random crashes

[john wendel]

On 02/27/2011 01:11 PM, Tim wrote:
> On Sat, 2011-02-26 at 16:12 -0700, compdoc wrote:
>> 3) While looking in the case, look for bad capacitors on the
>> motherboard and inside the PSU. Click on the pictures to see close up:
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague
>>
>> 4) If you're using two or more sticks of ram and the sticks are
>> mismatched, try buying matched pairs. Also, look at the sticker on the
>> ram and see if they require that their voltage be set higher than
>> normal.
>
> And while poking around inside the case, do not zap the innards with
> static shocks.  If you don't know about how that happens, and how to
> avoid it, you should read up about it first.
>
> Taking no anti-static precautions is one of those causes for mysterious
> failures, usually much a long time after you'd done your poking around.
>

I once killed a motherboard by vaccuming out the dust. Static discharge 
from the vac brush, I think. Don't make the same mistake, use a blower 
or canned air instead.

John