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#21
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On Mon, 1 Mar 2004 12:15:03 -0500, "Pen"
wrote: Apparently there are 2 versions. If there is on board video then the monitor will be connected over near the mouse/keyboard connectors. Then memory allocation is done on the advanced bios menu under chipset configuration. There won't be a way to turn off the onboard, except to not provide memory for it if you have a PCI or AGP video card inserted. That will turn it off. Earlier video like KM133 couldn't be turned off but it didn't provide the AGP port, only chance for adding a video card was one PCI-based. KM266 should do so automatically when AGP card is used.. AGP is a port not a bus, only one device will be enabled at a time. |
#22
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The board is the K7VM2 R3.0. It has, as you say, the monitor connector next
to the mouse/keyboard connector. I took the video card from my own PC and installed that and turned off the shared memory for graphics - still no luck. Tried a brand new memory stick, still no luck so doesn't look like memory is the problem. So I'm down to it being a problem with the motherboard, or processor, or the settings, but I'm at a loss as to what. "Pen" wrote in message ... Apparently there are 2 versions. If there is on board video then the monitor will be connected over near the mouse/keyboard connectors. Then memory allocation is done on the advanced bios menu under chipset configuration. There won't be a way to turn off the onboard, except to not provide memory for it if you have a PCI or AGP video card inserted. "Pen" wrote in message ... Not sure what is going on here. Asrock says no video in their manual on the web site. Also it even looks entirely different than the version your link shows. Very strange. http://www.asrock.com/support/index_manual.htm "kony" wrote in message ... On Sun, 29 Feb 2004 21:19:09 -0500, "Pen" wrote: Its a K7VM2, as he explained later. LOL, ok, but... it DOES have integrated video, Savage8. http://www.amptron.com/html/Motherbo...vm2_frame.html http://www.asrock.com/product/product_k7vm2_r3.htm http://images10.newegg.com/productim...157-018-04.JPG |
#23
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On Sun, 29 Feb 2004 22:46:48 -0000, "GJ"
wrote: I've just ran memtest, just on the standard mode, and let it do 4 passes. It came up with no errors - however, it only seemed to test 96 meg (I assume, since the message on the screen said "testing 96K - 96M") and also next to Memory it said 96M, even though its a stick of 128 meg installed. I'm even more confused... Maybe the memory isn't the problem, but a mere 4 passes on memtest86 isn't conclusive, it should be ran for several hours even on a system that doesn't have any problems.... a day or longer on a system that does. |
#24
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The board is the K7VM2 R3.0. It has, as you say, the monitor connector next
to the mouse/keyboard connector. I took the video card from my own PC and installed that and turned off the shared memory for graphics - still no luck. Tried a brand new memory stick, still no luck so doesn't look like memory is the problem. So I'm down to it being a problem with the motherboard, or processor, or the settings, but I'm at a loss as to what. "Pen" wrote in message ... Apparently there are 2 versions. If there is on board video then the monitor will be connected over near the mouse/keyboard connectors. Then memory allocation is done on the advanced bios menu under chipset configuration. There won't be a way to turn off the onboard, except to not provide memory for it if you have a PCI or AGP video card inserted. "Pen" wrote in message ... Not sure what is going on here. Asrock says no video in their manual on the web site. Also it even looks entirely different than the version your link shows. Very strange. http://www.asrock.com/support/index_manual.htm "kony" wrote in message ... On Sun, 29 Feb 2004 21:19:09 -0500, "Pen" wrote: Its a K7VM2, as he explained later. LOL, ok, but... it DOES have integrated video, Savage8. http://www.amptron.com/html/Motherbo...vm2_frame.html http://www.asrock.com/product/product_k7vm2_r3.htm http://images10.newegg.com/productim...157-018-04.JPG |
#25
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On Sun, 29 Feb 2004 16:34:58 -0000, "GJ"
wrote: snip, snip, snip? I was hoping the problem would be resolved already, because the opening post was a whopper... so many varables and so little background info that it pretty much needs redone completely... likely the size and arrangement of the info has turned away some posters from responding. ... new hard drive (Maxtor 40GB Fireball 3 5400RPM) and tried to install it. Turns out that the motherboard seemed to have gone as well. Turned out? What, EXACTLY, was the situation? You are quite sure the motherboard was the problem, not some other, heatsink, fan, power supply, etc, problem? I'm already confused... friend had working system, then attempt at adding new hard drive, and suddenly motherboard fails? Suggested he get a basic system without hard drive and I would fit hard drive and his CD writer and DVD rom to the new system. Got case, motherboard (ECS / ASROCK M810LMR) chip (Duron 1600 mhz) all assembled and I put in hard drive, CD and DVD drives. Pretty straightforward so far... That new case, did it come with a generic power supply (what power supply is being used, make/model) or did you reuse the original? Had/have you done any testing of either power supply? These questions may be premature since I don't know what the original problem was. Set computer to boot from CD, Stuck in the XP CD, get to the "press a key to boot from cd" and try to format the harddrive to NTFS. The formatting gets to 100% then a new page comes up with the message "Setup was unable to format the partition. The disk may be damaged". Odd I thought as it was a brand new hard drive. Tried again but