Is my motherboard causing the problem?
Last response: in Motherboards
First, let me say that this message is fairly detailed and therefore is relatively long. Thanks in advance for taking the time to read it.
Here are my machine specs:
Supermicro SC760A case
Abit BP6 motherboard
Dual Celeron 533 MHz processors
448 MB PC133 CL2 SDRAM
GeForce DDR
Sound Blaster Live Value
Adaptec 2940U2W SCSI card
D-Link 10/100 Ethernet card
Seagate ST318451LW hard drive
Seagate ST320430A hard drive
Maxtor 91152D8 hard drive
Toshiba SD-M 1212 DVD drive
Teac CD-R56S CDR drive
Windows 2000 Professional
APC Back-UPS Pro 650 (has voltage regulation, surge protection, and battery backup)
Three 3 1/2 inch fans in front, one slot fan, one 5 1/4 inch fan in back, the fan on my power supply (also blowing out the back), a two-fan "card cooler" and one three-fan hard drive cooler (the kind that fits into a 5 1/4 inch drive bay)
My problem started out small, and grew from there. First, my USB mouse would shut off for a few seconds, then turn itself back on and Windows would reinstall it every time I opened a new window (I know it shut off because I am using an Intellimouse Explorer, and while it is on, its LED is on). When I connected it using the USB to PS2 connector, the problem went away.
A few weeks later, I tried to play Half-Life, and the system went into hard lock as soon as I got into the game. I tried reinstalling from each of my CD drives to each of my hard drives in both patched and unpatched states, with the same result, except that it took a shorter and shorter time for the system to hard-lock on me, until it would just start to load the program and then lock up.
I tried other games, both 2D and 3D, with the same effect. I tried reinstalling Windows from each of my CD drives to each of my hard drives in various states of updated-ness, with the same result. Then I found out that the system was now going into hard lock whenever I tried to play a video of any kind.
I tried unhooking everything that was not essential to the computer booting up (I was left with only my video card, one of the IDE hard drives, and no other cards or drives) with the same result. I tried this a with all three of the RAM chips and with each of them one at a time, again with the same result. By this time I strongly suspected that my video card was going out, so I uninstalled it, took it out of the machine, and popped an old 4MB StealthII card into the slot. This time, the system would not even reach the motherboard's BIOS (with no error beeps, either).
I tested the GeForce card in my friend's machine, and it worked perfectly--we played Quake3 on it for two hours straight with no problems whatsoever, it played videos just fine (we watched a 2 hour and 15 minute DVD), and we could find no problems with it.
Next, I took his video card (a Voodoo3 3500TV) and popped it into my machine, with the same result as the StealthII card. When I put my GeForce card back into the machine, it again would boot into Windows just fine, but (surprise, surprise!) still gave me the same hard lock problems.
Since the computer did not work properly with only the video card and that one hard drive plugged into it (and the fact that it did not work at all with the other video card), and I know the GeForce and the hard drive work fine, the only conclusion I can draw is that the motherboard is going out on me.
Please tell me if you can come up with any other possibility, because I would hate to have to replace it. If you come to the same conclusion, please tell me that as well, because I would also like to have confirmation of my opinion.
Thanks in advance
-Bulatowicz
Here are my machine specs:
Supermicro SC760A case
Abit BP6 motherboard
Dual Celeron 533 MHz processors
448 MB PC133 CL2 SDRAM
GeForce DDR
Sound Blaster Live Value
Adaptec 2940U2W SCSI card
D-Link 10/100 Ethernet card
Seagate ST318451LW hard drive
Seagate ST320430A hard drive
Maxtor 91152D8 hard drive
Toshiba SD-M 1212 DVD drive
Teac CD-R56S CDR drive
Windows 2000 Professional
APC Back-UPS Pro 650 (has voltage regulation, surge protection, and battery backup)
Three 3 1/2 inch fans in front, one slot fan, one 5 1/4 inch fan in back, the fan on my power supply (also blowing out the back), a two-fan "card cooler" and one three-fan hard drive cooler (the kind that fits into a 5 1/4 inch drive bay)
My problem started out small, and grew from there. First, my USB mouse would shut off for a few seconds, then turn itself back on and Windows would reinstall it every time I opened a new window (I know it shut off because I am using an Intellimouse Explorer, and while it is on, its LED is on). When I connected it using the USB to PS2 connector, the problem went away.
