Ok fellas here is the deal, I built my folks a pc - ran excellent for awhile, now I am having a real stumper of an issue that I can't figure out. The system is pretty basic, Cubx mobo (bought new), windows xp pro, 766 celeron (used one I had kickin' 'round), 392 pc133 ram, tnt2 vid card, modem, ol' isa soundblaster, beige box, nothing really exciting. Here's the strange issue. Say the computer has been sitting for awhile...Boots fine, runs fine for awhile (10 minutes or so). Then it just freezes (sometimes the display gets all weird with black and red bars running across it). I do a hard shutdown (no other choice). Sometimes it will reboot to the windows screen and then freeze. Sometimes it will not boot at all (the HD led doesn't even light, doesn't go to the memory check or anything). Seems if I can get it into safe mode, the 'puter will run fine without shutting down though... It seems that if I let it sit long enough it will boot fine and run fine for a little while. Heres what I've already tried... -ram - is ok... -video card swap - no change... -new power supply - no change... -cmos battery (i know, i know) - no change... -fans running fine... -cpu temp is good! -voltages are good! -no virus or spyware running that I can find, aka no weird boot processes, avg is updated and finds nothing, hijack this finds nothing strange,spybot and adaware the same...(note it did have a dialer/downloader but i took care of it, no trace of it remains) -no new hardware installed recently -tried system restore - no change -tried cleaning the system with system restore off - no change -probably tried some other stuff that i am not mentioning now - NO CHANGE. Man, I can go on and on! Holy shit, my folks certainly raised a verbose one. Anyway, can anyone think of anything else it could be... MOBO is bad? CPU? It seems to be a weird software/hardware combo issue with symptoms of both. I dunno. I do know there are some sharp cookies in these forums, though. Any help would get my parents off my back!
"Heat Issue" jumped to my mind right away but since you said the temps were fine I guess not. It could be a bum PSU. An old or very cheap PSU can be the cause of all sorts of reboots, lockups, and random shutdowns.
Heat was also the first thing I thought of since it doesn't occur until the system has been up and running long enough to overheat. Saying that it has no problems once it gets into safe mode indicates a software problem, possibly a driver that is not loaded in safe mode - video, network, etc. However a software issue wouldn't prevent it from booting at all and not get the memory check. That sounds more like a hardware/IRQ conflict. If you have several cards in there I would pull them all out, leaving video. Try to boot up and see if it runs ok. If it does, then power down and add another card. Do that with each card one by one to see if it is one of them causing a conflict. If you don't have cards, try disabling things like onboard sound, network, firewire one at a time to see if that is where the hardware conflict is.
Thanks for the replies, I too was hoping for a heat issue (meaning ANY certain issue), but alas it doesn't look that way. Cruel fates! Maybe a bum cpu...I'll try the 'ol pci card shuffle tomorrow (only a modem and a sound card anyhow) and let y'all know if that was the issue...if not I could always trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries.
If all else fails you can also see if your BIOS has an option to Load Failsafe Defaults or something similar. If the computer runs fine that way, start changing settings (one at a time - then reboot and test) until it starts having problems again. I ran out of ideas and had to resort to this one time and ended up finding a bad IDE cable. I don't think that's your problem, but the methodology should still work in a pinch.
did you try re installing windows? does the machine really like xp? some older machines don't try 98 se. try another cpu. wish you luck if all else fails sell it to someone you hate and buy newer parts with the money you make
Looks like a "Cat Fight" to me. Your OS is new. Your CPU is used. Not sure about your quantity of RAM as shown. Vid card: is it AGP or PCI? Modem: ?? "ISA Soundblaster"??? I can appreciate your wanting to put together a machine for folks. Components & Software are only forward & backwards compatable to a degree. That is has run at all is laudable. Bios and firmware upgrades only go so far before they are dis-continued in favor of using programmer talents on newer products. Your CPU, OS & Ram can probably be re-used, just not with the other components. Maybe the Vid card too. MB:???? If it has an ISA slot, lay it to rest. That or rebuild a box that plays 486 games. Old "beige box" right? Does the PSU in the old box meet the new MB requirements? Just a thought. Voltages, temperatures..........Aaaaah it's going to blow up. duck & cover. TC _X_X_X_X_X_[small]Stretch the cash. Bargain hunting. System is not static.[/small]
Thanks for the replies folks, The CUBX mobo plays well with XP, as I built a similar system for my bro and I am using one right now. Mine has a 1 gig celeron with 640 ram and it works wonderfully for most all that I do (not games however, but backing up dvd's with my 811s - which I think I munched last night but I will start another thread for that one). Yeah, the ram I slightly mis-stated, it has 3@128 strips = 384 MB. I bought the tower new, the mobo new, most of the ram new, only the CPU was used (socket 370)...I know the folks could use a new 'puter anyhow (so could I), but it was replacing a 233MMX system, so it was definately worth it... I removed the modem and isa sound card and am running it right now...It has been fine for about 10 minutes so if it is going to kick out it would be any time now...I'll keep you posted.
Yeah, I just KVM'd over to the bane of my existence and I have the black screen of oblivion staring back at me...hmmmmmm. Now it won't reboot...status quo for this mutha. I had just enough time to check for sassr, run a virus scan. I had pc probe going, temps and voltages read fine...It has to be the CPU, eh? Yeah, definately the cpu. Definately. The processor did come out of an HP pavillion that I cannibalized. F*ckin HP's!
Problem Resolved...video card! The first card I tried (a certified good card) still exhibited the issue. Basically, it was a tnt2 that failed, I tried a tnt and it was still failing. Tried another brand of card (and driver) and it worked like a charm. Shouldn't have XP known the cards were different? I didn't uninstall the driver before swapping cards...Could have it just been a corrupt driver all along?
It's quite possible it was. XP is prone to driver issues that sometimes make me look back fondly on Windows 95 (okay that's an exxageration) and in fact I've had one install where the video driver (for the onboard video on an nForce 2 board) was screwed up from the first time it was installed. In fact until I reinstalled the OS I had to put a different video card in so it would stop crashing. _X_X_X_X_X_[small]Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue DVD Rebuilder Guides: http://www.afterdawn.com/guides/archive/dvd_rebuilder_tutorial.cfm http://www.afterdawn.com/guides/archive/dvd_rebuilder_tutorial_advanced.cfm[/small]