this time doing a quick NTFS format. Seemed to get through that OK, then it started to copy files from CD, then got a message "could not find xxx file" (or something). Tried this a few times and the file which it stopped at seemed to be random. Maybe it was the CD, I thought... Did the motherboard (at the time) support hard drives over 32GB in size? Attached the hard drive to my own PC, stuck in the XP disk, hard drive formatted and installed XP first time, no probelms at all. Stuck the hard drive in the other PC and it got to the xp loading screen then came up with a bunch of errors about configuration and settings (sorry can't be more specific) which was fair enough as the computer has different motherboard, processor etc. to mine. Tried to reinstall XP and came across same problems as before again. Thought maybe it was the IDE cable which was taken from my friend's old PC... Stuck a new IDE cable in, same problems... Thought it was something to do with the CD or DVD drive, so put MY CD drive (which installed XP onto my PC) into the new PC (whilst removing the other CD and DVD drive), same problems. Also tried it with the CD IDE cable from my PC too, still no luck. If all else fails you might've just copied the CD to a folder on the HDD while it was in your PC. However you might've also checked the bios on his system to confirm that the new drive was detected properly, in addition to rechecking the jumpers on it and any other device on same IDE cable. Also resetting the board's bios to defaults, possibly updating the bios, might be helpful. There are other weird things happening as well. Computer hangs at random places during startup e.g. when the message comes up to press a key to boot from CD. If it gets passed this point and it starts to load files to initialise the installation (before it tries to format drive) sometimes it hangs here, or I sometimes get messages saying "The file xxx could not be found". Basically the problems seem to happen on a random basis and it just seems luck that it gets to the formatting stage. I'm at a standstill as to what to try next. Somethings I've noticed during this: If I enter BIOS setup (pressing F2) and set the floppy drive and the CD as the only bootable items, then upon reboot enter the boot menu (pressing F11) it lists the bootable times, Floppy: 1.44 floppy drive, Hard drive: Maxtor..., CD: blank, like its not recognising the CD drive, but the PC does auto detect the CD at startup. Could it be a settings conflict between hard drive and CD drive? and if so how would i fix this? It shouldn't be, you should leave the settings on defaults, "auto" if that's a choice. Leave all items as bootable, then with neither the floppy or HDD being bootable, it should boot from the CD. If the power supply is a low-end part like the mainboards, replace it. Spending a lot of time troubleshooting but still ending up with all questionable parts is potentially creating multiple problems. You have another power supply, temporarily swapping it in might be telling. On the other hand, if it's a decent power supply, visit a web forum and see if there are issues specific to your motherboard. http://forums.amdmb.com is one example. Check temps too, verify the heatsink is being installed correctly. Set the motherboard to the lowest (underclocked if possible) speed it'll run and see if that makes a difference. |
#26
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oh right ;-) I just assumed that it would keep going and going until i told
it to stop. Anyway, got some other brand new memory and same problems still persist, so guess it's not that then. Got one of my friends around who is a really good techie and he thought the problems were seriously weird and had never seen anything like it before. He works in the networking/IT department of a university so he has taken it there to let some of the other techies take a look. Just wait to see what happens, I suppose... G.J. "kony" wrote in message ... On Sun, 29 Feb 2004 22:46:48 -0000, "GJ" wrote: I've just ran memtest, just on the standard mode, and let it do 4 passes. It came up with no errors - however, it only seemed to test 96 meg (I assume, since the message on the screen said "testing 96K - 96M") and also next to Memory it said 96M, even though its a stick of 128 meg installed. I'm even more confused... Maybe the memory isn't the problem, but a mere 4 passes on memtest86 isn't conclusive, it should be ran for several hours even on a system that doesn't have any problems.... a day or longer on a system that does. |
#27
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"kony" wrote in message ... On Sun, 29 Feb 2004 16:34:58 -0000, "GJ" wrote: snip, snip, snip? I was hoping the problem would be resolved already, because the opening post was a whopper... so many varables and so little background info that it pretty much needs redone completely... likely the size and arrangement of the info has turned away some posters from responding. ... new hard drive (Maxtor 40GB Fireball 3 5400RPM) and tried to install it. Turns out that the motherboard seemed to have gone as well. Turned out? What, EXACTLY, was the situation? You are quite sure the motherboard was the problem, not some other, heatsink, fan, power supply, etc, problem? I'm already confused... friend had working system, then attempt at adding new hard drive, and suddenly motherboard fails? To be honest, I don't know that the motherboard was the problem, but telling the symptoms to a couple of more hardware technically minded friends, they thought it was. The reason we thought this was the problem with the old hard drive was when attempting to, for example, format it, it came up with the error "cannot write to hard drive" or something like that. When the new hard drive was installed and a format was attempted, same message came up. When the old hard drive was connected as a slave to a different PC, it was found to have a number of bad sectors. I didn't want to try to continue formatting the new