Help! I Dunno What's Happening!

[drunken_master]

Hi, I previously posted this problem on the "others" board and I got many replies which I am thankful for but they did not seem to work. Umm, first of all my problem is that my computer at abrupt times, looks as if its gonna reset but it just quite doesn't, not sending any signals to the monitor. I can't reset it both using ctrl+alt+del and the reset button and also I can't turn it off using the conventional power button. I usually switch off the power supply but if I don't switch it off in time and turn it back on, the computer still is unable to boot up, showing a black screen. When this happens I have to disconnect every piece of hardware from the motherboard and stick it back in, in order for it to work again. My motherboard is a k7 pro msi. I dunno what's wrong with it.
Everytime it does this, there are 4 led's which usually are green, turn red. All that seems to run is the fans.
I was told to format my hard drive, which I did but that didn't help at all. It did happen when I was in my bios, which is really peculiar.

If anyone has an answer, please help me!! PLEASE!! Thank You! If you need more information about my computer to solve this problem, please ask.

PS. Sorry for the bad grammar.

 

[Guest]

which OS are you running and when is it hanging?

 

[Guest]

You shoudl seriously consider getting a new PSU (power supply) and see if that fixes the problem. It really does sound like a power supply problem.

Hang tough dude!

 

[drunken_master]

Well I previously had Windows 98 before I formatted and now I'm running on Windows 2k professional. I don't think it's a power supply problem either cause I just replaced it during all this and it didn't solve my problem. My screen flickers sometimes, which is a weired thing. Can it be that my motherboard or any other vital part of my computer can be the cause of all this?

 

[lhgpoobaa]

possible.

the drive controller/bus master on my a7v133 is dying in its as at the moment...
i get spontaneous reboots when i do long disk defragmentations.

motherboard problems/glitches can manifest themselves in unusual ways.
but bear in mind it would be something real simple like a loose connection, or improperly grounded mobo.
(wish mine was)

Religious wars are 2 groups of people fighting over who has the best imaginary friend.

 

[drunken_master]

hmmmm, so what should I do with this problem? It's not like it reboots. It tries to, but it just can't and leaves a blank screen. Should I just go to some hardware specialist and ask him whats wrong?

 

[Guest]

I recognize this problem with the one I have. now I have two boxes, both K7, both with the same problem. now I can't boot either.
one of them doesn't have any LED so I don't know what's going on in that one. however, I get no signal and I can't reset it or switch the power off...

 

[lhgpoobaa]

well to start with... what ou want is the benchmark to work...regardes of how crap it looks.

so put your agp to 2x, fast writes off, sideband addressing off, memory latencies to most conservative 3,3,3,7 or somthing like that, and anything else u can think off.

next make sure that all the up to date drivers are present. mobo, sound, graphics etc.

reseat all your PCI & AGP cards just to be sure.
try it again.

also... if your using win2k, check out your error log: start -> settings -> ctrl panel -> admin tools -> event viewer.
see if any warning messages are showing up in there...

and i assume that both CPU intensive apps and graphics intensive apps both work well?

Religious wars are 2 groups of people fighting over who has the best imaginary friend.

 

[drunken_master]

ok i'll try to do as you said, the problem is I just dunno how to do some of it.
Here's a couple questions do I use the bios to do the following?
put your agp to 2x, fast writes off, sideband addressing off, memory latencies to most conservative 3,3,3,7 or somthing like that, and anything else u can think off.

and also, I'm not sure how to reseat all my pci and agp cards. How do I do that?

 

[lhgpoobaa]

reseating cards is easy
1. open box
2. make sure you ground yourself by holding side or using wrist strap.
3. undo phillips head screw holding pci/agp card in. (make sure screw downst fall down inside too)
4. holding the EDGES, pull out the card. wibbling may be necessary, but not too much
5. once out, put it on an antistatic bag or a piece of paper.
6. use some airsource to block into the slot, do the same for the collectors on the card.
7. reverse the process to put the card back in.

bios stuff:
how u do it varies from bios to bios, but the setting can usually be found in 'chipset settings' or 'advanced settings'... one of the main pages.
first thing should be a field called 'mem timings' [by speed or manual]
set it to manual, then just below will be a number of changable fields, CAS latency RAS to CAS etc. set all the numerical ones to their highest number (higher = more conservative + safer)
AGP sound be on the same page as either AGP 4X [on/off] or AGP turbo [on/off]
fast writes just below it.
also look for a field entitled 'write cacheing' [UC/USWC]. set that to UC (uncachable) for problem solving

use your motherboard manual to find these things if unsure. and if your unsure of what your doing, write down all the changes you made so you can be confident you can easily change them back without resetting the bios

Religious wars are 2 groups of people fighting over who has the best imaginary friend.

