I am having random lockups on this system.
It began 6 months ago when it was running dual P3's with XP Pro. It would hang on shutdown and eventually would not boot. I attributed the problems at that point to a bad CPU since removing one of the CPU's made all the problems go away.
Since it was now single-CPU configuration, I then installed Win98se and relegated the system to running kids games. It was stable like this for the last 6 months.
Recently I began having more lockups where the screen would get a little overwritten and the sound would loop, if it happened in a game. This was followed by the PC randomly hanging when I would attempt to run any application.
Things I've tried:
1) Removed all non-essential cards. Only video card and memory installed. Computer still hung. Concluded problem is either corrupted driver or windows system files.
2) Moved memory to a different bank. Hung on boot.
3a) Wiped the C: drive. I wiped it and re-installed Win98se, with the motto that "when in doubt, blame Microsoft". This did not resolve the lockups.
3b) Attempted to install linux (Mandrake 9.1 version). The computer would hang at different locations during the install. Sometimes I'd made it to the formatting stage. Other times, it would hang on the 2nd stage install, where the installation program is being loaded into memory. So I concluded it was a hardware issue.
4) Ran Memtest86. Some errors were reported, but there were specific to a particular address location, which the Readme with Memtest warns may be false. I replaced the memory module with a PC100 stick that worked fine in a different system and throttled my system back to
7.5*100. Ran Memtest with this module and similar errors were reported as with the previous module. Concluded memory is OK.
5) Ran Scandisk in DOS mode and checked for bad blocks. No bad blocks were found.
I am beginning to believe that there is an issue with the motherboard since all the hardware appears to be working (haven't tried a new video card, though). The floppy connector on the mobo failed within a few months of getting the board, so it is not as if this board is defect-free.
Is there anything else I can do to verify whether the board itself is bad or identify the bad hardware?
Thanks in advance.
-Greg
It began 6 months ago when it was running dual P3's with XP Pro. It would hang on shutdown and eventually would not boot. I attributed the problems at that point to a bad CPU since removing one of the CPU's made all the problems go away.
Since it was now single-CPU configuration, I then installed Win98se and relegated the system to running kids games. It was stable like this for the last 6 months.
Recently I began having more lockups where the screen would get a little overwritten and the sound would loop, if it happened in a game. This was followed by the PC randomly hanging when I would attempt to run any application.
Things I've tried:
1) Removed all non-essential cards. Only video card and memory installed. Computer still hung. Concluded problem is either corrupted driver or windows system files.
2) Moved memory to a different bank. Hung on boot.
3a) Wiped the C: drive. I wiped it and re-installed Win98se, with the motto that "when in doubt, blame Microsoft". This did not resolve the lockups.
3b) Attempted to install linux (Mandrake 9.1 version). The computer would hang at different locations during the install. Sometimes I'd made it to the formatting stage. Other times, it would hang on the 2nd stage install, where the installation program is being loaded into memory. So I concluded it was a hardware issue.
4) Ran Memtest86. Some errors were reported, but there were specific to a particular address location, which the Readme with Memtest warns may be false. I replaced the memory module with a PC100 stick that worked fine in a different system and throttled my system back to
7.5*100. Ran Memtest with this module and similar errors were reported as with the previous module. Concluded memory is OK.
5) Ran Scandisk in DOS mode and checked for bad blocks. No bad blocks were found.
I am beginning to believe that there is an issue with the motherboard since all the hardware appears to be working (haven't tried a new video card, though). The floppy connector on the mobo failed within a few months of getting the board, so it is not as if this board is defect-free.
Is there anything else I can do to verify whether the board itself is bad or identify the bad hardware?
Thanks in advance.
-Greg
