Hi there, I'm just looking for some advice for my problem, I'd be very grateful for anything people can suggest. Here's my problem : - First my system specs : - Mobo - MSI K8NNeo2Plat+54G Wifi PCI Processor -Athlon 3500 64bit 939 Pin 512K Cache Video - 256MB Radeon X800 Pro VIVO RAM - 1024Mb 184pin DDR PC2100 Hard Drive - Maxtor 120gb IDE DVD Drive - Lite On DVDRW16x PSU - Hiper 525w HPU-4S525 All the problems first started when I woke up one morning having left my computer on overnight to find it had bluescreened, something its never done in the 10 months I've had it where it has worked perfectly. The bluescreen was a 0x000000ED: UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME error. So naturally I decided to restart the machine, which didn't so much restart but instead just decide it didn't want to start when I pushed the power button, it just did nothing. So I unplugged the cable from the PSU, waited a bit, plugged it in. This time it did start up, I decided to start up in safe mode to begin with, however as soon as safe mode was loading, I get another blue screen, this time a 0x0000006F: SESSION3_INITIALIZATION_FAILED error. To cut a long story short, basically I run the manufacturer's test program from a cd and it came up with irreversable errors. So I replaced the hard drive with a new one, thinking the problem was just a freak hard drive failure. But instead I find the computer can now not even get past POST when it starts up. I restart to find it now doesn't start up at all. I replace the power cord, it boots up, and this time it gets as far as trying to boot from the cd. Unfortunately this is as far as it will get for a while. For some reason every time I restart the computer will get to a different stage and then freeze basically. At this time I decided it was either a problem with the motherboard or psu. I open up the computer, and change it so I only have plugged in Motherboard, CPU, PSU, Graphics Card, Ram, I also double check all the connections and jumpers, to see if it will get to the "nothing to boot error". I start up, and it does infact get up to that error. However I restart just to double check, and this time it freezes at post, another restart and it freezes at trying to boot, without bringing the error. So I buy a new PSU and replace the old one, I also put in the hard drive again and connect the dvd drive. I turn it on, it boots the window cd off the drive, it starts to load the windows install, "great! I thought, all fixed, it was a dodgy psu" that was until as soon as the windows install tried to communicate with the hard drive, it just froze. After a long while of hoping this was just some stupid windows cd glitch, I restart, and yet again come up with the neverending randomness of getting to different stages of booting and it freezing up. At this stage I test the ram, new hard drive, graphics card, and dvd drive in another computer, just incase, however I'm pretty sure it's a motherboard problem at this time. I've reset the bios to "fail safe defaults", I've reset cmos. It still continues to freeze before it gets a chance to boot. The only two parts not tested with another system are the motherboard and processor. I note the processor isn't overheating, the heatsink stays on all the time there's power, and ever since I've had this setup, the whole computer has run very cool at 40 degrees average. At this stage the only option I personally can think of is the replace the motherboard, basically before I do, I just want to check I've not been stupid and left something blatantly obvious out. I'm sorry for the very long explanation, but I though it necessary to explain my problem clearly. Thanks for reading this. Also any suggestion to what has caused this problem would be a great help as well, at the moment, a friend has advised me that it could have been a power surge that has caused all the problems, and this is what I'm currently sticking to as the cause, and I've just bought a power surge protector to be safe. Thanks again Regards
did you flash your bios lately? it seems like bios or dos can be not completing proper commands or misinterpreting them
The first thing I would do is an overnight test with Memtest86+ on your RAM. If there are zero errors after that, you can be pretty sure it's not your RAM, and moderately sure it's not your northbridge. If you do have errors or if the tests freeze up, there's a good chance your RAM or northbridge is the cuplrit. At that point you'd want to test the RAM in a known working system overnight with Memtest to narrow it down between the two. On the other hand, if the memtest shows no problems after running all night, it could be your southbridge, your CPU, a short in a cable or perhaps even a kinked data cable. I don't know anything about the PSU you had previously, but if it was putting out dirty power, it would certainly explain why your system failed suddenly after 10mo of normal operation. Bad PSUs weaken components over time, and can cause problems with anything and everything in the system. -AT
Hi, thanks for the replies, it seems I've solved the problem, in the end it was memory, but it's a very weird problem, you see I have 2 x 512 sticks of 2700 ram, and I'd tested both of these in 2 different systems, both times with memtest, and no errors came up, however on my original system mobo, its dual ddr ram, but I'd tried the ram in both dual mode on positions and off positions, and also tried it with just 1 piece of ram, trying both bits on their own each time, still always the same random booting results, However I managed to get hold of another a64 motherboard, and try in that, again it didn't work with both bits of ram in, but then I decided to try one last time with 1 bit in the first slot, and it worked, many restarts of testing and it works. I still find it hard to properly realise what the exact problem has been, seeing as how I've thoroughly tested the ram. I guess it's just one of those things. Regards
