Rebooting problems

[Stephen Harding \(SplanK\)]

Motherboard: Abit KW7
CPU: AMD Athlon XP Barton 400MHz FSB 3200+
Ram: Crosair DDR TX 1Gb PC3200 (dual channel setup)
Graphics card: ATi 9800Pro Radeon AGP (8x)

Hiya - Just rebuilt my PC with the above. Everything installed properly but
when I came to use 3DMark - the system reset itself. Thought - great
graphics card is gona muck me about. AS I just installed everything with
default drivers or the ones that came on the disk - I decided to download
and update everything I could. Nope - still doing it. So out came Sandra..
Ran the memory test for a couple of mins and baboom - it restarted.
Thought - hmm this could be more of a RAM thing.
Went into the BIOS and reset everything to fail safe and tried again - nope
still restarting.

Next task was to try the ram in my brothers PC who has the same motherboard
and CPU. Works fine - infact better than fine. Nicked his ram (PC2700
512Mb Crucial Dual Channel) - hhmm seems to work. I did notice that the
system didn't like having the ram in a few of the slots. Anyway - ran all
tests fine and dandy ran like a dream. Now im back to my stuff. I managed
to get the ram to go into the slots that the system didnt like before. So
far so good although ive not run any benchmarking tests yet so time will
tell.

I have noticed that when ever I go into the PC Temp area on the BIOS - it
locks up. I have tried re-flashing the BIOS with the same version (only
version avail ATM) but that's not solved it - I am able to read the temps
and voltages through motherboard monitor though and everything seems normal
temp...

Any ideas lol??

 

[Dave C.]

Motherboard: Abit KW7
CPU: AMD Athlon XP Barton 400MHz FSB 3200+
Ram: Crosair DDR TX 1Gb PC3200 (dual channel setup)
Graphics card: ATi 9800Pro Radeon AGP (8x)

Hiya - Just rebuilt my PC with the above. Everything installed properly
but when I came to use 3DMark - the system reset itself. Thought - great
graphics card is gona muck me about. AS I just installed everything with
default drivers or the ones that came on the disk - I decided to download
and update everything I could. Nope - still doing it. So out came
Sandra.. Ran the memory test for a couple of mins and baboom - it
restarted. Thought - hmm this could be more of a RAM thing.
Went into the BIOS and reset everything to fail safe and tried again -
nope still restarting.

Next task was to try the ram in my brothers PC who has the same
motherboard and CPU. Works fine - infact better than fine. Nicked his
ram (PC2700 512Mb Crucial Dual Channel) - hhmm seems to work. I did
notice that the system didn't like having the ram in a few of the slots.
Anyway - ran all tests fine and dandy ran like a dream. Now im back to my
stuff. I managed to get the ram to go into the slots that the system
didnt like before. So far so good although ive not run any benchmarking
tests yet so time will tell.

I have noticed that when ever I go into the PC Temp area on the BIOS - it
locks up. I have tried re-flashing the BIOS with the same version (only
version avail ATM) but that's not solved it - I am able to read the temps
and voltages through motherboard monitor though and everything seems
normal temp...

Any ideas lol??

Your power supply is too weak, and your RAM problems are a red herring. You
need 350 - 400W, and that's assuming it's not a no-name. -Dave

 

[Papa]

Your power supply is too weak, and your RAM problems are a red herring.
You need 350 - 400W, and that's assuming it's not a no-name. -Dave

You may be right, but how did you come to that conclusion? For all we know,
he is using the best quality 600 watt power supply available.

 

[Stephen Harding \(SplanK\)]

I do have a 300w power supply.... what i will do is try and pull a few
things off (such as the second hard drive, put a less powerfull graphics
card in, remove both CDRW and DVD drive blah blah and try it then

my brothers system has a 300w PSU and thats fine though and its more or less
the same system. Voltages seem fine and within limits...


Stephen Harding [SplanK]
*****************
Email: (e-mail address removed)
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[Stephen Harding \(SplanK\)]

oh - i sometimes get "Machine_check_exception 0x9c" blue screens - although
very rare i think that the restarts might be down to the same issue. I have
checked the MS website but it does not really give any indication appart
from bad hardware (which does include memory)

 

[John Doe]

Motherboard: Abit KW7
CPU: AMD Athlon XP Barton 400MHz FSB 3200+
Ram: Crosair DDR TX 1Gb PC3200 (dual channel setup)
Graphics card: ATi 9800Pro Radeon AGP (8x)
Hiya - Just rebuilt my PC with the above. Everything installed
properly but when I came to use 3DMark - the system reset itself.
Thought - great graphics card is gona muck me about. AS I just
installed everything with default drivers or the ones that came on
the disk - I decided to download and update everything I could.

Does that include your mainboard/chipset drivers?

Nope - still doing it. So out came Sandra.. Ran the memory test
for a couple of mins and baboom - it restarted. ....
Now im back to my stuff. I managed to get the ram to go into the
slots that the system didnt like before. So far so good although
ive not run any benchmarking tests yet so time will tell.
Any ideas lol??

Stop benchmarking your system?

I think the first requirement is that you are able to reproduce the
problem. If you don't get any relief, stop benchmarking your system
and see if the problem occurs anyway. If not, then just try to cope
(I guess).

 

[Ed Medlin]

I do have a 300w power supply.... what i will do is try and pull a few
things off (such as the second hard drive, put a less powerfull graphics
card in, remove both CDRW and DVD drive blah blah and try it then

my brothers system has a 300w PSU and thats fine though and its more or
less the same system. Voltages seem fine and within limits...


