Gateway E-3400 Freeze/Hang Problem
by Zube (zube@stat.colostate.edu)
Created: Mar 16, 2005
Updated: Jul 29, 2006
http://www.stat.colostate.edu/~zube/docs/e3400.txt

[ Additions, suggestions or corrections always welcome. ]

I'm one of the people who bought Gateway when it was cool (1990).  
I still buy Gateway, if only because they get replacement parts to 
me very quickly without having to wait for an hour in a phone queue
(are you listening IBM?).

A couple of years ago, one of the machines around here, a Gateway E-3400
starting freezing hard.  It would freeze without warning and once it
did, it was dead and only a power cycle would bring it back.  A new 
motherboard fixed the problem, for a while anyway.

Before requesting a new motherboard, I tried everything I could think of, 
both hardware and software, to fix the silly thing.  I replaced just about
every component in the bloody machine, including the power supply, to 
no avail.  Since it was only one machine, I forgot about it.

Recently two other E-3400s have exhibited the exact same problem.  There
doesn't seem to be a fix for it, so I thought I might at least find some
kind of cause.  One heuristic of computer diagnosis is that *if* nothing 
has changed (and that's a big if) and things suddenly stop working, it's 
probably hardware.

Some flash of inspiration made me take out my flashlight (a Hello Kitty one,
natch) and examine the motherboard.  It turns out that one of the capacitors
(EC34, in the middle of the board) on each of the three flaky machines was
either expanding outward or had already leaked a little.  Capacitors are
supposed to have a flat top.  It appears that Gateway got bitten by 
the Leaking Capacitor mess as documented here:

http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/resource/feb03/ncap.html

The web site mentioned in that article (www.motherboardrepair.com) is
where I have sent four of my Gateway boards.  They have all come back
with new capacitors and, I'm happy to report, work perfectly.  For $50,
including shipping, you could do a lot worse.

Update, Feb 6, 2006:  Sadly, mail to capman@att.net is now completely 
ignored.  I have no idea what happened, but the service seems to be dead,
in spite of the "page last updated" bit always being current.  Shame really.
You might try www.badcaps.com instead.  I will try them shortly too. 

Update, Jul 29, 2006:  The badcaps people seem to be the place to go.
It was $60 for the repair.

So, if your E-3400 is freezing hard and nothing seems to help, do have a 
peek at the motherboard.  It may help diagnose a non-trivial problem.