hard drive on the first PC as I thought there may be a possibility that it could damage the disk. When formatting the new hard drive on a different PC, it formatted no problem (and luckily no bad sectors). Therefore assumed problem was with motherboard. Maybe it wasn't but I didn't want to risk damaging a brand new hard drive. Suggested he get a basic system without hard drive and I would fit hard drive and his CD writer and DVD rom to the new system. Got case, motherboard (ECS / ASROCK M810LMR) chip (Duron 1600 mhz) all assembled and I put in hard drive, CD and DVD drives. Pretty straightforward so far... That new case, did it come with a generic power supply (what power supply is being used, make/model) or did you reuse the original? Had/have you done any testing of either power supply? These questions may be premature since I don't know what the original problem was. It didn't actually come with a power supply so I used the one from the original computer. You think perhaps the power supply is at fault? If so could it have blown something on the new mobo? I have since been using the power supply that I use for my PC (as I am working on it at my house) but hasn't made any difference. Unless, of course, the damage has already been done. Set computer to boot from CD, Stuck in the XP CD, get to the "press a key to boot from cd" and try to format the harddrive to NTFS. The formatting gets to 100% then a new page comes up with the message "Setup was unable to format the partition. The disk may be damaged". Odd I thought as it was a brand new hard drive. Tried again but this time doing a quick NTFS format. Seemed to get through that OK, then it started to copy files from CD, then got a message "could not find xxx file" (or something). Tried this a few times and the file which it stopped at seemed to be random. Maybe it was the CD, I thought... Did the motherboard (at the time) support hard drives over 32GB in size? Don't know. However, I couldn't even get to the stage to even partition the drive as I was getting the "cannot write to hard drive" before I even got to that stage. Attached the hard drive to my own PC, stuck in the XP disk, hard drive formatted and installed XP first time, no probelms at all. Stuck the hard drive in the other PC and it got to the xp loading screen then came up with a bunch of errors about configuration and settings (sorry can't be more specific) which was fair enough as the computer has different motherboard, processor etc. to mine. Tried to reinstall XP and came across same problems as before again. Thought maybe it was the IDE cable which was taken from my friend's old PC... Stuck a new IDE cable in, same problems... Thought it was something to do with the CD or DVD drive, so put MY CD drive (which installed XP onto my PC) into the new PC (whilst removing the other CD and DVD drive), same problems. Also tried it with the CD IDE cable from my PC too, still no luck. If all else fails you might've just copied the CD to a folder on the HDD while it was in your PC. However you might've also checked the bios on his system to confirm that the new drive was detected properly, in addition to rechecking the jumpers on it and any other device on same IDE cable. Also resetting the board's bios to defaults, possibly updating the bios, might be helpful. Checked jumpers on mobo and they are correct for the processor, BIOS seems to be the latest version. PC detected the hard drive correctly. I did manage to install XP when the hard drive was in my PC and it worked no problem. There are other weird things happening as well. Computer hangs at random places during startup e.g. when the message comes up to press a key to boot from CD. If it gets passed this point and it starts to load files to initialise the installation (before it tries to format drive) sometimes it hangs here, or I sometimes get messages saying "The file xxx could not be found". Basically the problems seem to happen on a random basis and it just seems luck that it gets to the formatting stage. I'm at a standstill as to what to try next. Somethings I've noticed during this: If I enter BIOS setup (pressing F2) and set the floppy drive and the CD as the only bootable items, then upon reboot enter the boot menu (pressing F11) it lists the bootable times, Floppy: 1.44 floppy drive, Hard drive: Maxtor..., CD: blank, like its not recognising the CD drive, but the PC does auto detect the CD at startup. Could it be a settings conflict between hard drive and CD drive? and if so how would i fix this? It shouldn't be, you should leave the settings on defaults, "auto" if that's a choice. Leave all items as bootable, then with neither the floppy or HDD being bootable, it should boot from the CD. If the power supply is a low-end part like the mainboards, replace it. Spending a lot of time troubleshooting but still ending up with all questionable parts is potentially creating multiple problems. You have another power supply, temporarily swapping it in might be telling. On the other hand, if it's a decent power supply, visit a web forum and see if there are issues specific to your motherboard. http://forums.amdmb.com is one example. Check temps too, verify the heatsink is being installed correctly. Set the motherboard to the lowest (underclocked if possible) speed it'll run and see if that makes a difference. Thanks for taking the time to reply. Basically I've used componenets that I know to work (CD drive from my PC, two different sets of memory, hard drive's been checked, new IDE cables). The only things that have remained the same are the motherboard, processor and case. Believe me, I wish I hadn't been asked to sort this out in the first place, but when you work in IT, non-computer minded people automatically assume you know everyting to do with computers, even though I'm a programmer and my hardware skills are pretty limited. Never mind, I'm sure it'll get sorted in the end, somehow or other... G.J. |
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