PC hdd problem? (Espresso PC)

**MegatronUK** · 11-26-2004, 05:13 PM

Folks, I'm having trouble with my Espresso PC; it's been fine since I got it, even the ram and disk upgrades went smoothly (a few months ago). However, tonight, when transferring some settings over from my desktop machine to the install of Frodoplayer on it, the disk 'clicked' and froze a couple of times hanging the machine.

A couple of reboots and it was fine, but then it did it again and now will not recognise the disk. I assumed the disk was faulty; I've had a couple of IBM Deskstars 'click' to death before. HOWEVER, I can not get the original disk, nor a known-good, working disk from my laptop to be recognised either. About 1 in 10 boot ups a disk will be detected, but it will spin down within a few minutes.

I've taken the casing off the machine, so it has no chance of overheating: no difference. There are a few solder points on the underside of the board that are worrying me though - one of them looks suspiciously like it has melted into the next pin along...

Has anyone had any hardware failures with an Espresso PC? Or even BETTER, would anyone be willing to take a digital picture of the underside of the main board? (specifically looking at a couple of components labelled as '6030L 0592A' near the CMOS backup battery pack).

**MegatronUK** · 11-26-2004, 05:51 PM

I've just taken a few photos of what I think is the faulty solder joint...

www.target-earth.net/1.jpg
www.target-earth.net/2.jpg
www.target-earth.net/3.jpg

Anyone else with an Espresso care to take a look at the same area on their system?

(Just added a circle around where I think the solder has melted... I could be way-off though....)

**MegatronUK** · 11-26-2004, 06:06 PM

Found this on the Saintsong site... cant *quite* make out if those two pins are actually soldered, as mine seems to now be....

Its the nearest black 'square' component to the battery pack. On mine the top pin of that component seems to have soldered itself to a pin just in front of where that centre pin would have gone (if you get what i mean)... ie halfway between the top and bottom pins, just out of line with them.

**MegatronUK** · 11-27-2004, 07:54 AM

Ok, tried it this morning... worked fine for a couple of hours, then the disk clicked, spin down and it hung again. This was without the cover on, the cpu heatsink/fan was still only just warm to touch; definitely not related to overheating of the computer itself....

Just as a thought, I connected the CD/FDD docking module in, just to see if that would work... to my surprise, the CD will not eject.

This looks suspiciously like a lack of power - both the HDD and CD probably use more power than the CPU and memory, so thats possibly why it runs but won't detect the hard drive, nor eject the CD tray.

I'll try and find an alternative power supply to see if that sures it, but it's strange that its only just started happening. Anyone else had problems with the supplied UK power adaptor?

**DaRacerz** · 11-27-2004, 09:34 PM

Very possible. Quite interestingly, i actually had the connectors go bad on previous harddrive where the solder connection cracked and went bad. Could be a relation. If you presume lack of power just disconnect everything or pop the harddrive in your home computer and see if you can duplicate the saem results.

**Seraph** · 11-29-2004, 01:19 AM

Do you guys want me to take pics of mine? I use it all the time. I have a 60GB Drive and 128MB running XPMCE. 128 is a little slow for my taste

L

**MegatronUK** · 11-29-2004, 02:25 PM

My DC-DC laptop car power supply arrived today... I'm going to test it out tomorrow and see if that cures things - it's rated at 70W, 15v@3.5A as opposed to the 15v@3.0A of the power supply that come with the Espresso (may just not be quite enough with the extra memory and bigger disk).

I really hope that its the power supply (it does get very warm), if its not, then it must mean something is failing/has failed on the board itself.

Thanks for the offer, if this new PSU doesnt fix it, I may take you up on it.