How to determine if its a faulty motherboard or processor?

  • Thread starter Thread starter David Miller
  • Start date Start date
D

David Miller

My WinXP installation, after a year of just being peachy, has gone quite the
other way.

It started out with freezes, then one morning after shutting it down the
night before, started up only to blue screen stop errors. Repair
installation didn't do it. New in place installation didn't work.
Installed to my documents HD. Still no go. Installed to a clean,
repartitioned drive, still no go.

pulled out all PCI cards. No go. Switched Video cards. No go. I was
running with just one 256 DIMM in, so I ran to the store and bought a new
one to switch with. No luck. Already running the newest BIOS for my ECS
K7VZA motherboard so nothing more to upgrade there...

I figure I have only two things left, the motherboard and the Athlon 1ghz
processor. I'm prepared to go buy a new motherboard, especially since I've
never been a fan of VIA's motherboards, and get a nForce2 board... but if
its the processor, then I can just work on that first...

Thoughts?
 
Arg, I had already accepted I would be donating my PC133 DIMMs to friends
since I'd have to get a new MB taking DDR, now I may have two processors.
arg. :)

I just keep feeling like it must be some MB part.... it seems like I would
have just gotten more random errors if it was the processor.

What my machine was doing before finally going t.u. was:
*Freezing when not being used
*page memory errors
*freezing during the "starting windows" thing, no progress in the "cylon"
bar.
*reboots during some installs continually.

I've tried to install with two Windows XP CD's and a Windows 2000 CD. Same
result all the way around. arg....

Dave
 
from the wonderful said:
My WinXP installation, after a year of just being peachy, has gone quite the
other way.

It started out with freezes, then one morning after shutting it down the
night before, started up only to blue screen stop errors. Repair
installation didn't do it. New in place installation didn't work.
Installed to my documents HD. Still no go. Installed to a clean,
repartitioned drive, still no go.

pulled out all PCI cards. No go. Switched Video cards. No go. I was
running with just one 256 DIMM in, so I ran to the store and bought a new
one to switch with. No luck. Already running the newest BIOS for my ECS
K7VZA motherboard so nothing more to upgrade there...

I figure I have only two things left, the motherboard and the Athlon 1ghz
processor. I'm prepared to go buy a new motherboard, especially since I've
never been a fan of VIA's motherboards, and get a nForce2 board... but if
its the processor, then I can just work on that first...

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

Most likely the motherboard (I may be imagining it, but wasn't that one
of the ones with capacitor problems? Try groups.google.com). Could also
be the PSU I guess .. however I'd swap the motherboard (yes, nForce2,
assuming you have the right PC2700 or PC3200 DDR), stick in a cheap
XP2400+, and watch that new machine fly. 8>.
 
My WinXP installation, after a year of just being peachy, has gone quite
the
other way.

It started out with freezes, then one morning after shutting it down the
night before, started up only to blue screen stop errors. Repair
installation didn't do it. New in place installation didn't work.
Installed to my documents HD. Still no go. Installed to a clean,
repartitioned drive, still no go.

pulled out all PCI cards. No go. Switched Video cards. No go. I was
running with just one 256 DIMM in, so I ran to the store and bought a new
one to switch with. No luck. Already running the newest BIOS for my ECS
K7VZA motherboard so nothing more to upgrade there...

I figure I have only two things left, the motherboard and the Athlon 1ghz
processor. I'm prepared to go buy a new motherboard, especially since
I've
never been a fan of VIA's motherboards, and get a nForce2 board... but if
its the processor, then I can just work on that first...

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

Is there any reaction at all when you press the power button? If not it
could also be a faulty power unit.

Otherwise, as you say, it could be the mainboard or the processor. The RAM
might also be damaged.

Have you also tried disconnecting all RAM chips, IDE devices and Floppy
drives? Sometimes a problem with the IDE or Floppy connections cause the
system to not boot.

Even without any RAM chips, IDE or Floppy devices you should be able to
boot into BIOS.

Another thing which might have happened is that the BIOS is corrupt, either
from virus or a power failure during a BIOS update.

If you get any beep signals or have diagnostic LED lights on the
motherboard, check the manual for the motherboard for the meaning.
Sometimes this gives a good indication of the problem.

--
Svein Morten Rougnø
IT-administrator
Vestfold University College, Norway

E-mail:
Svein dot M dot Rougno att hive dot no
 
Back
Top