Computer Repair Help

ToshiroOC · Jan 6, 2003, 11:57 PM

A good friend of mine built his own computer recently, and has been having nothing but serious problems with it - I cannot think of a single time when it has functioned perfectly correctly. He has talked to the manufacurers and the resellers, and despite the replacement of some parts, some problems still persist and others have newly started, culminating in the utter non-functionality of his computer at this moment.

Now, let me preface this by thanking anyone who reads through this whole post - I realize it is long, but it is a long story deserving of the space it has...

The rig in question has the following gear (note, none of the PCI cards were plugged in while we were trying to get it functional, and they still aren't in there...)

Abit IT7 MAX motherboard with Pentium 4 2.26Ghz processor (OEM cooler, no overclocking or tweaking of any kind)
512 mb of Corsair XMS3000 and one different stick of 512mb generic RAM (neither work, and when I state an error, it happens with both of the sticks of RAM, with one or the other installed, in any of the slots, or with both installed, in different slots... with nearly all combinations tried..)
120gb Western Digital Special Edition 8mb Cache
3x IBM 120GXP 80gb hard drives (this was intended to be a serious digital video editing rig)
Hercules 8500LE Video card (more on this later...)
Hercules Game Theatre XP sound card
Zoom Hayes 56k Modem
ATI TV Tuner Card
Enermax 550 watt PSU
CD burner, DVD player, Floppy drive, etc.
Windows XP Home

I think that that is it, but I am not totally sure - I will post later if I find out that there were other parts involved..

So basically what happened is this:

We assembled the computer, with the IBM drives on the RAID set of IDE cables and the WD drive set as the master for one of the IDE channels, and tried to install windows. Problem 1: Windows did not install. It would install the files, but when it rebooted to finish installation it would end up just showing a bluish-grey screen with the mouse in the center and not move from there, regardless of how much time accorded it. The mouse was non-functional, and the hard drive was accessing like crazy. We turned the computer off, and tried reinstalling a few more times, with the same result. Finally, we just left the computer at the blueish-grey screen seeking - and then we noticed smoke coming out the AGP connector for the video card. I rushed to the back of the computer and slammed my hand on the switch for the power supply, powering down the computer. Later investigation showed the boiling/melting/combustion of the gold contacts on the AGP connector for the card and the AGP connector on the motherboard.

Both were returned to newegg, the resaler, and new ones came in.

Inital attempts to get everything working appeared to be successful... but not quite. Though Windows XP finally installed without problems, the Western Digital drive proved useless and didn't work as a boot drive - but it worked on one of the IBM 120GXP's. And during usage of Windows, the computer will reboot spontaneously while showing the BIOS message of 0xC1, which the manual says indicated a RAM problem... however, changing the RAM settings did nothing. It was also proven to not be a Windows exclusive problem, as Memtest86 also experienced this spontaneous rebooting while checking the memory, at inconsistent times during the testing. No errors were detected in the RAM because of the spontaneous rebooting. Finally, there was a wind storm in the area that caused a power surge, and though the computer was off and plugged into a surge protector, around the same time it stopped working and saying that the boot disk was invalid (no, there were no disks involved except for the hard drive...) and quote, "something about ATAPI", I am trying to get him to transcribe the entire error message, which I will post later... also, the sound does not work at all with the Hercules Game Theater XP though it did earlier in Windows XP (obviously it doesn't work with the non-booting drive now...), and though I told him to download more drivers, they didn't appear to help...

I and my friend would really really appreciate any help you can provide with this - it has stumped both of us, and the time for getting the parts replaced is getting long and far behind due to some lack of speed on both of our parts... again, any help would be very greatly appreciated. Feel free to ask questions about the setup - though it may take a bit of time to get answers, as he is a very busy guy and does not have internet access except through his now non-functional computer. Again, any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

ToshiroOC

UberLord · Jan 7, 2003, 12:00 AM

Can you test both memory sticks in another PC? Or other memory sticks in the problem PC?