A few weeks later, I tried to play Half-Life, and the system went into hard lock as soon as I got into the game. I tried reinstalling from each of my CD drives to each of my hard drives in both patched and unpatched states, with the same result, except that it took a shorter and shorter time for the system to hard-lock on me, until it would just start to load the program and then lock up.
I tried other games, both 2D and 3D, with the same effect. I tried reinstalling Windows from each of my CD drives to each of my hard drives in various states of updated-ness, with the same result. Then I found out that the system was now going into hard lock whenever I tried to play a video of any kind.
I tried unhooking everything that was not essential to the computer booting up (I was left with only my video card, one of the IDE hard drives, and no other cards or drives) with the same result. I tried this a with all three of the RAM chips and with each of them one at a time, again with the same result. By this time I strongly suspected that my video card was going out, so I uninstalled it, took it out of the machine, and popped an old 4MB StealthII card into the slot. This time, the system would not even reach the motherboard's BIOS (with no error beeps, either).
I tested the GeForce card in my friend's machine, and it worked perfectly--we played Quake3 on it for two hours straight with no problems whatsoever, it played videos just fine (we watched a 2 hour and 15 minute DVD), and we could find no problems with it.
Next, I took his video card (a Voodoo3 3500TV) and popped it into my machine, with the same result as the StealthII card. When I put my GeForce card back into the machine, it again would boot into Windows just fine, but (surprise, surprise!) still gave me the same hard lock problems.
Since the computer did not work properly with only the video card and that one hard drive plugged into it (and the fact that it did not work at all with the other video card), and I know the GeForce and the hard drive work fine, the only conclusion I can draw is that the motherboard is going out on me.
Please tell me if you can come up with any other possibility, because I would hate to have to replace it. If you come to the same conclusion, please tell me that as well, because I would also like to have confirmation of my opinion.
Thanks in advance
-Bulatowicz
More about : motherboard causing problem
1st and foremost, after going thorugh all those problems, it is more than likely a MB problem, but there are a few things that you can do to ensure that there are no fixable bugs.
First, make sure that you have all the latest drivers for all your devices (sound, video, SCSI card, Motherboard, etc) and save them on a disk or CD. (if you do save on a CD, make sure that you have all the CD ROM drive drivers on a Disket)
I would then try and backup any data that you want to keep and reformat the HD which runs WIN 2000. Also reformat your other HD's if they have any program files on them.
Then try reinstalling the OS on a completly clean system, on the drive which you want Windows to run on. If you can, select the default drivers for your AGP card (it will be the default driver under the windows disk( should say something like <font color=red>(primary PCI video display)</font color=red>. <i>If windows detects the game card,once you have everything running, downgrade to the primary PCI video display adapter in control properties.</i>
Once you have all of this working (or if you get thisfar) let us know and we can give you more steps from there. In all, this process may take up to a week to resolve, but it will be much faster than waiting for Abit to fix your board( is it still under warrtentee?).
If it works for you then don't fix it.
First, make sure that you have all the latest drivers for all your devices (sound, video, SCSI card, Motherboard, etc) and save them on a disk or CD. (if you do save on a CD, make sure that you have all the CD ROM drive drivers on a Disket)
I would then try and backup any data that you want to keep and reformat the HD which runs WIN 2000. Also reformat your other HD's if they have any program files on them.
