Friend in Need

[DaFees]

Hello, I have this friend who recently built his own computer and it's been giving him nothing but trouble. I know he has a 1900xtx g-card, an asus A8R-MVP deluxe mobo, and an amd processor, he's using windows XP and to keep things short, I'll quote my friend on a convo we had.

Him: like idk i think my CMOS battery might be defective or soemthing
Him: cuz like my comp cant restart ever or it hangs
Him: and then resetting the cmos works but if i restart again it just hangs
Him: and i cant get shit installed and stuff
Him: and my sound goes out when i reset CMOS
Him: and to reinstall sound drivers i have to restart....see the prob

I'm not sure what his problem could be, my best guess would be a bad mobo, or maybe his cmos battery is really, kaput. What do you people think?

If ya need more details let me know.

 

[nikolokolus]

*cracks knuckles* Well, the info you gave is a little "thin", but from the sounds of things the CMOS battery does indeed sound like could be defective. That's cheap enough to fix. If that doesn't do the trick sounds like your friend needs to RMA that board.

How long has he had the board and how long has this problem been going on?

 

[bliq]

Hello, I have this friend who recently built his own computer and it's been giving him nothing but trouble. I know he has a 1900xtx g-card, an asus A8R-MVP deluxe mobo, and an amd processor, he's using windows XP and to keep things short, I'll quote my friend on a convo we had.

Him: like idk i think my CMOS battery might be defective or soemthing
Him: cuz like my comp cant restart ever or it hangs
Him: and then resetting the cmos works but if i restart again it just hangs
Him: and i cant get **** installed and stuff
Him: and my sound goes out when i reset CMOS
Him: and to reinstall sound drivers i have to restart....see the prob

I'm not sure what his problem could be, my best guess would be a bad mobo, or maybe his cmos battery is really, kaput. What do you people think?

If ya need more details let me know.

I have a very similar set up (A8R-MVP/X2 4200+/X1900XT) and it really sounds like perhaps he didn't install all the drivers on the CD it came with properly. I don't know how to screw it up but that's really funky. A8R-MVPs are not very old so the battery couldn't be failing unless it was defective from the get go and that seems to actually be a fairly rare occurence.

Could the HSF be on a little crooked and causing the CPU to overheat and shutdown?

FWIW, mine is working perfectly dual booting to XP and FC5_x64

edit: one more idea- I just fixed a machine that exhibited the same symptoms and it turned out to be the PSU. They had a 400W PSU but a crappy brand- the thing weighed about a third of what a good 400W PSU should weigh. I replaced it with an inexpensive Antec SmartPower 300 and it was good to go. Your friend would obviously need something more powerful- probably a good 500W and min 28A total on 12V. Something like that.

 

[DaFees]

Well I thank you everyone for you input, I have sent your responses to my friend. He told me he's going to try a new cmos battery first, and if that doesn't do it, then he'll divulge into some of your other suggestions. Thank you again, and I shall let you know if my friend has any success.

 

[DaFees]

Well my friend knows he installed his drivers correctly, so now what else, first off he is using this power supply

http://www.rosewill.com/product/product.aspx?productId=375

and I know bliq mentioned that his friend had a cheap power supply, do you people think that one is cheap, and that maybe that's the problem?

Also he checked his cmos battery and that was not the problem, either

 

[nikolokolus]

That PSU, should be alright . . . its nothing fancy, but should be adequate. I'm suspecting a defective board, or a corrupt windows installation.

he could always try to reformat his HD and re-install windows and see if that clears things up. I guess I'm just a little confused as to what exactly is going on.

The boot process "hangs" or windows "hangs"? If the comp is booting into windows and then becomes unstable that is a lot different than "won't boot" or "won't reboot"

Also, does he have onboard sound or a discreet soundcard?