Hi,

I've just subscribed, and could certainly use some help with my home built
machine.  I live in the UK.

SPEC:
Top Gun TX-Pro MB with on board soundcard and 1MB L2 cache.
32MB SDRAM.  4MB Graphics card.  Intel P200MMX heatsink and fan.
2.4GB Western Digital HD.  Windows95B

HISTORY:
It has worked fine for about a year, then one day the Sony 36X CDROM drive
just packed up once and for all - no warning.  After dismantling the computer,
pressing on the chips (suitably earthed) and re-assembly, I lost the parrallel
port on which the scanner was attached, and still no CDROM.  Some while
after that it failed to recognise the HD, but this only happened the once, and I
got that back after another removal and replacement of the MB etc.  A
subsequent 're-build' and poke around restored the scanner which worked
perfectly for some time before I moved the base unit across the room, and it
went again.

Tested the CDROM drive in an old 486, but it appeared dead.  Tested an old
4X of known good history by the same method in the 486 by plugging it into
power and audio only and playing a music CD through headphones.  Put this
into the Pentium as a temporary measure.  Worked fine for a while, then
gradually began to 'fail', putting up blue screen of death sooner and sooner.
Now almost completely unusable.  The power supply delivers exactly 5V,
stable under varying load, tested with a multi-meter.  All data leads tested for
continuity.

RELATED? SOFTWARE ANOMOLIES
Windows doesn't seem very stable atm, and does some weird things like
putting up half the phone number in DUN, I cancel it, re-launch it and its fine.
Suddenly sol.exe the little card game aplet shipped with windows doesn't
work anymore putting up a GPF.  More and more of these in other apps too.
'Sticky' settings in various apps like the START/Run box or Pegasus won't
remember where they were left as they should.  Too much more to list really.
Properly virus checked, and recent full defrag, scandisk + surface scan.

Sorry this is so long, but I could really use some help diagnosing the fault(s),
and knowing which components are killing which if any, and how to test and if
possible repair.  I have a multimeter, soldering iron, and rudimentary
electronic/hardware knowledge, but can go a long way with coherent
instructions!

Thanks for any help or pointers to useful web sites,

Neil Taylor

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