Tested the RAM individually, swapped the i7 CPU with a new one I had on hand, removed the graphics card - still nothing - and came to the conclusion the M/board had failed.

Got in touch with Gigabyte who agreed to repair the M/board under warranty (3 yr warranty), and sent it off.
Bought a new Gigabyte M/board because I didn't want to wait 3 or 4 weeks for the original to come back.
Bungled the purchase, and bought a new 1150 Socket gigabyte M/board, not the 1155 Socket that I have (which is obsolete).
I then went and bought the correct Socket 1155 M/board - installed it - and still the same problem!! :ugh::ugh::ugh::{

I finally twigged that perhaps the MONITOR could be the problem. Sure enough, connected it to SWMBO's computer - and exactly the same screen display appeared - a couple of pages, before it went black.

I have NEVER had a monitor fail in this manner - all the monitors I've had fail (and there have been a few), just go black and refuse to display anything.

Talk about infuriating. So, now I have 2 surplus M/boards - had to buy a new monitor - now I have to spend hours loading the drivers for the new M/board on the computer, to get back to a working computer - when all I originally needed, was to just go buy a new monitor.

Lesson learnt, test EVERY SINGLE COMPONENT, before making a decision as to what has actually failed.

I have to agree with Saab Dastard - motherboards seem to be quite robust. I've burnt out a few graphics cards, cooked a couple of PSU's, had plenty of fans fail (have to be alert to that), and had one HDD fail due to using an electronic welder on the same phase as the desktop, while the desktop was running.

The start up "chatter" of the welder apparently caused some rapid voltage drops and rises that corrupted the boot files on the HDD (I have a top quality surge protector fitted, but it failed to prevent the welder damage).
I couldn't recover the HDD - perhaps someone much more highly qualified than me, could have with some effort. I just replaced the HDD and did a fresh re-install.

As far as M/boards go, the greatest danger as I see it, is damage due to bending the board, which can be done via careless installation and removal. I've never had a M/board failure, I've always replaced them as part of upgrades.
I have never had a problem with static damage, but I believe that is because I always choose natural fibres for clothing and furnishings. Cotton clothing and wool carpets.
I hate synthetics, and only have a small amount of overwear that is synthetic. I believe synthetic clothing and furnishings are possibly some of the greatest sources of static buildup.

[Bushfiva]

Over the past few years I've lost one Acer and 3 Dells to capacitor rot, all bought around the same time. I replaced the condensers on the Acer because I couldn't face reinstalling some dongled software, and I just virtualised the Dells onto a new machine and chucked the old ones. These posts make me think back to the last time I ever saw a flexible motherboard: maybe 15 years? Current stuff always seems to be quite nicely made.


I do have one odd monitor: it's higher resolution than the internal screen, and when I connect it up, browsers zoom the wrong way: i.e. when dragging from the small screen to the large screen, open windows zoom from 100% to 140% instead of er, think, er, 72%? Baffling.

[llondel]

I hate synthetics, and only have a small amount of overwear that is synthetic. I believe synthetic clothing and furnishings are possibly some of the greatest sources of static buildup.

It's a lot worse in cold, dry weather. All the moisture goes out of the air and static charge buildup goes up dramatically. I wouldn't have thought this was a problem in the UK at the moment though...:E

[rans6andrew]

I have been able to swap out the power supply (similar Corsair), DDR3 RAM with the same (Corsair) modules, graphics card (new last week) and the same random re-boot behaviour persists. The fault shows up when running Win XP or any of several versions of Unix. It misbehaves when booted from USB stick, hard disk or from CD Rom. It can reboot before the POST has completed but some days, it will power up and run all day without problem.

The other machine I borrow parts from is an AMD Phenom and the iffy machine is i7 930 1366 socket. The incidences of spontaneous re-boots are getting more frequent (perhaps caused by static damage?) and do seem to be more likely to occur when playing video material (Youtube or even news), I don't do gaming. I am inclined to think that the motherboard is more likely to develop a fault that is PC task related than the CPU chip is.

I don't have access to another machine with an i7 1366 or a one with an 1366 motherboard to do part swapping so I can't diagnose further without spending money. I am wondering whether to just bite the bullet and buy new CPU, motherboard and RAM. The second hand prices of 1366 motherboards are a lot higher than I expected, more than the new price either now or when I bought the existing one.

Rans6.........

[finncapt]

If you are going down that route, I would go for an 1150 system - it seems to be the most? popular at the moment.

I don't know what you do with your system but, if it's not high end gaming, I would be looking to an amd system for economy.