Problem with Hard Drives or Motherboard?

[Guest]

Hi

I am using XP Pro,
I have two Hard Drives, and both have been replaced because
the repair people said first that the second was gone, then when
the PC failed to boot when I got it home I was told the problem was
the first (C drive, which was then replaced.

The PC still boots only intermittently, going through a BOD then reboot cycle,
if I turn it off and try again it some times boots, sometimes not.

Both new hard drives pass the Seagate DOS hard drive short and long test,
and I have tried a repair install on one of the few occasions that the PC
booted up,
that seemed to fix the problem but after my next shut down it was back to
problems.

I am now told it must be the motherboard.

How do I test the motherboard, can it be done in DOS or in the BIOS?
Any ideas on what else I should look at, this is a brilliant 6 yr old PC
with 784 Meg of Rambus, which performs as well as my other new PC with DDR2.

All help and advice will be appreciated and followed up.

regards

 

[Rich Barry]

Symptoms suggest a flaky Power Supply. Motherboard could be the problem
also. I would remove the Motherboard and
CPU. Clean with Canned Air. CPU remove the heatsink and clean. Add
thermal paste to the cpu before replacing the
heatsink. If there are fans cooling the Power Supply clean and make sure
that they are spinning freely. Same with heatsink
fan. I have done that twice and still have my six year old motherboard
working.

 

[Anna]

Hi

I am using XP Pro,
I have two Hard Drives, and both have been replaced because
the repair people said first that the second was gone, then when
the PC failed to boot when I got it home I was told the problem was
the first (C drive, which was then replaced.

The PC still boots only intermittently, going through a BOD then reboot
cycle,
if I turn it off and try again it some times boots, sometimes not.

Both new hard drives pass the Seagate DOS hard drive short and long test,
and I have tried a repair install on one of the few occasions that the PC
booted up,
that seemed to fix the problem but after my next shut down it was back to
problems.

I am now told it must be the motherboard.

How do I test the motherboard, can it be done in DOS or in the BIOS?
Any ideas on what else I should look at, this is a brilliant 6 yr old PC
with 784 Meg of Rambus, which performs as well as my other new PC with
DDR2.

All help and advice will be appreciated and followed up.

regards

Daniel:
It's a problem all right. We'll of course assume that your HDDs are
non-defective and that the OS has been properly installed. You're certain
the OS was properly installed and your HDDs (both the boot drive *and* the
secondary HDD have been properly connected/configured, right?)

I just can't believe it's the RAM. Working with a good deal of RDRAM over
the years we've never encountered another type of RAM as rock-stable as
Rambus. I'm hard-pressed to think of a single instance of that type of RAM
becoming defective *after* an initial successful install. It just seems to
go on forever. But that's ancient history of course since Rambus has long
since left the consumer market. Still, if it *was* defective RAM that was
causing your problem that would be the end of this story. Your only
practical alternative (it would seem to me) would be to come away with your
two new HDDs after jettisoning the rest and build yourself or have built
another machine.

Anyway...

It could be your motherboard. You say "I am now told it must be the
motherboard." Who told you this - the repair shop? If so, do you have any
idea as to whether they tested the MB? Or was this "conversation talk"? You
are, of course, dealing with a pretty old machine. Unfortunately, the only
practical way to tell if this is so by the end-user is to replace the MB
with a working one. I'm assuming here that you previously made no hardware
changes/modifications prior to this problem arising.

It could also be a defective power supply or even a defective graphics card.
That's the problem with the kind of problem you're describing which we're
assuming is hardware-based. Any major component in the machine could be the
culprit. And once again, the only definitive way to tell is to substitute
known working ones for potentially defective ones.

But try this in the meantime...

I assume your machine has a floppy disk drive and you have a DOS boot disk -
maybe one of the Win9x or Me startup floppy disks. Connect only your boot
drive (not your secondary HDD) and boot to the DOS floppy disk. Also
disconnect any optical drives or any other storage devices of any kind. Play
around with the FDISK command (I assume you know your way about this) -
without, of course, actually modifying the partition on your HDD, and do
this for a while, e.g., check the partition information, etc. See if you run
into the same problem you've been having re the rebooting/shutting down
cycles. I assume the same problem will occur. If it does, this would tend to
indicate that the problem is definitely hardware-based. It's always wise to
determine this at the outset.

But, of course, you'll still have the problem of determining which of the
PC's components is the one causing the problem. Again, I really don't know
of any practical way for the end-user to determine this except by
substituting components on a one-by-one basis.
Anna

 

[Guest]

Anna and Rich

thanks you for your comprehensive replies, I will start by cleaning out the
PC, although it get's a clean every year, and make sure everything is seated
properly, I will then have a look at the disks in DOS, I have a basic boot
disk with a lot of stuff on it including Fdisk, if the problem comes up
indicating it is hardware, I will look at the hardware starting with the
Graphics card.

Then I will look at everything else in your replies.

I'll let you know and thanks again.

regards

 

[Gerry]

Daniel

I am quite sceptical about the need to replace two hard drives. I would
stay from that computer repaire in future.