Then try reinstalling the OS on a completly clean system, on the drive which you want Windows to run on. If you can, select the default drivers for your AGP card (it will be the default driver under the windows disk( should say something like <font color=red>(primary PCI video display)</font color=red>. <i>If windows detects the game card,once you have everything running, downgrade to the primary PCI video display adapter in control properties.</i>
Once you have all of this working (or if you get thisfar) let us know and we can give you more steps from there. In all, this process may take up to a week to resolve, but it will be much faster than waiting for Abit to fix your board( is it still under warrtentee?).
If it works for you then don't fix it.
I backed up one of my hard drives on the other two, then unhooked the other two and pulled out every card except the video card, and reformatted the hard drive. I then made a completely clean install of Windows using my friend's copy of Win2k just in case my CD was messed up, and used the standard drivers like you mentioned. I still got the same results. I switched to the latest video drivers, and still got the same results. I installed all the updates from windowsupdate.microsoft.com one at a time, with again the same result. This is as I expected--if it was a Windows problem or a driver problem, I would think my computer would have at least gotten to the system BIOS with those other two cards, and it did not. Of course, any advice is better than no advice (and thank you for yours), so I tried it anyway on the off chance that it would work. Unfortunately, the board is no longer under warranty. Any more suggestions would be appreciated very much.
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My power supply is a Supermicro 300W Redundant Cooling power supply. It monitors the fan RPM's and varies them in order to make the fan last as long as possible and still keep a good PS operating temperature, and even has a backup fan in case that one stops working. I know I am not maxing it out, because a friend of mine has the same case, motherboard, and processors, and has a set of two hard drives in a RAID configuration, as well as two more hard drives, one an old SCSI one that really sucks up the power. He also has two CD burners, a DVD drive, and a CD drive, and has even more fans than I do. He also has all the same types of cards (some of them the same card, even) with the addition of a TV tuner card. If he is not maxing out the power supply, I highly doubt that I am. However, since it is always possible for a power supply, however nice, to go bad, he is coming over later with some equipment he has to test my power supply. If it turns out that the power supply has gone bad and fried my motherboard, it would also likely fry any other motherboard I put in there. Thanks for the suggestion.
Have you tried completely uninstalling DirectX and then reinstalling it again?
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Hmmmm I think you missed a step when installing the other graphicscards. I don't know if you have this setting in your BIOS but you most likely do. The old Stealth card you put in the machine was it a PCI card? If so did you remember to change the Graphicscard from AGP to PCI in the BIOS? I don't think this has any relevance anymore because it sounds to me like your AGP card is in perfect working order.
You said in your last message that you deleted the Windows folder. Did you only delete this folder or did you actually do a complete format of the drive?
I do not think your powersupply is dying on you because of the fact that the machine would not boot up when you put in another graphicscard. Have you tried setting the BIOS settings to default?
If your motherboard is fairly new it has probably got a hardware monitor build in. Try looking at the power information and the specific voltages in the BIOS. These may differ from the normal a little, maybe 12.03 or 11.97 for the 12 volt settings. If it's more there may be something wrong wih the PSU afterall. If the voltages are perfectly normal I would not worry about your PSU.
Have you tried disconnecting the UPS?
From all the information in your post, the most likely scenario is the fact that your motherboard is fried.
Good luck.
My name is Jond, Bames Jond.
My ACPI incompatible network adapter killed my SB Live!
You said in your last message that you deleted the Windows folder. Did you only delete this folder or did you actually do a complete format of the drive?
I do not think your powersupply is dying on you because of the fact that the machine would not boot up when you put in another graphicscard. Have you tried setting the BIOS settings to default?
If your motherboard is fairly new it has probably got a hardware monitor build in. Try looking at the power information and the specific voltages in the BIOS. These may differ from the normal a little, maybe 12.03 or 11.97 for the 12 volt settings. If it's more there may be something wrong wih the PSU afterall. If the voltages are perfectly normal I would not worry about your PSU.
Have you tried disconnecting the UPS?
From all the information in your post, the most likely scenario is the fact that your motherboard is fried.
Good luck.
My name is Jond, Bames Jond.
My ACPI incompatible network adapter killed my SB Live!