ToshiroOC · Jan 7, 2003, 12:07 AM

Other memory sticks have been tested in the problem PC (the aforementioned 512mb generic stick replacing the Corsair ram...), and I will try and test the Corsair ram in my Epox 8KHA+ later this week if possible, and send him my already somewhat buggy OCZ PC3000 for testing in his computer, but since the new generic stick didn't change anything at all, it leads me to think that it might be unrelated to that particular ram...

DarkFoss · Jan 7, 2003, 12:39 AM

Just a thought your friend has alot of stuff on the 3 and 5 v rails. I took a look at the enermax site and looked at a couple of 550w psu's they have. You didn't say which model but of the 2 I saw 1 had a combined 270v for the 3 and 5 v rails the other had 300w combined, these on the 550 models

For what he's running I'm wondering if the psu is a tad light and causing problems. I know you said the pci cards were not in but still 4 hdds and 2 sticks of ram plus the IT7max is loaded with onboard stuff. So I'm wondering if the psu got overloaded when you first tried installing windows and caused a surge into the motherboard . A bad psu could certainly cause alot of the problems your describing. Can your friend try a different psu ? Something like an Antec 480 550 Truepower. Those don't have any combined rails (switching?) just pure power.

ToshiroOC · Jan 7, 2003, 01:05 AM

I know for a fact that it isn't a problem with the rails being overloaded (unless the PSU is faulty) because we thought of this and unplugged everything but the motherboard and the hard drive we needed for booting, and unplugged all of the cards we could except for the video card, and only had one stick of ram in, and it still happened... though it does make me think that the power supply itself might be at fault, as voltage drops would cause spontaneous reboots...

DarkFoss · Jan 7, 2003, 01:17 AM

Thats kind of what I was thinkin that the psu became damaged/ faulty when the first surge happened that fried the mobo/agp card.

ToshiroOC · Jan 7, 2003, 01:19 AM

One thing that might have happened (unlikely, but possible...) was *cough*human error*cough in the first one - if the card wasn't fully inserted into the AGP slot, and was nudged just enough to short the power connector to one of the other ones, it would probably produce the same effect... the card was not secured in the computer at the time - however, I find this to be a quite undesireable idea

and don't believe it to be the case...

tigerarmyAFI · Jan 7, 2003, 01:21 AM

if you havent tried it already i would definitly replace the psu, i once built a machine that had similar problems due to a faulty psu...

ToshiroOC · Jan 7, 2003, 01:42 AM

I will discuss this with him - in the meantime, do you have any other ideas (lets assume that the PSU is replaced and it still doesn't work...)?

WyreTheWolf · Jan 7, 2003, 07:23 AM

T-

I have had this problem several times. Almost always caused by a weak, or damaged PSU.

Most likely when the AGP bus shorted out it damaged the PSU.

That is the most logical explenation.

However, this can also be caused by just about everything under the sun.

The only other explenation that I can think of... Is that the memory is set to a timing that it doesnt much care for.

I set my Corsair XMS PC3200 to Cas2 with all the settings on ultra. It refused to run properly! At first I thought it was a bad stick of ram... until I read the forums over at Corsair. The recommended timings for the XMS memory is not ultra settings... For some reason the memory can handle incredible speeds... But if you set system timings to Ultra... The memory freaks.

Causing poor performance, freakish display, and random reboots
It took me nearly 10 restarts to get XP installed... I was getting hot!

After I had everything loaded, and could browse a few forums (between the random reboots) I found the Corsair site, and the memory settings.

Now everything is set to more "normal" settings... and everything is happy.

Now I realise that this may not be your problem... You may have the weakest, slowest memory timings selected... The only other mistake that I have ever made was running the memory in the <Host clock +33 Mhz> setting... The memory didnt much care for that either.

Good luck!

Zarathustra · Jan 7, 2003, 08:22 AM

I'd have to also lean towards a faulty/bad PSU. Check the RAM in a different machine just to be safe though. I seriously doubt this, but ALL the connected HDDs could have gotten damaged from the power surge. This happened to a friend of mine.

