Big Time Problems with my spareparts computer.

Mike89 · Post by **Mike89** » Wed Jan 29, 2003 10:35 pm

Dam.

Here is my latest issues which are driving me nuts.

I had a decent mb that I recently upgraded from. DFI 761 chipset motherboard.

I had a soundblaster Live I had laying around.

2x256 Crucial PC2100

Old I740 video card (anyone remember those?) 8 megs/24 bit color max.

WD 13 Gig HDD. 5400 rpm ATA/66

Windows XP Pro.

AMD 1.4 Gig CPU

I got it all up and running but something is wrong. The dam thing is just plain slow. Sometimes even moving the mouse from one end of the screen to the other takes like forever. Clicking to open a file takes like 10 seconds to open it.

This cpu and motherboard (with the same memory) used to be quite fast. I don't know what the hell the deal is.

Could it be the combination of the 13 gig HDD (it wasn't the fastest drive around, it was my 2nd HDD) and the vid card are slowing this thing down like this?

Even Windows XP took forever to install. Like 3 times longer than it did when I had the motherboard/cpu/memory above running in my old system.

I installed the service pack 1 from the CD I bought from Microsoft. It took like an hour to install.

Another issue. My Floppy A drive is also acting screwey. If I boot to Floppy the drive will read the floppy disk. But if I take this same Floppy disk and try to open it in Windows XP, I just keep getting the message to please insert the disk.

I just can't figure this out. This is the strangest combination of things that have ever happened to me in my computer building.

Any ideas/comments? I would sure love to hear em!

Slugbait · Post by **Slugbait** » Thu Jan 30, 2003 12:16 am

The video card wouldn't cause what you're seeing. I'm totally clueless when it comes to AMD, but my first suspect would be mobo jumper settings screwing up speeds of the FSB or CPU speeds. Second would be something in your BIOS slowing things down. Third would be a bad IDE cable for the hard drive.

I would double-check all jumpers, including those for the hard drive and CD-ROM (are they on the same cable?)

Mike89 · Post by **Mike89** » Thu Jan 30, 2003 12:57 am

Thanks for the reply. I will check my cables. I just took the motherboard out of my computer when I upgraded, put it a box and just took it out again (couple months later) and built this other computer.

I have all the video shadowing off in BIOS. System and Video BIOS caching off in BIOS.

Windows XP shows the correct speed (1.4 Gig) and the correct amount of Ram (512).

CPU temp is nice and low.

Even formatting when I clean installed XP took like forever (FAT32). I mean like a half hour or so for just a 13 Gig HDD.

So dam many things it could be, I don't know where to start.

Memory went bad.
CPU went bad.
Power Supply went bad.

The thing with the floppy has got me miffed. Is it related or just a fluke coincidence?

wvjohn · Post by **wvjohn** » Thu Jan 30, 2003 10:20 am

do the specs on the vid card match the mobo? i.e. 1x agp in a 3-4x mobo?

sounds like there is a huge bottleneck in there or a severe irq sharing issue where everything is having to share an interrupt -

i would try it without the sblive, then try with another vid card which worked in that system before

does that old card actually have drivers that are xp compatible?

good luck - I hate it when systems do that

i have one i have to work on soon - i either smoked the cpu, memory, ps or something

b-man1 · Post by **b-man1** » Thu Jan 30, 2003 8:17 pm

other possibilities:

--update the BIOS if possible
--DMA enabled on the hard drive?
--is the CPU cache disabled in the BIOS? that will kill performance

Mike89 · Post by **Mike89** » Thu Jan 30, 2003 9:29 pm

BIOS already at latest. DMA is enabled on HDD. CPU cache is enabled.

I messed with it all day today and don't know if I accomplished anything or not. It actually got worse. It got so bad that I couldn't even install a program. Everytime I would try, it would kick to blue screen with various error messages requiring a reboot. I tried to clean install again (using the XP CD as boot) and it wouldn't even do that. Halfway through the system checking, bam, blue screen as above. I ran the HDD through the WD dlgdiag test and it said the HDD was fine.

I even took the video card from my work computer (Geforce 2 Ultra) and stuck it in to see if the I740 was causing these problems. I couldn't even get the Ultra to install. Half way through the driver install (using the XP drivers) I got the blue screen again. After reboot, the GeForce 2 showed up in Device Manager but with yellow mark beside it. I tried to update the drivers and Windows XP said it couldn't locate any drivers for it. WTF?!!!!!!!!

Well needless to say I took the Geforce 2 out, put it back in my work computer and put the I740 back in.

I did a couple of things that did enable me to complete the install (this was like the 4th clean install). To tell the truth, I don't know if it helped or not.

There was a 120mm fan in the case. It was jury wired running the fan black lead to the PS red wire and the fan red lead to the PS yellow wire. What's that supposed to do again? Run it at 12-5 = 7 volts?