I checked out the voltages, and the motherboard reports them as being just fine, though it is possible that it is misreporting the values, so I am having a friend of mine test out the power supply for me with some equipment he has for that purpose.
I also have another new piece of information. I decided to install Windows 98 just in case that would make a difference, and even though my system put up a message during the BIOS startups saying that it had detected a bootable cd in my CD-R drive, it would just go straight to loading Win2k. When I put it into my DVD drive, it would ask if I wanted to boot from CD, then I would tell it that I wanted to run Win98 setup from the drive. It would then tell me that it could not find the setup files, and would go into DOS mode. I tried every letter of the alphabet, and none of them was either of my cd drives. I had a friend of mine make a Win98 boot disk for me, and when I told my computer (several times) to start up with CDROM support, it again did not detect either of the CD drives.
As a side note, it is impossible to run Win98 setup from Win2k.
Hope this helps get me the confirmation or the suggestion I need to get rid of the problems.
Thanks in advance.
-Bulatowicz
I also have another new piece of information. I decided to install Windows 98 just in case that would make a difference, and even though my system put up a message during the BIOS startups saying that it had detected a bootable cd in my CD-R drive, it would just go straight to loading Win2k. When I put it into my DVD drive, it would ask if I wanted to boot from CD, then I would tell it that I wanted to run Win98 setup from the drive. It would then tell me that it could not find the setup files, and would go into DOS mode. I tried every letter of the alphabet, and none of them was either of my cd drives. I had a friend of mine make a Win98 boot disk for me, and when I told my computer (several times) to start up with CDROM support, it again did not detect either of the CD drives.
As a side note, it is impossible to run Win98 setup from Win2k.
Hope this helps get me the confirmation or the suggestion I need to get rid of the problems.
Thanks in advance.
-Bulatowicz
The whole installing Windows 98 on a Windows 2K drive is very difficault if you converted your HD to NTSF. If so use the W2K to boot up the machine and run the install program. After a series of loading drivers etc. select "Use Fat32 filesystem" when you select which drive you want to install W2K on. The install program will format the drive with FAT32 and you can then restart the system and boot with a Windows 98 cd-rom. Now you can install Windows 98.
I think I had the same problem with my comp when trying to boot from CD or diskette when I had W2K installed on my HD.
I still think you should start looking for a new motherboard. I'm sorry but from my point of view it's the only sollution. Still let me know how it turns out for you. :-)
Good luck.
My name is Jond, Bames Jond.
My ACPI incompatible network adapter killed my SB Live!
I think I had the same problem with my comp when trying to boot from CD or diskette when I had W2K installed on my HD.
I still think you should start looking for a new motherboard. I'm sorry but from my point of view it's the only sollution. Still let me know how it turns out for you. :-)
Good luck.
My name is Jond, Bames Jond.
My ACPI incompatible network adapter killed my SB Live!
Quoting Bames_Jond, "The whole installing Windows 98 on a Windows 2K drive is very difficault if you converted your HD to NTSF. If so use the W2K to boot up the machine and run the install program. After a series of loading drivers etc. select "Use Fat32 filesystem" when you select which drive you want to install W2K on. The install program will format the drive with FAT32 and you can then restart the system and boot with a Windows 98 cd-rom. Now you can install Windows 98."
Normally, this is true. However, it might interest you to know that I unhooked the only hard drive that was formatted in NTFS (which is also the one with the Win2k installation) before trying to install Win98. In other words, I booted up with only FAT32 drives with no OS installed on them. Thanks for the suggestion, though
Normally, this is true. However, it might interest you to know that I unhooked the only hard drive that was formatted in NTFS (which is also the one with the Win2k installation) before trying to install Win98. In other words, I booted up with only FAT32 drives with no OS installed on them. Thanks for the suggestion, though
I would like to thank everyone's efforts to help me out with my computer problems. Unfortunately, we weren't successful in getting them fixed, but hey, at least I can rest easy knowing that I have expended every effort to fix them and even got help from people I don't even know.