ToshiroOC · Jan 7, 2003, 09:52 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by WyreTheWolf
T-

I have had this problem several times. Almost always caused by a weak, or damaged PSU.

Most likely when the AGP bus shorted out it damaged the PSU.

That is the most logical explenation.

However, this can also be caused by just about everything under the sun.

The only other explenation that I can think of... Is that the memory is set to a timing that it doesnt much care for.

I set my Corsair XMS PC3200 to Cas2 with all the settings on ultra. It refused to run properly! At first I thought it was a bad stick of ram... until I read the forums over at Corsair. The recommended timings for the XMS memory is not ultra settings... For some reason the memory can handle incredible speeds... But if you set system timings to Ultra... The memory freaks.

Causing poor performance, freakish display, and random reboots
It took me nearly 10 restarts to get XP installed... I was getting hot!

After I had everything loaded, and could browse a few forums (between the random reboots) I found the Corsair site, and the memory settings.

Now everything is set to more "normal" settings... and everything is happy.

Now I realise that this may not be your problem... You may have the weakest, slowest memory timings selected... The only other mistake that I have ever made was running the memory in the <Host clock +33 Mhz> setting... The memory didnt much care for that either.

Good luck!

Thanks everyone for the help! This here is the most cogent explanation I have heard so far for this - it makes a hell of a lot of sense. I know it isn't the memory timings, because they are set on the most conservative possible and they still don't work... but I have asked him to try some PSU testing, and he will try and work on that tonight, and tommorow I will get back to you guys about what happened, though I get a hunch that this is it

DH is really truly a great place, isn't it?

Jan 6, 2003, 11:57 PM	#1
ToshiroOC Unbiased. Join Date: Jun 2002 Posts: 4,812 Rep Power: 0	Computer Repair Help A good friend of mine built his own computer recently, and has been having nothing but serious problems with it - I cannot think of a single time when it has functioned perfectly correctly. He has talked to the manufacurers and the resellers, and despite the replacement of some parts, some problems still persist and others have newly started, culminating in the utter non-functionality of his computer at this moment. Now, let me preface this by thanking anyone who reads through this whole post - I realize it is long, but it is a long story deserving of the space it has... The rig in question has the following gear (note, none of the PCI cards were plugged in while we were trying to get it functional, and they still aren't in there...) Abit IT7 MAX motherboard with Pentium 4 2.26Ghz processor (OEM cooler, no overclocking or tweaking of any kind) 512 mb of Corsair XMS3000 and one different stick of 512mb generic RAM (neither work, and when I state an error, it happens with both of the sticks of RAM, with one or the other installed, in any of the slots, or with both installed, in different slots... with nearly all combinations tried..) 120gb Western Digital Special Edition 8mb Cache 3x IBM 120GXP 80gb hard drives (this was intended to be a serious digital video editing rig) Hercules 8500LE Video card (more on this later...) Hercules Game Theatre XP sound card Zoom Hayes 56k Modem ATI TV Tuner Card Enermax 550 watt PSU CD burner, DVD player, Floppy drive, etc. Windows XP Home I think that that is it, but I am not totally sure - I will post later if I find out that there were other parts involved.. So basically what happened is this: We assembled the computer, with the IBM drives on the RAID set of IDE cables and the WD drive set as the master for one of the IDE channels, and tried to install windows. Problem 1: Windows did not install. It would install the files, but when it rebooted to finish installation it would end up just showing a bluish-grey screen with the mouse in the center and not move from there, regardless of how much time accorded it. The mouse was non-functional, and the hard drive was accessing like crazy. We turned the computer off, and tried reinstalling a few more times, with the same result. Finally, we just left the computer at the blueish-grey screen seeking - and then we noticed smoke coming out the AGP connector for the video card. I rushed to the back of the computer and slammed my hand on the switch for the power supply, powering down the computer. Later investigation showed the boiling/melting/combustion of the gold contacts on the AGP connector for the card and the AGP connector on the motherboard. Both were returned to newegg, the resaler, and new ones came in. Inital attempts to get everything working appeared to be successful... but not quite. Though Windows XP finally installed without problems, the Western Digital drive proved useless and didn't work as a boot drive - but it worked on one of the IBM 120GXP's. And during usage of Windows, the computer will reboot spontaneously while showing the BIOS message of 0xC1, which the manual says indicated a RAM problem... however, changing the RAM settings did nothing. It was also proven to not be a Windows exclusive problem, as Memtest86 also experienced this spontaneous rebooting while checking the memory, at inconsistent times during the testing. No errors were detected in the RAM because of the spontaneous rebooting. Finally, there was a wind storm in the area that caused a power surge, and though the computer was off and plugged into a surge protector, around the same time it stopped working and saying that the boot disk was invalid (no, there were no disks involved except for the hard drive...) and quote, "something about ATAPI", I am trying to get him to transcribe the entire error message, which I will post later... also, the sound does not work at all with the Hercules Game Theater XP though it did earlier in Windows XP (obviously it doesn't work with the non-booting drive now...), and though I told him to download more drivers, they didn't appear to help... I and my friend would really really appreciate any help you can provide with this - it has stumped both of us, and the time for getting the parts replaced is getting long and far behind due to some lack of speed on both of our parts... again, any help would be very greatly appreciated. Feel free to ask questions about the setup - though it may take a bit of time to get answers, as he is a very busy guy and does not have internet access except through his now non-functional computer. Again, any help would be appreciated. Thanks! ToshiroOC __________________ [img][/img] [color=White]Peace be with you, Joe.[/color] Driverheaven Staff Member (Supermoderator)