Anyway I disconnected the fan. I also removed one of the 256 mem sticks. When trying to clean install again, this time it went all the way through. At first I thought I had solved the problem. But as I did more stuff on the computer, I would at times get this tremendous slow down again as I had mentioned in my first post. I would reboot each time and it would run ok sometimes and then just out of the blue when opening a file or something, this big time slow down.

So that's where I'm at now. Still not satisfied or happy at all. After messing with this computer for two days now, I can go back to my work computer which is a PIII 750 and it seems like a rocket ship. Something is all messed up here and beats me if I know what it is.

I took the motherboard completely out, removed the heatsink/fan, installed another AMD 1.4 gig cpu (I had two), replaced all the cables with no change at all.

The only thing that was not originally mine was the power supply and the floppy drive. I am also still having the same screwey problem with the Floppy A. If I boot to it, it reads fine, if I try to access it in Windows, it just keeps asking me to insert a floppy disk. I tried it with about 10 different floppies.

This would sure be a job for a tech shop. I sure wish I had access to one.

Mike89 · Post by **Mike89** » Fri Jan 31, 2003 1:37 pm

Holy Crap Batman!!

I'll be damned if I didn't figure this thing out. I had a spare power supply so I figured I had tried everythng else and popped it in. Problems solved.

The bad PS was a Sparkle 300 watt. My son had the computer out in the lawnmower shed out back for a couple of months. Maybe the weather got to it or something.

I had a spare power supply but it was only 235 watts. It seems to be working fine. Even my floppy now reads in Windows.

Even though the motherboard monitor was reading the correct voltages, evidently it wasn't producing enough watts or something got crossed up.

Whew! I was very close to throwing the computer in the trash can. Glad I stuck with it and got it going.

wvjohn · Post by **wvjohn** » Fri Jan 31, 2003 3:14 pm

ain't that a bitch!

glad you got it working I have a "mystery system" at the moment too

mebbe i'll start with the ps!

Mike89 · Post by **Mike89** » Fri Jan 31, 2003 4:10 pm

You know what? My problems aren't over yet.

Through this whole process, I had removed one of the 256 meg mem sticks. Well after I got the system finally running right, I decided to put the other stick back in. I put it in, rebooted and the Windows screen would just stay at 'Starting Windows'. Many reboots and same result. I took the mem stick back out and it still kept doing exactly the same thing.

Right now I am doing a Repair (with just 1 mem stick) and so far it's installing. I'll know for sure in a few minutes to see if it boots back up to Windows properly.

I see in the motherboard manual, it says the minimum power supply is 250 watts. This one I put in is 235 watts. I wonder if this is the problem this time. Maybe the power supply can't handle that second mem stick and then it screwed up Windows in the process?

Whoa, whoa and another whoa!!

Update:

Well it's confirmed. I'm up and running again (successful Repair) with one stick. BTW, I do know both sticks are good because they are identical and I had switched them. So it seems with this 235 watt power supply, I can only run one stick of memory. Isn't that something? Man, this whole thing has been one for the text books.

wvjohn · Post by **wvjohn** » Fri Jan 31, 2003 6:39 pm

stick a 9 volt duracell in next to the 2nd ram slot!

compgeeks usually has decent powmax 300w px for cheap

what kind of a fsb are you gettting on the Asus rig?

Mike89 · Post by **Mike89** » Fri Jan 31, 2003 6:59 pm

I'm at a conservative overclock of 178 fsb (stock 13.5 multiplier) in sync mode which gives me 2.4 gig. So essentially I have a 2800+ running at 3000+ speeds (two steps up). I upped the cpu voltage from 1.65 to 1.7 but I may not even have had to do that. I left the memory voltage at stock. It's running just as stable as at stock speed. I could try to lower the multiplier and up the fsb but it doesn't make much sense to me to do that (I'm not one of those tweakers that just has to have 200 fsb). My goal was 2.4 gig (up from 2.25 gig) and I got it. I'm pretty happy with that. My mem timings are 2,2,2,5 which is just what I was shooting for from the Corsair.

From what I've read, people with the 2600+ are also being able to hit 2.4 gig, so I figured I should be able to hit that also. I got it and didn't have to have such radical settings as with the 2600+. I feel relatively safe with the settings I have and happy with the speed/stability.

wvjohn · Post by **wvjohn** » Fri Jan 31, 2003 9:22 pm

I can get ~2425 with my 2100 but my volts, etc. are a little more radical - the sweet spot seems to be around 2350 for gaming, etc. - i can post at 2500 but no boot

Mike89 · Post by **Mike89** » Sat Feb 01, 2003 1:21 am

Are you telling me you have a 2100+ which is 1.73 Gig and have hit over 2.4 gig with it?

That's a hell of a jump. That's almost a 700 mhz increase. How did you get it that high?

Provide some info, I'm interested.

What cpu and memory voltages.
What memory.
What memory timings.
What cpu cooler.
What fsb and multiplier.
What motherboard.

wvjohn · Post by **wvjohn** » Sat Feb 01, 2003 8:27 am

details are in this thread

a couple of us are playing with 2100s

2100 madness