- May 19, 2011
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I'm still testing to see whether the intermittent problem has definitely been fixed, but I think I'm past the point where it "should have failed by now". This is apparently a PSU question, so bear with me!
The bizarre problem - customer's desktop PC, sandy bridge era, running Win7. I've visited the customer three times in total, for the same issue every time, about six months apart, until the most recent (third) appointment where it wasn't apparently going to go away with a quick fix. On each occasion the computer's ethernet connection would fail to do DHCP or have difficulty detecting a network connection.
On the first occasion I 'fixed' the problem by swapping the ethernet lead for another one. On the second occasion I 'fixed' it through a solution I've found before to work with the BT Hub (BT's wireless router) whereby swapping the ethernet socket in use on the router inexplicably works. On the third occasion neither of these solutions worked, nor did:
1 - try yet another cable
2 - power cycle the router, disconnecting it from the mains for a minute in between, also tried factory resetting the router
3 - try another router (different brand)
4 - remove Microsoft Security Essentials (it does have a network inspection module which I've never seen cause a problem, but there's always a first time)
5 - try a PCI NIC (which also involved removing a pointless graphics card to get to the slot)
6 - try msconfig base services only / Windows Safe Mode + Networking
7 - netsh int ip reset / netsh winsock reset (I was running out of ideas with the latter, I kinda knew it wouldn't work)
8 - try ubuntu live cd
(not in the exact order I did things in)
Occasionally the computer would manage to do DHCP but it would generally only work for one OS session, then restarting or cold booting would make the problem resurface. The symptoms didn't alter with any of these tactics.
I had another think about it, and tried to think of the remaining possibilities even though it felt like I had eliminated the PC hardware, software and networking from the equation already, and decided to give swapping out the PSU (which was a cheapo one) a try.
The old PSU is unbranded. It also has a single 4 pin CPU connection whereas the replacement has the now standard 2x4 CPU connection. I can't imagine this in itself making much difference but it's an obvious difference so I thought I'd mention it. My only theory as to how this is a PSU issue is that perhaps onboard devices like the NIC or a piddly little PCI card are powered on a different rail to the one that the graphics card, board and CPU are using, perhaps the 5V rail?
The bizarre problem - customer's desktop PC, sandy bridge era, running Win7. I've visited the customer three times in total, for the same issue every time, about six months apart, until the most recent (third) appointment where it wasn't apparently going to go away with a quick fix. On each occasion the computer's ethernet connection would fail to do DHCP or have difficulty detecting a network connection.
On the first occasion I 'fixed' the problem by swapping the ethernet lead for another one. On the second occasion I 'fixed' it through a solution I've found before to work with the BT Hub (BT's wireless router) whereby swapping the ethernet socket in use on the router inexplicably works. On the third occasion neither of these solutions worked, nor did:
1 - try yet another cable
2 - power cycle the router, disconnecting it from the mains for a minute in between, also tried factory resetting the router
3 - try another router (different brand)
4 - remove Microsoft Security Essentials (it does have a network inspection module which I've never seen cause a problem, but there's always a first time)
5 - try a PCI NIC (which also involved removing a pointless graphics card to get to the slot)
6 - try msconfig base services only / Windows Safe Mode + Networking
7 - netsh int ip reset / netsh winsock reset (I was running out of ideas with the latter, I kinda knew it wouldn't work)
8 - try ubuntu live cd
(not in the exact order I did things in)
Occasionally the computer would manage to do DHCP but it would generally only work for one OS session, then restarting or cold booting would make the problem resurface. The symptoms didn't alter with any of these tactics.
I had another think about it, and tried to think of the remaining possibilities even though it felt like I had eliminated the PC hardware, software and networking from the equation already, and decided to give swapping out the PSU (which was a cheapo one) a try.
The old PSU is unbranded. It also has a single 4 pin CPU connection whereas the replacement has the now standard 2x4 CPU connection. I can't imagine this in itself making much difference but it's an obvious difference so I thought I'd mention it. My only theory as to how this is a PSU issue is that perhaps onboard devices like the NIC or a piddly little PCI card are powered on a different rail to the one that the graphics card, board and CPU are using, perhaps the 5V rail?
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