Troubleshooting MB


  #1  
Old 09-11-02, 06:48 AM
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Troubleshooting MB

I have been having grief with my system for longer than I care to remember and hope someone has some ideas.
System: PII-400, 320 megs ram, Win 98 1st ver, 2 - 20 gig hd's,
burner, DVD rom, Voodoo 3-3000 video, SB 16 sound card. modem, Lexmark USB printer, Umax USB scanner, Micosoft USB optical mouse.
Almost a year ago I began having trouble with the system, restarting while in use. I thought it might have been the fact that my 5 gig HD was 95% full. I chose to upgrade with new ram, HD, 266 to 400 mhz processor and a change from win 98 to win 2000 professional.
Since that time the problem has slowly worsened.
I have gone from win 2000 to ME and back to 98. I have added a second HD to back up files, have switched around ram, removed printer, scanner, sound card, swapped HD's, swapped dvd and burner, changed video cards, removed and cleaned contacts on all plugs. I am now running win 98, IE6, burner driver, modem and driver, and optical usb mouse.
I am now getting windows error messages, mosly when I change screens or leave the system on the windows screen saver.
I will be removing my modem next to see what happens.
I am trying to isolate a possible hardware/ software conflict.
Any ideas on how I can determine if it is a bad MB?
 
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Old 09-11-02, 09:04 AM
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Here's some good info, greg. Been chasing gremlins in an old computer and haven't figured it out yet (also suspecting mb problem).

http://venus.spaceports.com/~canada/webhq/testing.html
 
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Old 09-11-02, 05:36 PM
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the_tow_guy:
Thanks for the link. Looks like good info.
It's taken some convincing for my wife to believe that this pile of hardware spread all over my desk is not for that new computer I've been threatening to build.
I'm running a leaned out system as they suggest. I think I have it narrowed down to my modem or my USB ports.
Leaned out I was still getting Explorer faults, but not in safe mode. I've just unplugged my USB hub and went PS2 mouse and I am able to write this post without an error.
I will jiggle a few more things and let you know how I make out.
PS:
One reason I want to be able to positively troubleshoot the MB is because my clone has one more year left of a five year MB warranty.
 
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Old 09-12-02, 05:55 AM
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Good luck.

The machine I'm working on is a collection of parts from upgrading my younger brother's computer. I'm hoping to make it reasonably reliable-working so his oldest son can use it for some of the programming he's learning to do [he's crashed the family system more than once]. Started out with a problem booting; would turn it on and nothing would happen. Finally decided the cpu was bad (an old Kingston TurboChip 233). Replaced that with a chip from MY spare and haven't had any more start up problems except that for a while I would get a constant string of beeps and no boot up. Did the usual pulling and reinserting plus traded IDE ports and finally put the HD and CDROM on same cable as master/slave which I THOUGHT had cured all the problems. Now the CDROM is very quirky; takes a lot of work to read the drive (although the system finds it and it shows in device manager). Don't really want to have to try the mb since it's a baby AT; not even sure I can find one and since this is a low budget project, don't really want to spring for a new case ps, and mb. What a pain
 
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Old 09-12-02, 01:55 PM
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You might see if an updated bios will help. Was having problems with a Tyan MB one time and the newest bios image took care of most of the problems. Updated the ORB drive drivers fixed my last problem.

Funny thing about pc's. soon as you fix all the little quirks you almost always upgrade a few weeks later. Now my tyan is sitting in a box waiting to be put in in a new system for the wife. (ok, maybe not new, but more convenient.)

Brian
 
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Old 09-13-02, 05:18 AM
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LOL. Wouldn't be messing with the p.o.s. except it's a favor so my nephew can have a machine to fiddle on that won't crash the family 'puter.

Ran out of things to try last night. Even got as far as pulling and reseating the bios chip (could not find a bios update to save my life so that was a dead-end). Still had multiple, non-repeatable, intermittent problems with booting, cdrom drive, locking up, stopping in the middle of the initial boot, etc. ad nauseum. When it was up and running I could get it to run for days doing various tasks (defrag, surface scans, etc) without missing a beat. The last straw was a cdrom read problem. Various troubleshooting attempts included switching ide ports for hd & cdrom, switching drive cables, switching cpu's, removing all cards & reinstalling one at a time, ran burn-in test utilities, and occasionally slamming the case on the table (which as often as not would produce a good boot on the next startup). Just switching cables or ports was enough to make it go from working to either no response at all or continuous beeping on start-up. About 8:30 last night finally had enough. Removed all the cards, cables, cpu, drives, and power supply, opened the door to my garage and threw the case & mb for distance. Got about a half second of hang-time before it hit the closed garage door. Very gratifyingly theraputic. Would still be sitting there if today hadn't been trash day. Proceeded to install the cpu, hd, sound card, modem, floppy & cd drives, and video card in my other spare (even more ancient mb than the one I tossed - max cpu P200 non-mmx, WOO-HOO!). It is now humming happily along on my kitchen table with everything working.
 
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Old 09-13-02, 04:24 PM
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Cool Space...

You say the HD was/is 95% full? You may not have enough drive to run the swap file. Go into virtual memory and switch it to your second drive. See if this helps. I have ran swap files from a second drive for years, I have pretty much proved it helps and actually OS/2 suggests you run a second drive for the swap file.
 
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Old 09-13-02, 07:27 PM
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I GIVE UP!!!!!!!!!

Enough is enough.
bigmike: The hd was 95% last January and was what I thought was causing my freeze-ups and restarts. This led to hardware and memory upgrades, os changes, hardware swaps and running a lean system with gradual installation of new hardware and software without any sense of what is causing this problem.

I will still try and sort this problem out but now on my kitchen table there is an A7V333 Asus mb with a 1.3ghz Duron , 256 mb of DDR ram and a new US Robotics pci modem.
With my two recent 20 gb hd's , burner, dvd drive and a switch to Win 2000, I hopefully will get some stability back.
There are sure a lot more connectors on this new mb than on the old P2 board.
Thanks for all your help.
My old computer will become a hobby because it bugs me that I can't figure it out.
If I have problems with my table full of parts I'll be back.
 
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Old 09-13-02, 08:07 PM
bigmike
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Cool Software...

Cool Greg you will like that! Especially 2000, I do hope you have the Pro/Corp. version. It is unbelievably stable! Let me know how it comes out or PM me if you need something like drivers or Software…
 
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Old 09-13-02, 10:01 PM
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Everything is going together fairly well but there is something I'm usure of.
My case comes with 2 USB ports, two audio connectors and a fire wire port on the front.
The firewire connector has its own plug.
The flat cable for the audio and USB splits into 4 two wire and four single wire connectors that are labeled but don't match any on the mb.
They are marked: mic in, s-r, 1. gnd, 2. gnd, 3. gnd, 1. vcc, 2. vcc, 1. d-/d+, 2. d-/d+.
Two seem to lead to the audio plugs, mic and s-r. Not sure what s-r stands for.
The remaining are for the usb connector.
There was no documentation with the case and my dealer would probably know, but will be closed 'till monday.
Ideas?
 
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Old 09-14-02, 07:23 PM
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Unhappy This whole computer thing is pretty discouraging.

I am now the owner of two computers.
The one I'm posting on........ a collection of junk parts, and a mostly brand new one, painstakingly assembled.
It looks really pretty except it won't let me install an os.
MicroCrap website says the error message indicates either bad ram or incorrect bios settings.
If a good nights sleep and a fresh outlook tomorrow doesn't help,
I guess I'll have to wait untill Monday for my dealer to help me out.
 
 

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