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at the end of my rope/IDE cable :)



 
 
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  #11  
Old January 7th 04, 05:32 AM
Steve Rennick
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While your in the case check all the CAPS on the motherboard for
damage. These cylindrical parts that tend to be silver colored. See
if any of are ruptured and leaking electrolyte and double check all
your connections again.

One more question did your problems start out of the blue or did you
install any new hardware and/or software and then the problems began?


hey jamotto
i'll check the caps next time i'm in there
was "in there" before seeing your message tonight. what basically happened
was i left the computer running in safe mode this morning after the
unsuccessful attempts with a different PS and also throttling back the chip
to 1050/100fsb. but got home, and, you guessed it, hardlocked at a the
desktop with no mouse or keyboard functionality. hit reset, got back into
windows, had a few windows open, clicked on the newsgroup to get the latest
messages, and BLAM reboot. as it was rebooting, i shut it down, and swapped
out my xp1600+ for a duron 1.2 in another machine with the same mobo that's
rock-solid stable by comparison (my son's...it's OK, he's in bed , and
will leave the computer on overnight, to check again in the AM if it's
crashed on me guy at the local computer shop (who i trust) thinks it's
likely the chip...given there was a bit more stability when i
underclocked...either that or the mobo. oh yeah...my problems started when
me, the wife, our 2 boys and the bun in the oven moved to a new house (that
was in july). but it could go back as far as january...the only new thing
in the box this year is a asus geforce 4 ti4200 128 meg vid card...but i
guess i'll find overnight, cuz if it still crashes, it ain't the chip i
initially suspected a bad outlet in the new house, but have tried the
computer on others (including those the other PC's use...of course without
those machines plugged in ) but still had the rebooting problem. funny
thing, i don't know what chip damage looks like, but when i flipped over my
1600+ there were these little silver marks (almost like carbon-scoring on a
star wars ship) in the central area where there aren't any prongs.
dunno...guess i'll find out in the am...
thanks again...you've been great!
steve



  #12  
Old January 7th 04, 12:23 PM
jamotto
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hmm, could be the processor though they tend to be either work or not
work, but not both. You might try and run the computer in the BIOS
setup screen just leave it idle there this would remove any chance of
the O/S being the problem. If it crashes in the BIOS setup screen it
is hardware problem.

It also allows you to view the voltage, temp, fan readings using the
hardware monitor option in the BIOS.



As for motherboards failing the ASUS card comes with a utility called
smartdoctor. When my motherboard was failing the voltage reading on
the graphics card would drop from 3.3V to 1.5V and back again. It
would give odd temp reading for the memory and GPU too(never knew
memory could reach 650F deg):-)

Just some side thoughts. Make sure you have the Assign IRQ For VGA
enabled in the bios. Also did you disenable the on-board sound?
  #13  
Old January 7th 04, 01:19 PM
ratched
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"Steve Rennick" wrote in message news:yn5Kb.950474$6C4.912851@pd7tw1no...

BIOS-updated to the latest for my mother board...have also updated to the
latest SIS AGP drivers for my mother board.


Steve,

These other guys seem to be pretty well on the case. But I seem to
remember that the SIS chipset has some incompatibility issues with
certain graphics card chipsets. Unfortunately I can't recall which
ones. It may be that SIS have corrected these issues in their latest
drivers anyway. Have you tried another graphics card with a different
chipset, e.g. Radeon? Just a thought.

Ratched
  #14  
Old January 7th 04, 03:18 PM
Steve Rennick
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"jamotto" wrote in message
om...
hmm, could be the processor though they tend to be either work or not
work, but not both.


well it would seem the processor's the culprit...i left the computer on over
night, and, for the first time in a long-time, the PC was still running when
i woke up this morning. at least i've got my first concrete proof of what
it is. as for bios settings, yes, i do have an IRQ assigned to VGA...yes,
the on-board sound is disabled...and i also took a look at my caps last
night, and they all seem to be OK...i'll run smartdoctor as well and post
the results back here.


  #15  
Old January 7th 04, 03:23 PM
ratched
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The fact that your PC usually locks up or reboots during a game
suggests that the issue is probably related to the graphics card or
the sound card. Especially since the graphics card is the only new
addition. Is the AA and vsync off? I know you installed the latest
nVidia drivers for your card, but are they specific to the card's
manufacturer? Also have you updated your Audigy drivers?

This guy is having a similar problem:
http://forums.amdmb.com/showthread.p...ghlight=a7s333
Apparently you Ihave/I to buy decent RAM for this board. It
really has to be 2700. If you reset all the memory timings in the
BIOS to the slowest (highest) number you might have some luck. While
you're in there, try disabling your fast writes and changing the
graphics aperture size to as high as it'll go (probably 256mb).

NT and jamotto have the right idea about running the system with the
bare minimum of components, adding gradually until you identify the
problem. If you remove the soundcard and the problem goes away, you
could try putting the soundcard in a PCI slot further away from your
AGP slot to eliminate noise. If you put the soundcard (or modem) in
PCI slot #2, I think you're 'sharing' the slot with the onboard sound,
so PCI slots #3 & #4 are better options. Probably a good idea to
check whether onboard sound is still active in the BIOS as well.

