Lots of Problems

[sfmedic]

Hi, I will try to keep this short but my son and I put together a computer for his christmas and we have had a heck of a time to get it stable.

AMD sempron 2200
ECS K7VTA3 v6.0c VIA® KT333 & VT8235
LEI 512 MB RAM 2.5cas
WD 80GB HDD
DVD ROM
CD-RW
ATI 9200se 128mb
Powmax 400w psu/case
NEC 1.4 fdd
WIN XP PRO

We started out with windows 98se, and had some problems with random reboots. And some other miscelaneous problems with the onboard ethernet being detected and such. We then went with WINXP Pro and did the conversion from FAT 32 to NTFS on the HDD.

Things we experience now
1 unexpected reboots often with clicking on an applications close box then after reporting the problem the message "windows has recovered from a serious error" and associates it with the graphics device.

2. physical memory dumps often when loading or playing 007

3. after boot up and bios is detecting the ide devices it shows them but then has a "Primary IDE channel no 80 conductor cable installed" windows seems to continue to boot and run winXP

4. occasionally the bios does not POST. but then does after turning it off and back on

5. After SP2 installed now the multimedia device is not being detected even after re installing all of the drivers.

I cannot respond immediately but any suggestions? I feel it could be anything from the psu to the BIOS settings and registry and maybe viruses, I have PC-Cillin 2002 installed and updated

Thanks

 

[nick1985]

my first instinct is the crappy power supply

my second instinct is the crappy motherboard.

my third instinct is the no name RAM

do you have spares to test?

 

[DakotaEpic]

Personal experience:
VIA Chipset + ATI video card = Buy a new motherboard. Their official forums even said that some of their chipsets didn't support/work well with ATI cards. Get an Intel, or ironically enough nVidia chipset mobo.
Good luck with the other things.

 

[ZL1]

first pull the ram and reseat, then disconnect hdd and opticals
go into bios, enter load defaults

then using a different machine go to http://www.memtest86.com/
download, make floppy, test (new machine)

if you get errors in memtest, try other ram if available
if you are not getting errors then Id say power supply is the problem (95% sure)


D

 

[sfmedic]

Originally posted by: ZL1
first pull the ram and reseat, then disconnect hdd and opticals
go into bios, enter load defaults

then using a different machine go to http://www.memtest86.com/
download, make floppy, test (new machine)

if you get errors in memtest, try other ram if available
if you are not getting errors then Id say power supply is the problem (95% sure)


D

THanks for the advice. This is the only machine that runs pc2700 in the house so running memtest86 at the present will be difficult to do. I have a feeling it is a faulty psu or at least its a good place to start. Other than getting a new mobo, memory, vid card etc. etc. etc........

 

[sfmedic]

Originally posted by: ZL1
first pull the ram and reseat, then disconnect hdd and opticals
go into bios, enter load defaults

then using a different machine go to http://www.memtest86.com/
download, make floppy, test (new machine)

if you get errors in memtest, try other ram if available
if you are not getting errors then Id say power supply is the problem (95% sure)


D

Sorry hit the reply key twice.

 

[ZL1]

Originally posted by: sfmedic

Originally posted by: ZL1
first pull the ram and reseat, then disconnect hdd and opticals
go into bios, enter load defaults

then using a different machine go to http://www.memtest86.com/
download, make floppy, test (new machine)

if you get errors in memtest, try other ram if available
if you are not getting errors then Id say power supply is the problem (95% sure)


D

THanks for the advice. This is the only machine that runs pc2700 in the house so running memtest86 at the present will be difficult to do. I have a feeling it is a faulty psu or at least its a good place to start. Other than getting a new mobo, memory, vid card etc. etc. etc........

u'r welcome
? about the pc2700
test the ram on the new machine


D

 

[Amaroque]

I would absolutely get rid of the POWMAX PSU.

These generic PSU's have a tendency to have unstable rails, which will make any troubleshooting very difficult.

I'm not even going to go into all the ramifications of using POWMAX. I would highly recommend getting a quality PSU such as Antec, or another name brand.

 

[sfmedic]

Originally posted by: ZL1

Originally posted by: sfmedic

Originally posted by: ZL1
first pull the ram and reseat, then disconnect hdd and opticals
go into bios, enter load defaults

then using a different machine go to http://www.memtest86.com/
download, make floppy, test (new machine)

if you get errors in memtest, try other ram if available
if you are not getting errors then Id say power supply is the problem (95% sure)


D

THanks for the advice. This is the only machine that runs pc2700 in the house so running memtest86 at the present will be difficult to do. I have a feeling it is a faulty psu or at least its a good place to start. Other than getting a new mobo, memory, vid card etc. etc. etc........

u'r welcome
? about the pc2700
test the ram on the new machine


D

I will, but after I change the psu, then I will run memtest86 and see if that has any errors.

 

[ZL1]

Originally posted by: sfmedic

Originally posted by: ZL1

Originally posted by: sfmedic

Originally posted by: ZL1
first pull the ram and reseat, then disconnect hdd and opticals
go into bios, enter load defaults

then using a different machine go to http://www.memtest86.com/
download, make floppy, test (new machine)

if you get errors in memtest, try other ram if available
if you are not getting errors then Id say power supply is the problem (95% sure)


D

THanks for the advice. This is the only machine that runs pc2700 in the house so running memtest86 at the present will be difficult to do. I have a feeling it is a faulty psu or at least its a good place to start. Other than getting a new mobo, memory, vid card etc. etc. etc........

u'r welcome
? about the pc2700
test the ram on the new machine


D

I will, but after I change the psu, then I will run memtest86 and see if that has any errors.

see thats the thing, the psu shouldnt affect a bare system running memtest

plus I actually have a powmax 400 running a xp2400, no probs

 

[Amaroque]

Originally posted by: ZL1
see thats the thing, the psu shouldnt affect a bare system running memtest

plus I actually have a powmax 400 running a xp2400, no probs

It could very well affect Memtest. Flaky rails can easily make your RAM unstable. I had a 400 watt POWMAX in an AXP system I built for a friend. It ran fine until the PSU blew up. Luckily it only took out an older HDD.

