Help w/AMD Duron blue screen machine

[Porky]

I thought I'd found my cheap XP machine, used, no tax, butt... no
guarentee neither.
This is used computer #6 for me since 1992. I just use em and trade up
when i have to. I know the old stuff, and the real old stuff, am
having to learn the new. You seem like a sharp bunch of guys, so......

AMD Duron 1ghz w/ 60 gig HD, XP loads up and runs with a monitor I'd
kept in the barn. C:\ properties tells me only 32 MB of ram, and about
18 gig of hard drive space, but the hd is partitoned, a bit new to me.
DVD player in it, so I put in my Sony CD burner, as a slave on the
same cable. The CDrom has a jumper to Creative Labs sound card, so I
plug that into the new MB, oops, now i've got a blue screen, no XP.
Tried a boot off the disc, nix that. Tried F8, Safe Mode, nah. Black
screen tells me there's NVRAM 262144KB OK. Can there be a ram problem,
like buddy surely pulled some out for his new machine? One blue ram
slot is occupied, and there is one more blue slot, 2 black slots of
the same length and 1 longer black slot. What are my best ram options,
and is that likely to fix XP?

TIA,
John Kogel

 

[Robert Inkol]

To start with I suspect that there is sound hardware on the
motherboard and that the sound card you added conflicts with that. The
on-board sound hardware could probably be disabled with a jumper or in
the bios. However, you may not need the creative labs sound card at
all. Unless the CDROM is REALLY old, the connection between the CD
burner and the sound card is probably to allow the CDROM audio output
to play through the computer speakers. There is likely a connector on
the motherboard for this or you may be able to get your operating
system to play cd audio discs by reading the disk directly.

I suspect your board may be a K7S5 or something similar if it has
different slots for SDRAM and DDR memory. You should try to identify
the board from its markings and download a manual for it.

For testing memory, I would download a program called Memtest86.

Also, AIDA is a useful program for determining your hardware software
configuration. This too can be downloaded as freeware.

Robert

 

[Porky]

To start with I suspect that there is sound hardware on the
motherboard and that the sound card you added conflicts with that.

Yes, i saw the error in that, and pulled the sound card out.
Disconnected the CDburner, although it was detected ok, and tried to
boot up as before. No way, still blue screen.

I suspect your board may be a K7S5 or something similar if it has
different slots for SDRAM and DDR memory. You should try to identify
the board from its markings and download a manual for it.

Thanks, I'll take a look. K7AMA it tells me.

For testing memory, I would download a program called Memtest86.
Also, AIDA is a useful program for determining your hardware software

I just got Belarc, seems like a good one, tells me all about this
piece of antique crap i've got to use, butt....I need to load XP to
get anywhere with the new machine. Could the ram be haywire, even tho
the startup screen says it's ok?Porky

 

[Robert Inkol]

When you get the blue screen, what does it report?

There are many possibilities:

1. OS configuration: Did you do a clean install of windows xp, or did
you move the hard drive from a differerent machine? If the latter,
there are incorrect drivers and settings in the OS. Another question
is whether you ever had it working more or less properly with XP and
did something that caused the blue screens.

2. CPU cooling: You need adequate CPU cooling (the Athlon needs a
suitable heatsink and heat sink compound or pad). Can you read the cpu
temperature in the bios?

3. Power supply: Are the power supply voltages OK (these can be
probably read in the bios). An Athlon system needs a better power
supply that earlier computers.

4. Memory: Can you run Memtest86 without errors? This will give an
idea of whether there is a problem with the memory. Also, if memtest
runs without problems, there will be at least some indication that the
processor is OK. Note that the memory should be speced to run at your
system bus speed.

5. Hard disk: You should be able to download a diagnostic program from
the manufacturer that will test the hard disk. Corrupted system files
will cause severe problems.

6. If nothing else works, try swapping components with known good
ones.


Generally a good strategy when having trouble with an OS install is to
set up the computer in a minimal hardware configuration (less to go
wrong) and do a clean install. Resetting the bios and disabling
functionality such as on-board audio may be helpful. Once you get it
working correctly, you can add cards or re-enable hardware
functionality in stages. As an experiment, if the power supply or
memory are suspected to be marginal, you may have more success if you
set the bus to 100 MHz. This will sacrifice performance however.

Robert

 

[Porky]

Thanks, Robert.
The blue screen message is Windows will not load to avoid possible
damage to comp, possibly due to soft or hardware change. Then says
bios may not be compatible, download upgrade etc. kinda hard to do if
the @##$ thing wont start, aint it?
Tells me to try F7 when prompted to load drivers, but havent gotten
the prompt at all. F8 gets me to the safe mode option, from there back
to blue screen, no Windows. Tried to start in dos, no way.

XP Pro was working, well, I thought. Then I tried to add that stupid
sound card.

Yes, the previous owner installed this 60 gig hd, and partitioned it.
But it was working ok. One question about partitions, there was only
32 meg of ram available in C:\, is that ok? The starup screen says 262
megs ok, which would be the one stick of ram that's in the first slot
on the left, right?

My son has my XP pro upgrade disc, will bring it home tonite, and
we'll try to boot from it, there was no response to XP Home upgrade
disc.

Those are all good tips, and I'll be saving them, BTW.

Porky

 

[Porky]

It's done. I reloaded XP, and lost access to some unauthorized
software, that's justice in today's world. I got a cheap computer, tax
free. Will now need product keys.....Thanks, Robert.

Porky

 

[Robert Inkol]

Thanks, Robert.
The blue screen message is Windows will not load to avoid possible
damage to comp, possibly due to soft or hardware change. Then says
bios may not be compatible, download upgrade etc. kinda hard to do if
the @##$ thing wont start, aint it?
Tells me to try F7 when prompted to load drivers, but havent gotten
the prompt at all. F8 gets me to the safe mode option, from there back
to blue screen, no Windows. Tried to start in dos, no way.

XP Pro was working, well, I thought. Then I tried to add that stupid
sound card.

Yes, the previous owner installed this 60 gig hd, and partitioned it.
But it was working ok. One question about partitions, there was only
32 meg of ram available in C:\, is that ok? The starup screen says 262
megs ok, which would be the one stick of ram that's in the first slot
on the left, right?

My son has my XP pro upgrade disc, will bring it home tonite, and
we'll try to boot from it, there was no response to XP Home upgrade
disc.

Those are all good tips, and I'll be saving them, BTW.

Porky

If the C: partition really is only 32 meg, I would expect that the
operating system is installed on a larger partition (D: or higher)
and that the booting process only starts in the C: partition. Windows
2K (and presumably XP) won't even install on a partition of less than
2 GB. Alternatively, if there is only 32 MB of space left on C: and
the OS is installed there, then this could be a problem.

There should be a boot option for "Last Known Good Configuration" -
this could be worth a try. Also, with the install disk, there should
be a possibility for doing a "Repair Install". I'm not sure what you
mean by "no response to XP Home upgrade disk". Normally the computer
should be able to boot into the install program using the installation
disk (you may have to set the bios so that the computer boots from the
CDROM drive). I'm also not to sure about what you mean by booting to
DOS - this isn't part of XP, but did come with Windows 95 and 98. You
should be able to boot DOS from a DOS floppy.

Robert



The 262 MB message seems OK.