I am getting frustrated

[themightygeckoe]

More than a month ago I bought a case, albatron MB, amd 2600+ and ordered some 3200 ocz ram from Newegg. I had trouble getting it to install windows xp and then had trouble getting it to run stable at a meager FSB of 100 for both the cpu and ram. It would keep rebooting and I could never get it to run the DDR at 400. I assumed that it was the motherboard so I returned the mb and cpu. I next ordered an epox 8rda+ and an athlon 2100+ but had the same problems. It had trouble installing windows and would then reboot constantly even when I finally got it to install. I tried updating the bios, different hard drives, different cd drives, different video cards, changing the power supply from 300W to 400W Antec....still no luck...posted on several boards and never solved the problem.

I figured that the one thing that I didn't change was the memory, so it must have been the memory. So I sent it back in and got a new stick. Solve my problem...no.

I took the motherboard out of the case and laid it on a box then replaced the ram, video card, DVD drive, and connected a hard drive with windows installed that had worked fine in another system. I hooked it all up, set bios for 133 FSB cpu and DDR, powered it up and got a dreaded BSD so I ran windows repair and voila it booted right into windows. I then started testing it by playing a game of Battlefield 1942 and noticed some slow down on the menu screen and a little bit in gameplay. I did not have these slowdowns in the duron 900 system that I took it from. I thought to try and change the video settings but when I pushed escape it rebooted the system. When it rebooted, My keyboard and mouse would not work during post so I rebooted and it ran the windows disk checkup. When it finished the checkup, it locked up again so I rebooted and got into windows with no problems. I then loaded BF1942 and had the same problem.

As I played around with it, I kept getting the same problems: Disk checkup lock ups, loss of keyboard and mouse but no random reboots from desktop. My heat is under 40C.

Any suggestions? Could it be that the case shorted out the motherboard and damaged it? Is that sort of thing permanent.

This is not my first build but the first one to give me this much trouble.

Epox 8rda+ rev. 1.1 running FSB at 133 and DDR at 200
Athlon xp 2100+
OCZ 3200 512mb
Hercules prophet II Geforce 2
maxtor 30gb
acer DVD

 

[jackschmittusa]

Have you loaded all of the latest drivers for the mobo, vid card, audio? What hsf are you using? Is it installed properly? AGP fastwrite turned off in the bios? Have there been any problems reported with running the mobo with asyncronous cpu and ram speeds (some early bioses that were supposed to support it needed an upgrade)?

 

[themightygeckoe]

I updated all the drivers and that seemed to help some of my problem but my keyboard and mouse continue locking up during the post. I can reboot again and it seemed to unlock them temporarily. I thought maybe a bios update would work but when I rebooted the keyboard locked up and I can't get it to unlock. Any suggestions?

 

[foofoo]

hi,
have you run memtest to check for memory errors?
link

do you see any errors in the system event viewer? if so, what are they?

the customer ratings for this memory really arent that good at newegg
link
so i tend to think that it might be the memory.
try memtest.
good luck

 

[jhbball]

are there any jumpers located on the motherboard? sometimes jumpers need to be set to run @ frequencies greater 100 (133 for example).

meh, just a suggestion.


good luck

 

[themightygeckoe]

Ihave tried a different stick of memory and clearing the cmos. It goes through the memory test and locates the hard drive the keyboard flashes and it tells me to go itno to cmos to reset my settings but the keyboard will not work...I have tried 3 different keyboards...

The motherboard FSB is set at 100 by clearing the cmos but my memory frequency is running at 166 for the ddr333 but without being able to get into the bios, I can't change anything. I have tried resetting the cmos twice.

 

[foofoo]

hi,
this sounds really frustrating. i think that the thing to do now is to bring everything back to basics.
try running the mobo out of the case with just processor, 1 stick ram, video card, kbd. see if you can get into the bios. if you cant then, you have basic hardware problems and i'd guess motherboard. if you can get into the bios, add components one at a time and install the os, looking for problems at each step. it's a long and annoying process but you should be able to find the problem component(s) that way.
good luck.

 

[mechBgon]

Hold up there, pardner... the only reason to set the memory to run at a different speed than the CPU, is if you want to reduce your system performance. :Q That's right... they'll give you better performance if they run synchronously, even though this means running the memory slower than it's rated for.

So if you can get the keyboard working, go into the BIOS and set your motherboard to run the ram at 100% of the CPU's bus speed, no matter what. Also, set your memory voltage to 2.77 volts (see page 4-22 of your 8RDA+ manual).

 

[themightygeckoe]

THis shows you that even people that "know" can make mistakes. The colors on the keyboard and mouse plugs were opposite of the ps/2 ports. So essentially they were plugged in backwards...crazy...

Thank you everyone for all of your help...