 

[sfmedic]

I am currently at work on a friends laptop. So I can't physically do anything until tomorrow. Well I can download memtest86 on his machine and see what comes up tomorrow. It seems that if the psu is faulty, any spikes through the system can cause numerous errors and be very random in nature. Let alone very detrimental to any or all components.

 

[ZL1]

Originally posted by: sfmedic
I am currently at work on a friends laptop. So I can't physically do anything until tomorrow. Well I can download memtest86 on his machine and see what comes up tomorrow. It seems that if the psu is faulty, any spikes through the system can cause numerous errors and be very random in nature. Let alone very detrimental to any or all components.

sorry, your previous post was a bit confusing thats all
"This is the only machine that runs pc2700 in the house so running memtest86 at the present will be difficult to do"
I thought you misunderstood me and thought I suggested you run the ram on a different machine to memtest it

D

PS change the psu, by all means
I was giving the advice based on the assumption that the psu cant handle the machine, not on the assumption that the psu is faulty, if you think its faulty change it
also I didnt know you have a spare + its usually a pain to change a psu

 

[sfmedic]

Another problem my son reported to me is that the CPU fan was not turning on so the computer would not POST. He took the side cover off and reseated the plug, put everything back together and then it did post. PSU or MOBO with this one? I think it is MOBO, maybe from the PSU.

 

[stevty2889]

I had a 400w powmax, and it made my $180 motherboard go pow..I would recomend trying to boot up without the video card in, to see if you get it to power on at all. It should give you a beep code by not having the video card in. If that doesn't work, pull out the ram, and see if it powers on and beeps. If still no go, take the motherboard out of the case, place it on a non-conductive surface, and try powering on again. If it does, add the ram and video card back, and try again.

 

[sfmedic]

OK here's an update of what I have done. I installed a new PSU an Ultra 400w. Ran MEMTEST86. It came up with 30000 +/- errors on the first pass. So I will be getting a new stick of 2700 DDR ram. If that doesn't fix the reboot and physical memory problems, then it's the MOBO or the CPU.

 

[ZL1]

Originally posted by: sfmedic
OK here's an update of what I have done. I installed a new PSU an Ultra 400w. Ran MEMTEST86. It came up with 30000 +/- errors on the first pass. So I will be getting a new stick of 2700 DDR ram. If that doesn't fix the reboot and physical memory problems, then it's the MOBO or the CPU.

now you see why I said run memtest first ?
did you reseat the ram ? that sometimes helps, dimms are funny at times


D

PS do you have any pc2100 ram in the house ? you could see if its the mobo/cpu with a pc2100 module by setting ram freq to a lower setting in bios

 

[sfmedic]

Yes I reseated the RAM and then tried it in the other slot as well. And it came up with the same errors. On test 4 alone I believe it showed 20000 errors or so. Any way I'm hoping a new stick of RAM will do the trick. Thanks for the help, I will update after I get the new stick of RAM and re-test it. That will be a couple of days from now as I am back at work until Wednesday.

 

[ZL1]

Originally posted by: sfmedic
Yes I reseated the RAM and then tried it in the other slot as well. And it came up with the same errors. On test 4 alone I believe it showed 20000 errors or so. Any way I'm hoping a new stick of RAM will do the trick. Thanks for the help, I will update after I get the new stick of RAM and re-test it. That will be a couple of days from now as I am back at work until Wednesday.

90-95% its the ram, you should have a resolution soon

GLB


D

 

[sfmedic]

Originally posted by: ZL1

Originally posted by: sfmedic
Yes I reseated the RAM and then tried it in the other slot as well. And it came up with the same errors. On test 4 alone I believe it showed 20000 errors or so. Any way I'm hoping a new stick of RAM will do the trick. Thanks for the help, I will update after I get the new stick of RAM and re-test it. That will be a couple of days from now as I am back at work until Wednesday.

90-95% its the ram, you should have a resolution soon

GLB


D

That's what I'm hoping for is a resolution. This was a christmas present to my son and he has been discouraged by it. But he has also looks at it as a learning experience, which is also valuable.

 

[sfmedic]

I got a new stick of Kingston Value Ram 512mb. Put it in and ran memtest and held my breath (well not as long as it takes to run, ya know). It soared through memtest without a single error. So, on that condition, I hope that his system is stabilized and ready to rip through some serious business, games or whatever else a 13 year old does on a computer. Thanks to all for your support and feedback.

 

[mauiblue]

Originally posted by: sfmedic
I got a new stick of Kingston Value Ram 512mb. Put it in and ran memtest and held my breath (well not as long as it takes to run, ya know). It soared through memtest without a single error. So, on that condition, I hope that his system is stabilized and ready to rip through some serious business, games or whatever else a 13 year old does on a computer. Thanks to all for your support and feedback.

I have Kingston Value RAM (four of the same one's you describe) and they are great. I've heard some grumblings about Kingston but I'm happy with it and I've had my system up and running since July 2004 with no problems.

I hope you guys got it all squared away now. Good luck.

 

[ribbon13]

Buy one of these Seasonic ST400s