We took the
Black Dragon to our good friend Tyson "
Pluvius" Mohr's house for further diagnostics. It is most defiantly a mother board problem with the system. During our testing, we noticed leaking capacitors near the motherboard switching power supplies. Several of the capacitors bulged near the top, and some showed signs of leaking. Others lower on the motherboard seemed fine. This is probably related to the problem.
Strangely enough, the system works after it heats up, but crashes critically if it becomes too cool. This is a very strange symptom indeed.
Each of the hard drives were checked by the manu factor utilities. We found the 2 of the Western Digital drives were diagnosed with errors-- one of the 100 GB RAID drives and the 60 GB. All the IBM drives checked out fine. Despite the 60 GB Western Digital drive failing immediately in software, we were able to get data off the drive.
So, the next step has to do with repairing/replacing the
Black Dragon's dead motherboard. If the motherboard is still under manufacture warrantee, we will return it. If not, we'll look into a low-cost alternative. Why a downgrade?
Well, while visiting Tyson, we discussed me buying his duel Atholon MP motherboard. This computer will become the long awaited "Red Dragon". There's still a lot of details to cover before this system becomes real, but so far, everything is a go.