Jan 7, 2003, 12:00 AM	#2
UberLord A Legend in Underwear Join Date: May 2002 Location: Unknown Posts: 5,255 Rep Power: 0	Can you test both memory sticks in another PC? Or other memory sticks in the problem PC? __________________ Gentoo Linux - Developer (baselayout) Read my blog "I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." Stephen Roberts

Jan 7, 2003, 12:07 AM	Thread Starter #3
ToshiroOC Unbiased. Join Date: Jun 2002 Posts: 4,812 Rep Power: 0	Other memory sticks have been tested in the problem PC (the aforementioned 512mb generic stick replacing the Corsair ram...), and I will try and test the Corsair ram in my Epox 8KHA+ later this week if possible, and send him my already somewhat buggy OCZ PC3000 for testing in his computer, but since the new generic stick didn't change anything at all, it leads me to think that it might be unrelated to that particular ram... __________________ [img][/img] [color=White]Peace be with you, Joe.[/color] Driverheaven Staff Member (Supermoderator)

Jan 7, 2003, 01:05 AM	Thread Starter #5
ToshiroOC Unbiased. Join Date: Jun 2002 Posts: 4,812 Rep Power: 0	I know for a fact that it isn't a problem with the rails being overloaded (unless the PSU is faulty) because we thought of this and unplugged everything but the motherboard and the hard drive we needed for booting, and unplugged all of the cards we could except for the video card, and only had one stick of ram in, and it still happened... though it does make me think that the power supply itself might be at fault, as voltage drops would cause spontaneous reboots... __________________ [img][/img] [color=White]Peace be with you, Joe.[/color] Driverheaven Staff Member (Supermoderator)

Jan 7, 2003, 01:19 AM	Thread Starter #7
ToshiroOC Unbiased. Join Date: Jun 2002 Posts: 4,812 Rep Power: 0	One thing that might have happened (unlikely, but possible...) was coughhuman error*cough in the first one - if the card wasn't fully inserted into the AGP slot, and was nudged just enough to short the power connector to one of the other ones, it would probably produce the same effect... the card was not secured in the computer at the time - however, I find this to be a quite undesireable idea and don't believe it to be the case... __________________ [img][/img] [color=White]Peace be with you, Joe.[/color] Driverheaven Staff Member (Supermoderator)