Stephen Harding [SplanK]

Since your problems seem to pop up during post (in bios) and during
benchmarks when the most stress is put on the PSU I would look there first.
Once you are in the OS and not benchmarking, you seem to be ok. Your
intermittent blue screen errors also could be caused by a marginal PSU. I
doubt that removing the optical drives or the HD will make much difference
since they draw much more off the 12v rail than anything else.

Ed

 

[Stephen Harding \(SplanK\)]

The system should be able to cope with the stress - afterall - i built it
because i want to play games and if it cant handle such a simple task of
benchmarking either with sandra or 3Dmark then it aint gona be very good im
games...

and yes I have upgated the drivers for the motherboard (Via 4-1 drivers)

I am able to re-produce the errors:

Going into the BIOS and going into PC health - the system locks up
By running a benchmarking program and putting a bit of stress on the RAM
seems to do it - although it takes around 10-15 "burn in" attempts to lock
it...
Or if i try and do to many things in one go (Ie open up Outlook express
while the system is still loading)

I know i might be expecting to much of the system but it should not lock up
when i go into the BIOS and the first sign of a bit of hard work it should
not restart

 

[John Doe]

(the user's system is crashing and hanging in various circumstances)

I just read you set the BIOS to failsafe. I'm not sure that means
everything. Does failsafe assign IRQ for VGA? (unless that setting is
obsolete). Have you tried using a different video card? The easiest
way to troubleshoot is to try different hardware. That is how you
figure out what part is faulty, assuming it is a hardware problem.
Since your brother has a computer, maybe that is doable.




--

 

[Stephen Harding \(SplanK\)]

Thanks for your reply..

1. Yep - failsafe settings Basically its sets all the variables so they are
the slowest but safest type of settings if you follow? Because of the PC
helth section crashing I flashed the BIOS with a fresh code downloaded of
the ABIT website which did bugger all... This does not touch IRQ settings
(already checked this one as well - nothing seems to be conflicting or
sharing really). VGA - these are already at their none tuned state, the AGP
slot settings have been put onto very basic functions (such as taking off
Fastwrite..)

2. Im now using my old graphics card which worked fine on my old motherboard
and system, yet it still restarts...

3. My RAM (the 1Gb) has been put into my brothers computer and seems to run
fine. I put his 512Mb (different make, different FSB) and it seems to work
fine in my system although I have yet to do a proper full test (IE leaving
it benchmarking for a few hrs to be sure)

Also sometimes when ever I try to go into the BIOS - it will crash entering
it - leaving a blue line (about 3cm tall) across the bottom of ma screen -
it wont do anything unless I restart it...
oh well - its gona go back on Tuesday and let the techs look at it... Ive
got a picture of the blue line on ma phone to show them if they cant
re-produce the error but im quite confident that they will see the errors
ive been seen as well...
Just wanted to see if anybody had any ideas of had come across it before...

 

[John Doe]

1. Yep - failsafe settings Basically its sets all the variables so
they are the slowest but safest type of settings if you follow?

Yes I do. But likely that is some technicians/engineers idea of what
the safest settings might be for the greatest number of
configurations. Not the safest for every configuration.

For example. Failsafe settings might list the primary adapter as PCI.
If you boot with an AGP video card, then you might have trouble.

If you don't mind, please try to reply in context instead of top
posting, for the greatest possible benefit when seeking help. If
some of the quoted lines end up mangled, don't worry about that.

Because of the PC helth section crashing I flashed the BIOS with a
fresh code downloaded of the ABIT website which did bugger all...
This does not touch IRQ settings (already checked this one as well
- nothing seems to be conflicting or sharing really). VGA - these
are already at their none tuned state,

By "none tuned" I suppose you mean "unchanged". I asked you to make
sure that "assign IRQ for VGA" is checked (assuming that setting
exists).

the AGP slot settings have been put onto very basic functions
(such as taking off
Fastwrite..)

2. Im now using my old graphics card which worked fine on my old
motherboard and system, yet it still restarts...

3. My RAM (the 1Gb) has been put into my brothers computer and
seems to run fine. I put his 512Mb (different make, different FSB)
and it seems to work fine in my system although I have yet to do a
proper full test (IE leaving it benchmarking for a few hrs to be
sure)

Also sometimes when ever I try to go into the BIOS - it will crash
entering it - leaving a blue line (about 3cm tall) across the
bottom of ma screen -

That is unclear to me. In the prior paragraph, you wrote that things
are fine with your brothers RAM.

Instead of "Also sometimes..." do you mean "But sometimes..."?

 

[Dave C.]

You may be right, but how did you come to that conclusion? For all we know,
he is using the best quality 600 watt power supply available.

His symptoms are classic of a system that is starved for power. Before I
read that his power supply was too small for his graphics card alone, I made
an educated guess that that's what the problem was, based on what his system
was doing. Note that a GOOD 300W power supply might be able to handle it,
but there are few of those. -Dave

 

[Stephen Harding \(SplanK\)]

I took the motherboard back this morning and swapped it for a new board, I
tested it while I was there and it worked fine...
Think one of the power supplies on the board was a bit iffy because the 12v
rail is now reading 12.1 instead of 11.8v which it was on the older board..
oh well - just got to format now and get it back to a fresh pre-crash
install **knew i should have images windows when i had the chance** hehe