First of all, any crash that takes days to boot again (or hours at all) is NOT software related. If the computer won’t turn on again after a very long (or short) time, the problem is either faulty hardware or heat. Unless, of course, you mean he’ll boot and it’ll hang when booting Windows. If you mean it won’t turn on or get past the POST, it’s almost certainly hardware related. (Flaky BIOS included).
Could be a flaky power supply, or a short somewhere in the system.
A 250Watt Power supply is NOT ENOUGH power for a Geforce 2 card on an Thunderbird/Athlon system If you ask for cite you will have to wait a few hours while I try to remember the site. Bet him up to 300Watts at least. I’d prefer a 350
After a crash, the point in which it freezes seems to be random.
Sometimes just just after the system test, sometimes when booting the OS. (There have been times when he gets into the OS and it hangs as soon as he runs something.) When it does this, he just leaves it and checks it sometime later. Usually a day or so and things are ok.
Update on his power supply: It’s a 300w.
We have tried swaping power supplies and the problem still occured.
He went to update his BOIS with the ROM he downloaded from his MB’s manufaturers site and when he went to flash it, he got an error saying “Not An Award BIOS”. He looked in the case and, low and behold, it says it is an Award BIOS.
He’s going to try and flash it with an older ROM and see if that works. (His PC is down right now though.)
I have some questions. When he does get into Windows. Does it ever come up in only 256 colors? Or does windows ever come up and not detect the adapter (ie…you go into display settings and it doesn’t have the adapters name under advanced, only generic or just blank)? Does it ever happen when he simply restarts, even if he doesn’t play any games?
I have a similar problem with my GeForce4 but I’m almost positive that mine is a heat or power problem. I’m just to lazy to check.
1.) Nope. When Windows does start, it remember all the settings.
(Resolution, colour depth, et al.)
2.) His machine always detects the card with no probs.
3.) The PC will always crash. It just crashes faster when playing games.
He has a 300w power supply and is not running anything fancy in the PC other than the basic requirements. (Hard drive, CD-Rom et al.) The case of the unit is off with a fan blowing into it and it is next to an open window.
When I did talk to him, he did say that he couldn’t drop the AGP below 4X.
He’s gonna focus on the BIOS thing first. (Since the Flashing program told him it wasn’t an Award BIOS when it is. Tackle this first, then move forward.)
He’s on the west coast so it’s not always easy to get a hold of him. I’ll let ya know if there are any updates.
Kwyj… thanks for starting the thread. I’m up and running again for the moment, so I’ll add a few tidbits of info.
I’m running the following system:
MSI K7T Pro 2A M/B
AMD Athlon 800MHz
384MB PC133 RAM
Elsa Erazor X2 Video Card w/Nvidia, 32MB DDR
HP CD-RW and 2x WD HDD
300W P/S
Win XP Pro
I’ve updated to the latest VIA 4 in 1 drivers, currently running the latest Elsa drivers for XP (going to switch to Detonater 23 shortly to see what happens). I’ve switched AGP aperture to 4MB (lowest it goes, can’t disable), fast write disabled. I’ve applied the patch to my registry from Microsoft as recommended by them and AMD to prevent AGP and system from attempting to use the same RAM (known issue, MS support knowledge base article Q270715 if anyone’s interested).
My first thought was of course overheating, but I’ve pretty much eliminated that as an issue. CPU temp hovering about high 40 degrees celsius, internal case temp about 10 degrees lower and stable, fans report proper RPM. It has been known to crash within minutes of boot up, and other times will run for days on end.
The actual crash is strange: I’ll be using the system, and the screen will suddenly go black (sleep mode), indicating no I/O from the video card. The HDD and power light will be on steady, but no access from either drive. P/S and collling fans are running. Neither the power button or the reset will work, so I have to turn off the system from the p/s switch. On repowering it will get to various points in POST, sometimes even as far as windows startup, then crash again. I’ll have to power on from the p/s, then hit the front power button to shutdown before it crashes. On restart the power LED will not come on, and HDD LED will be solid with no drive activity but all fans working. Once again, power switches do not work from this point. Power off again from the power supply, then back on and it goes into its “off” mode by itself (meaning the power/HDD LED’s light for a moment, then the system shuts down normally by itself. At this point I just have to leave it alone for a day (or in some cases 3 days) and it’s back to normal again for as long as it lasts. Another strange note when it finally restarts: It will sometimes goe the a disk check due to improper shutdown, and I’ve noticed if I try to bypass it by pressing a key, it will crash again. If I leave it alone it will start into Windows just fine.
I’ve tried stripping all hardware and restarting in various configs, but nothing works other than the waiting game. I’ve had all drives out and boot from floppy with just basic onboard video and the problem is just the same.
I’m stumped if the Det drivers and or BIOS don’t do it (only two things I’ve yet to try).
I’m not an expert on all this, but I’m definetely leaning away from a software angle and moving towards a hardware one. What it is, I couldn’t even guess at this point.