Jan 7, 2003, 12:39 AM	#4
DarkFoss HardwareHeaven Senior Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: Downers Grove IL Posts: 688 Rep Power: 0	Just a thought your friend has alot of stuff on the 3 and 5 v rails. I took a look at the enermax site and looked at a couple of 550w psu's they have. You didn't say which model but of the 2 I saw 1 had a combined 270v for the 3 and 5 v rails the other had 300w combined, these on the 550 models For what he's running I'm wondering if the psu is a tad light and causing problems. I know you said the pci cards were not in but still 4 hdds and 2 sticks of ram plus the IT7max is loaded with onboard stuff. So I'm wondering if the psu got overloaded when you first tried installing windows and caused a surge into the motherboard . A bad psu could certainly cause alot of the problems your describing. Can your friend try a different psu ? Something like an Antec 480 550 Truepower. Those don't have any combined rails (switching?) just pure power.

Jan 7, 2003, 01:17 AM	#6
DarkFoss HardwareHeaven Senior Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: Downers Grove IL Posts: 688 Rep Power: 0	Thats kind of what I was thinkin that the psu became damaged/ faulty when the first surge happened that fried the mobo/agp card.

Jan 7, 2003, 01:21 AM	#8
tigerarmyAFI DriverHeaven Lover Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: England Posts: 111 Rep Power: 0	if you havent tried it already i would definitly replace the psu, i once built a machine that had similar problems due to a faulty psu... __________________ AMD AthlonXP 1800+ ThoroughBred B JIUHB @ 2137MHz Geforce4 Ti 4200 128Mb @ 310/600 (ASUS V8420) ABIT KX-7 333 v1.1 512Mb Micron PC2700 DDR Creative Live! 5.1 Aircooled (45c Full load)

Jan 7, 2003, 01:42 AM	Thread Starter #9
ToshiroOC Unbiased. Join Date: Jun 2002 Posts: 4,812 Rep Power: 0	I will discuss this with him - in the meantime, do you have any other ideas (lets assume that the PSU is replaced and it still doesn't work...)? __________________ [img][/img] [color=White]Peace be with you, Joe.[/color] Driverheaven Staff Member (Supermoderator)

Jan 7, 2003, 07:23 AM	#10
WyreTheWolf Wolfish Bastard Join Date: May 2002 Location: Cave; Ozark Mountains Posts: 2,110 Rep Power: 0	T- I have had this problem several times. Almost always caused by a weak, or damaged PSU. Most likely when the AGP bus shorted out it damaged the PSU. That is the most logical explenation. However, this can also be caused by just about everything under the sun. The only other explenation that I can think of... Is that the memory is set to a timing that it doesnt much care for. I set my Corsair XMS PC3200 to Cas2 with all the settings on ultra. It refused to run properly! At first I thought it was a bad stick of ram... until I read the forums over at Corsair. The recommended timings for the XMS memory is not ultra settings... For some reason the memory can handle incredible speeds... But if you set system timings to Ultra... The memory freaks. Causing poor performance, freakish display, and random reboots It took me nearly 10 restarts to get XP installed... I was getting hot! After I had everything loaded, and could browse a few forums (between the random reboots) I found the Corsair site, and the memory settings. Now everything is set to more "normal" settings... and everything is happy. Now I realise that this may not be your problem... You may have the weakest, slowest memory timings selected... The only other mistake that I have ever made was running the memory in the <Host clock +33 Mhz> setting... The memory didnt much care for that either. Good luck!

Jan 7, 2003, 08:22 AM	#11
Zarathustra Elite Bastard Join Date: May 2002 Location: The Confederacy Posts: 841 Rep Power: 0	I'd have to also lean towards a faulty/bad PSU. Check the RAM in a different machine just to be safe though. I seriously doubt this, but ALL the connected HDDs could have gotten damaged from the power surge. This happened to a friend of mine.