 

[drunken_master]

hmm, I got mostly everthing that you said, but the only thing that confuses me is the "airblock card" What is it?

And also, I made a new discovery with my comp. When I pulled certain parts from the motherboard, the 4LED's would show a different arangement of grean or red. Well, when I pulled my ram and loaded the computer that way, it got me a green, green, red, green, format. Now, keeping that in mind, when the computer abrubtly turned on me again, I checked the lights, and the same format turned up (green green red green). Could this be that the Ram is corrupt? or is it because the motherboard is faulty?

Just for more information, when the comp starts up the light become green green green red, or if there is no cpu all 4 led's are red, and if everythings a-ok, all 4 leds are green.

Hey and also, thanks for all your help. This is the most helpful place I've come to yet.

 

[lhgpoobaa]

cant help you with the leds... best hope is check your mobo manual or the mobo manufacturers website.

least your lucky to have those LED's.

Religious wars are 2 groups of people fighting over who has the best imaginary friend.

 

[DaveGOD]

sounds like either a bios, mobo, psu or ram problem (though im hardly solution-master). theres some tool to check your ram, i remember reading about it a while ago but sorry no idea where. try using different chips and see if that solves the problem.

you said you replaced PSU but did you increase the wattage? Also is your mobo put in properly, using the clip thingys so it doesnt touch the case - thatd short the power and crash like that, often blowing the mobo. you said the leds changed when you pulled the ram - i take it you didnt pull them when the power was still on...

even try changing the case, i was helping a mate's dad on his computer, he changed literally every single bit, even the mouse, and no solution, only thing left was the case so we did that... bingo, no problems. no idea what was wrong with it.

check your jumpers too
Yossarian lives<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by DaveGOD on 10/20/01 11:25 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[drunken_master]

Well, I don't think that it's a bios or psu problem cause, I updated my bios after this problem started occuring and the wattage of the psu is exactly the same as my old blown out one. I really think that it's either a ram problem or motherboard problem. Hmmm, this is a real brain nummer.

 

[Boondock_Saint]

the wattage of the psu is exactly the same as my old blown out one

That makes very little difference. New unit could still be defective.

:tongue: Have you ever tried cooking an egg on your HSF? Tasty. :tongue:

 

[Aktunka]

Drunken Master, the important parts of your problem haven't all been listed yet. We know what mainboard you have, but a few other helpful things to know would be the following.

processor type and speed
Ram amount and brand
power supply wattage and brand

The folks that are saying that it could be power supply related could very well be right. I thought the same thing when I read your original post. If you are running an athlon processor, they seem to be very particular about power. Many people have had issues with athlon machines that are using power supplies of 300W or less. Sure, there are a lot of 300W power supplies that are listed at the AMD website as being suitable, but I think that in many cases the 300W ps listed is like the bare minimum. Anyhow, I was also having very similar issues, and decided to upgrade to a 350w power supply that was listed as being suitable even for athlon 1.4GHz. SInce that time, I have not had any issues. Good luck to you

Aktunka

 

[drunken_master]

hmmm, i see what your saying but the problem is, is that this problem happened with my old power supply and with my new one. I don't believe that it's a power supply problem cause my processor speed is 650 and a computer hardware guy and some store said that 300W is more than adequet for my comp. Just for the record, my old power supply (before It blew on me) was 300W too. The new ones by Y2K and the old ones by ATX (i think).

Well here's more stats about my comp.
Athalon 650
MSI K7-Pro (MS-6195)
128 PC100 SDRam
10GB Fujitus hard drive
LG cd-burner (4x write)
samsung cd-rom (48x)
GVC 56K
Soundblaster 128 PCI
Nvidia TNT2 M64

I think that's all. If their's any more comments or questions, please post your opinions. thank you.