Thanks again
-Bulatowicz
Thanks again
-Bulatowicz
So what are you going to do now? Buy a new motherboard? Díd your friend test the power supply? What was the result? Hmmm why cut of the topic like that when you have not got your computer fixed yet?!?!?!?
Did you get the machine to boot?
My name is Jond, Bames Jond.
My ACPI incompatible network adapter killed my SB Live!
Did you get the machine to boot?
My name is Jond, Bames Jond.
My ACPI incompatible network adapter killed my SB Live!
My friend has not yet tested the power supply; however, I did plug another friend's power supply into my computer, and had exactly the same problems, so if the power supply did go bad, it took my motherboard down with it.
The system boots up in Win2k just fine, as long as I use my GeForce video card--in fact, I am using it right now to type this message. However, it will lock up if I try to run a video or play a game, my mouse still turns off for a few seconds, then gets reinstalled if I don't use the USB to PS2 adapter, and I have found yet another problem. All the zip files that I have made recently generate CRC errors when I try to unzip them. This suggests data corruption, so I tried using my RAM in a friend's computer and it worked just fine (he did not get any errors in the zip files, etc). Next, I tried reading from and writing to all of my hard drives using his computer (meaning that I took them out of my computer and plugged them into his) and I found no CRC errors from any zip files I made with his computer and stored on my hard drives. I tested 10 zip files of varying sizes (the smallest was a text file, the largest was a full install of Diablo2) on each drive, and encountered no errors on any of them, while when I put them back into my machine, every zip file I made gave me CRC errors. Therefore the errors are not the fault of my RAM or my hard drives.
While I was doing this testing, I came up with another possibility--maybe it could be one or the other of my processors. I know that on the Abit bp6, if you stop the fan on the heatsink from running (by putting something in the way or whatever) the motherboard will disable the processor it is attached to. I blocked each one in turn with a piece of tape while the system was off, then booted up with only one processor running (I know it successfully disabled the processor because it gave me an error message and told me in the BIOS that the processor was disabled) and it had the same problems with each processor as it had with both at once. This would mean that if either one is damaged, they are both damaged in the same way, which is incredibly unlikely.
Because of all of this testing, and the fact that nothing I have done has changed what happens, I have decided to get a new motherboard.
Thanks again
-Bulatowicz
The system boots up in Win2k just fine, as long as I use my GeForce video card--in fact, I am using it right now to type this message. However, it will lock up if I try to run a video or play a game, my mouse still turns off for a few seconds, then gets reinstalled if I don't use the USB to PS2 adapter, and I have found yet another problem. All the zip files that I have made recently generate CRC errors when I try to unzip them. This suggests data corruption, so I tried using my RAM in a friend's computer and it worked just fine (he did not get any errors in the zip files, etc). Next, I tried reading from and writing to all of my hard drives using his computer (meaning that I took them out of my computer and plugged them into his) and I found no CRC errors from any zip files I made with his computer and stored on my hard drives. I tested 10 zip files of varying sizes (the smallest was a text file, the largest was a full install of Diablo2) on each drive, and encountered no errors on any of them, while when I put them back into my machine, every zip file I made gave me CRC errors. Therefore the errors are not the fault of my RAM or my hard drives.
While I was doing this testing, I came up with another possibility--maybe it could be one or the other of my processors. I know that on the Abit bp6, if you stop the fan on the heatsink from running (by putting something in the way or whatever) the motherboard will disable the processor it is attached to. I blocked each one in turn with a piece of tape while the system was off, then booted up with only one processor running (I know it successfully disabled the processor because it gave me an error message and told me in the BIOS that the processor was disabled) and it had the same problems with each processor as it had with both at once. This would mean that if either one is damaged, they are both damaged in the same way, which is incredibly unlikely.
Because of all of this testing, and the fact that nothing I have done has changed what happens, I have decided to get a new motherboard.
Thanks again
-Bulatowicz
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