- Jan 13, 2010
- 7
- 0
- 18,510
I'll start with telling y'all what I've got...
Emachines T6420, came installed with XP Media center edition.
2.2 Ghz Athlon xp chip,
Nvidia GeForce 512mb graphics.
1GB DDR RAm
Front panel USB, card readers, audio
DVD-RW drive
200 G hard drive (IDE)
-added 160 G hard drive (SATA)
Had this tower 6 years, no trouble. About every six months or so, I do a back-up, reformat, re-install with Xp PRo, sp2., and do all pertinent updates.
Last one performed in October last year. No problems.
Last week, started getting stop errors with BSOD - occuring at random times, could be either running programs or just sitting there. Progressed quickly to not being able to load Windows at all. Tried using xp setup disc, would hit stop errors with BSOD partway into setup. So, I start diagnosing.
The stop errors almost always listed a driver file, and a memory address. But almost never the same one twice. I saw ClassPnP, a couple related to my software, one related to the onboard graphics, to name a few. Still could not access Windows at all, or load setup. So, I started removing hardware, one by one, and trying setup again. I got it down to nothing hooked up but one hard drive (not the original, but a spare I had), the DVD drive, and one stick of RAM. (also tried each stick of RAM by itself, moving across all four DIMM slots.) Still the same issue. I even cleared the BIOS and changed the battery. Same issue.
Also tried loading a beta copy of Windows 7, which I have running on another tower side by side with xp. Wouldn't load, same issue.
Now, here's what is really baking my noodle.........On another tower, I downloaded and burned off a copy of Ubuntu 9.1 Tried it in the malfunctioning, tower, and it installed and ran perfectily. I'm typing on it now, no issues at all. So just when I thought it must be a hardware issue or the motherboard itself, I find an
OS that runs perfectly on this machine.
Anyone have any thoughts? I'm really hoping I don't have to put this mobo to rest, hoping there is still something I can fix.
Is Ubuntu doing something different with driver files, pertaining to memory addresses, than Windows?
Thanks for listening!
Emachines T6420, came installed with XP Media center edition.
2.2 Ghz Athlon xp chip,
Nvidia GeForce 512mb graphics.
1GB DDR RAm
Front panel USB, card readers, audio
DVD-RW drive
200 G hard drive (IDE)
-added 160 G hard drive (SATA)
Had this tower 6 years, no trouble. About every six months or so, I do a back-up, reformat, re-install with Xp PRo, sp2., and do all pertinent updates.
Last one performed in October last year. No problems.
Last week, started getting stop errors with BSOD - occuring at random times, could be either running programs or just sitting there. Progressed quickly to not being able to load Windows at all. Tried using xp setup disc, would hit stop errors with BSOD partway into setup. So, I start diagnosing.
The stop errors almost always listed a driver file, and a memory address. But almost never the same one twice. I saw ClassPnP, a couple related to my software, one related to the onboard graphics, to name a few. Still could not access Windows at all, or load setup. So, I started removing hardware, one by one, and trying setup again. I got it down to nothing hooked up but one hard drive (not the original, but a spare I had), the DVD drive, and one stick of RAM. (also tried each stick of RAM by itself, moving across all four DIMM slots.) Still the same issue. I even cleared the BIOS and changed the battery. Same issue.
Also tried loading a beta copy of Windows 7, which I have running on another tower side by side with xp. Wouldn't load, same issue.
Now, here's what is really baking my noodle.........On another tower, I downloaded and burned off a copy of Ubuntu 9.1 Tried it in the malfunctioning, tower, and it installed and ran perfectily. I'm typing on it now, no issues at all. So just when I thought it must be a hardware issue or the motherboard itself, I find an
OS that runs perfectly on this machine.
Anyone have any thoughts? I'm really hoping I don't have to put this mobo to rest, hoping there is still something I can fix.
Is Ubuntu doing something different with driver files, pertaining to memory addresses, than Windows?
Thanks for listening!
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