Please post copies of all Error and Warning Reports appearing in the
System and Application logs in Event Viewer for the last boot. No
Information Reports please. Indicate which also appear in a previous
boot.

You can access Event Viewer by selecting Start, Control Panel,
Administrative Tools, and Event Viewer. When researching the meaning
of the error, information regarding Event ID, Source and Description
are important.

HOW TO: View and Manage Event Logs in Event Viewer in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308427/en-us

Part of the Description of the error will include a link, which you
should double click for further information. You can copy using copy
and paste. Often the link will, however, say there is no further
information.
http://go.microsoft.com/fw.link/events.asp
(Please note the hyperlink above is for illustration purposes only)

A tip for posting copies of Error Reports! Run Event Viewer and double
click on the error you want to copy. In the window, which appears is a
button resembling two pages. Click the button and close Event
Viewer.Now start your message (email) and do a paste into the body of
the message. Make sure this is the first paste after exiting from
Event Viewer.




--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Guest]

Thanks Gerry

there are certainly a number of things to do and as I can only work on it at
night it will take a couple of days to sort through all of this.

I agree on the repairer, he was guessing I think.

regards

 

[LadyDungeness]

I'm with Daniel on this one. You've been testing and replacing one
thing after another -- how well have you tested your repair people?
Maybe they need to be replaced? Their story sounds fishy to me.
Sorry. Good luck.


Lady Dungeness
Crabby, but Great Legs!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~




|Daniel
|
|I am quite sceptical about the need to replace two hard drives. I would
|stay from that computer repaire in future.
|
|Please post copies of all Error and Warning Reports appearing in the
|System and Application logs in Event Viewer for the last boot. No
|Information Reports please. Indicate which also appear in a previous
|boot.
|
|You can access Event Viewer by selecting Start, Control Panel,
|Administrative Tools, and Event Viewer. When researching the meaning
|of the error, information regarding Event ID, Source and Description
|are important.
|
|HOW TO: View and Manage Event Logs in Event Viewer in Windows XP
|http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308427/en-us
|
|Part of the Description of the error will include a link, which you
|should double click for further information. You can copy using copy
|and paste. Often the link will, however, say there is no further
|information.
|http://go.microsoft.com/fw.link/events.asp
|(Please note the hyperlink above is for illustration purposes only)
|
|A tip for posting copies of Error Reports! Run Event Viewer and double
|click on the error you want to copy. In the window, which appears is a
|button resembling two pages. Click the button and close Event
|Viewer.Now start your message (email) and do a paste into the body of
|the message. Make sure this is the first paste after exiting from
|Event Viewer.

 

[RJK]

....having read through this post, ...in addition to all that others have
suggested

....when "blowing out" (I use an old electrolux vacuum cleaner that can have
the hose connected to the other end !! ), ...make sure that PC is fully
earthed to help protect against static-electricity damage and ensure that
fans are secured and aren't allowed to spin up, generating damaging
back-voltages. ...and don't forget to free'em up again !
....so let's assume now the system box is dust free and has been completed
without destroying any hardware, and hence no "tracking" is taking place

....CMOS back up battery ? i.e. how old ? flat ? bios settings dropping
back to fail-safe ? ...and check all bios settings are correct for your
hardware.
....all data ribbons/cables in good condition and fully seated ?
....all power cables in good condition and fully seated ? ...one can work
wonders with a very small screwdriver down in the power connectors e.g. for
IDE hard-drives, if the (often cheap?) connectors are too slack. i.e.
squash'em up a bit, but, NOT too much!
....check the main power to motherboard plug/s for burnt connectors / signs
of overheating.

....6 yr's old I now notice, obviously fans have been replaced during this
time ? ...inc. PSU fan ?

....as ANNA suggested swapping out is a good strategy, if parts are ready to
hand.
....even though memory seems to "goes on forever," it doesn't ! ...swap it
out, or if you have enough, try it half at a time, to try and pin down the
faulty module, if there is a faulty one !

...why did I start this post ? ... one could write a book on this sort of
stuff

regards, Richard

 

[Daniel]

Hi

Gerry, Rich, Anna, Richard,

I hope you are all checking back to this thread, you have given me a lot of
knowledge
on how to fix these issues, all of your emails are saved in my help file, I
owe you a BIG thanks, I have been able to save my Rambus PC, it is a very
good unit that out performs much later models.

I did the clean up, and made sure everything was seated properly, then I
staterd to install software, thinking everything was running well, then on
the first reboot I got a BSOD and the rebooting cycle started again, so I
switched off knowing that it would start up when it had cooled down.

When I got home this afternoon I remembered the advice to check the Event
Log, BINGO, many errors, Disk and ATAPI, IO erors the help file attached to
the link said simply "Typically caused by faulty cables. Remedy: Replace the
cable:

So, after $350:00 two new Hard Drives, several trips to the repairer and
hours spent looking for solutions, it turns out it was a $5:00 cable, why
didn't the repair guy check the event log??

The PC has been up and running for five hours, not a single error in event
log and many reboots as I load software with disdain .

Thanks again for your help.

regards

Daniel - Sydney

 

[Gerry]

Good result Daniel. Thanks for reporting the outcome.


--
Regards.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~