My system specs are windows xp build 2600. via 4 in 1 drivers nvidia drivers 45.09 direct x 8.1 amd athlon 2100xp a7v333 with raid support with usb 2.0 geforce 4 mx 440 (64 mb, 4x agp, tv out) 2 x 60gb seagate barracuda hard drives (not raided) lg cd burner pioneer dvd player thermaltake silent power supply 480 watts 256 MB yeahdon ram pixelview play tv tuner card (why did i by such a cheap card) firewire and game port the ups and downs of the a7v333 mobo all ran fine for approximatley 3 months then the power supply died, lost 12v and 5v rail. returned to shop and got a new power supply installed, then hard drive was dying, seagate barracuda 60 gb. had that replaced under warranty, plus i bought a new one for backups, (learned my lesson). had an heat issue, cpu temp was in the 70 deg c mark idle. 84 under load. computer shop said its ok, amds run hot, i didn't believe them, installed a thermaltake volcano 11 xaser fan and heatsink myself, was careful when installing. temps where around 52 degrees c idle 60c when under load. all was fine for another 2 months then the ram stick failed, memtech. got a new ram stick for free, just before the warranty ran out. phew. the power supply sounded like it was battling with the amount of stuff in my case, so a replaced it (rated 300 watt, when calculated out only was 260 watts) with a new one thermaltake silent power 480watt supply. all was well. for some time. with some random reboots. now things have recently started acting up again, cpu fan rpm varies even though its running off the 12 volt supply rail. reohstat may be a bit intermittant (may have also been caused by a program i used to cool cpu cpu cool). measured directly off power lead, 12.34 volts around to 12.48 volts. bought a new heatsink and fan today volcano 7 went to install and just as i took it out i saw on the mobo a small surface mount capacitor came loose, only held on slightly by one terminal, just touching it made it come off, (sat directly next to 462 socket) heat from heatsink must have melted solder joints causing the cap to come loose. may explain random reboots and varying cpu fan speed, (noise filter or dc smoothing cap?). rang computer shop and just said a component seemed to be faulty on the board they said it probably wasn't covered by there extended warranty. doh. so a friend of mine thats an expert on surface mount technology (and an excellent engineer) has offered to resolder the cap, and test the mobo for me. isn't it good to have great friends around. (most likely the damage has been done anyway). lets hope this is the final fault, and that no other faults will turn up, then again knowing the reputation of the a7v333 anything is possible. I also suspect the voltage regulators on the motherboard are fautly aswell. meanwhile i'm back to using my old g3 beige mac, (5 years old) the only thing that went wrong was the system settings where lost (battery on mobo died) am i the victim of bodgy warranty work, or just another casualty in todays fast paced throw away society?. (have worked some years as an assistant technician for a home theatre company, its a similar story there too. dvd players are the worst at dropping dead or playing up)..

We all have dirty laundry, don't we? Some would never talk about it. 4 IBM 60 GB hard drives dropped dead without any warning in 12 months. Everytime it was under warranty. But, who gives a damn about the warranty the damage is done. No more IBM drives for me. One thing may help which is a quality surge protector and not the cheapo from Walmart.