I guess you've already checked the seating of both video and
soundcards to see that they're firmly screwed in and that there is no
dust in the slots. Also if you moved house there is the [small]
possibility that the mobo has shifted and is intermittently coming
into contact with the plate. If this is the case, make sure the board
is well insulated and that you use plenty of well placed risers when
you reassemble.

Also, check your CPU. Might be that all it needs is a quick clean and
some Arctic Silver paste.
http://www.arcticsilver.com/instructions.htm

Please post your results and I'll see if I can help any further.

Regards,

Ratched
  #16  
Old January 7th 04, 04:27 PM
Steve Rennick
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also jamotto...i couldn't find smartdoctor on the asus website...but i did
download asus probe. the following are my voltage readings, upon startup
(w/the 1.2 duron installed):
vcore 1.792
+3.3v 3.296
+5v 4.892
+12v 11.712
are those normal? will leave asus probe running all day as well, and see
what's happening when i get home! thanks again for all your help...and
patience!

"jamotto" wrote in message
om...
hmm, could be the processor though they tend to be either work or not
work, but not both. You might try and run the computer in the BIOS
setup screen just leave it idle there this would remove any chance of
the O/S being the problem. If it crashes in the BIOS setup screen it
is hardware problem.

It also allows you to view the voltage, temp, fan readings using the
hardware monitor option in the BIOS.



As for motherboards failing the ASUS card comes with a utility called
smartdoctor. When my motherboard was failing the voltage reading on
the graphics card would drop from 3.3V to 1.5V and back again. It
would give odd temp reading for the memory and GPU too(never knew
memory could reach 650F deg):-)

Just some side thoughts. Make sure you have the Assign IRQ For VGA
enabled in the bios. Also did you disenable the on-board sound?



  #18  
Old January 7th 04, 08:42 PM
Steve Rennick
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hi again jamotto!
posting from work now...and i've found smartdoctor..looks like it's a
vidcard monitoring utility, and, since i have an ASUS vid card, will
download it tonight and run it. i phoned the local computer shop
here, and priced out a new chip...looks like the lowest end they have
is an amd 2000 pro or a 2500 barton...at 119 and 149
respectively...but i'd like to make sure it's not the mobo. correct
me if i'm wrong, but it could still be the mobo couldn't it...that
just given the fact it can run a chip with a lower clock speed doesn't
necessarily means it's OK, does it...and running smartdoctor to check
the voltages going to the vidcard is one way of ascertaining that,
right?
thanks again,
steve

also jamotto...i couldn't find smartdoctor on the asus website...but i did
download asus probe. the following are my voltage readings, upon startup
(w/the 1.2 duron installed):
vcore 1.792
+3.3v 3.296
+5v 4.892
+12v 11.712
are those normal? will leave asus probe running all day as well, and see
what's happening when i get home! thanks again for all your help...and
patience!

  #19  
Old January 7th 04, 09:59 PM
jamotto
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"Steve Rennick" wrote in message news:DzVKb.15625$X%5.8911@pd7tw2no...
also jamotto...i couldn't find smartdoctor on the asus website...but i did
download asus probe. the following are my voltage readings, upon startup
(w/the 1.2 duron installed):
vcore 1.792
+3.3v 3.296
+5v 4.892
+12v 11.712
are those normal? will leave asus probe running all day as well, and see
what's happening when i get home! thanks again for all your help...and
patience!

The Voltages should be within +-5% which at that time they where.

Good to hear that it is showing some stability. If you can't replace
the old processor(read cash flow problems:-() you might try to
disenable the L1 cache and/or L2 cach. It will run slowwwwwwly but it
chould bypass the affected part of the processor and your son can have
his processor back:-). You might also check out and see if the
processor is still covered by a warranty. It's a long shot but you
never know.

things are sounding on the up and up.
  #20  
Old January 8th 04, 03:52 AM
Steve Rennick
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so a couple of questions, jamotto my friend
first off, downloaded smartdoctor...only way i could get it running was by
uninstalling my nvidia drivers, installing the asus ones...but it would seem
i don't have full functionality with smartdoctor. what it mean is when i
run it, i have very limited setup options, and no way to access the voltage
and smart-cooling features. i'm assuming it's either because of my OS
(win98, therefore can't run smartdoctor 4.0) or my vidcard (it's a vanilla
asus geforce 4 ti4200). the reason i REALLY want to run it now, is cuz i
came home from work today, and the computer had crashed again! looks like
it tried to reboot, but hung at a flashing prompt (no c...just a cursor).
now, i'd left asusprobe running all day. so i started asusprobe
again...went upstairs for supper...and the computer had rebooted (got all
the way to the desktop this time tho . now, i'm thinking it more likely
had something to do with asusprobe, but i want to be able to rule out mobo
entirely...and was hoping to get smartdoctor to monitor the voltage to the
GPU like you did. i'm running asusprobe again right now...voltages all look
good tho...like nothing freaky that would signify any problems going to the
mobo...but i guess i need to see what the mobo's giving to my parts.
anway..any suggestions with smartdoctor? are there other utilities to
monitor videocard voltages?
thanks again!
steve
ps no warranty for my processor...local computer shop only does a year, and
i've had it a year and a bit. lowest end new cpu i can get is a 2000+, for
either 109 at the shop i vowed never to frequent again or 119 at the
other one. and you hit it right on the head on the money-issue..my wife's
off on maternity leave right now, and we're pretty broke...so i may be stuck
with a borderline system for a while now sigh


 




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