Possible mobo or proc failure. Suggestions?

[Alex Cavnar, aka alc6379]

Wow... It's been a while since I've actually *asked* a question...

I've got an Athlon 1.4ghz Processor, 512MB of SDRAM, (2x256MB, one chip's a good Kingston, one's a cheapo Korean piece) and an Asus K7V-133c motherboard. Lately, I've not been able to get the machine to boot any OS. It'll limp into XP, then reboot. Both my Mandrake 8.2 and Slackware 8.1 installs lock up shortly after running the initial partition scan.

I've been trying to track down the source of my problem, so I'll tell what I've found so far. My power supply fan was dead, so I swapped out the power supply for a newer one. While checking if the heatsink was properly seated on the processor, I found that I didn't have the thermal paste spread evenly on the processor, so I fixed that, too. I've checked out the RAM using various test suites on different machines and it checks out okay, too.

So I'm thinking it boils down one or both of two situations: I may have either a processor or mobo go bad, or maybe even both have. I wanted to post here to see if anyone had any suggestions or remedies for my current hardware before I went out and spent more money that I had to.

There's only one upside to this, though-- If I have to buy a new mobo/processor, I will be able to afford a faster processor for what I paid for the 1.4ghz!

[grunt_user]

Just a couple of things to look at. If it is locking up on detection of partitions I would be more inclined to think that it is a harddrive/controller problem. Try hooking you drive to a different channel. Also see what happens when you boot with a rescue disk (Like the redhat install cd) that doesn't require the / to be on the harddrive.

Also is the problem in the kernel booting or is it after the kernel is done and it is now into the init scripts?

Has this machine been working for a while now or is this initial setup?

[bwkaz]

Do you have any other Athlon processors laying around that you might be able to cannibalize for a short time? See if plugging them into your motherboard fixes the problem.

Of course, if your motherboard is fried, then there's always a chance that it will fry any CPU you put into it. But I think that chance is fairly slim.

I assume you've tried taking the "cheapo Korean piece" of RAM out, and just booting with the Kingston?

[Alex Cavnar, aka alc6379]

OK, here's what I've done so far to this box:

* I did try just running with the Kingston piece of memory, and it was giving me the same problem.

* I tried switching the hdd to a different IDE channel. I even ran the box just with the CDROM (so I could boot from it). This time, there wasn't a partition check (ala no disk to do one to), but it still froze up at about the point that would have occured after a partiton check.

* I disabled USB support on the Motherboard, and that caused it not to lock up after the partition check. However, after getting it to a prompt, I'm plagued by segmentation faults at every turn. Even just typing "ls" in bash will get a kernel fault.

So, I'm thinking that both my processor and my motherboard have gone bad. It seems to me that it's a combination of too much heat on the processor and too little voltage from my old PSU have taken their toll on both components.

I think I've decided: I'm going to switch from AMD to Intel when I purchase my new mobo/proc combo. I'm looking to find at least a 1.6ghz P4 combo+ memory for under $370US. Anybody know of any good deals out there?

[bwkaz]

Well, if you want to, then go ahead, but note that I got my motherboard and XP1800+ (plus a Thermaltake Volcano 6Cu+ fan, noisy but pretty good) for about $200, and that was four or five months ago.

Whatever. Don't let me stop you from going Intel (especially since this motherboard, the Biostar M7VIF, has some issues itself, not the least of which is bad temp. monitoring), but realize that your budget seems a bit high, assuming comparable Intel-based products are priced comparably.

EDIT: Oh, plus memory. Well, my memory (256MB PC2700, CL2 -- somebody's house brand, but at least it works) was about $80 or so, so it's still about $100 less than what you want to spend.

[Alex Cavnar, aka alc6379]

...could you point me to where you found these deals?

I'm not averse to going AMD again, it's just I've never bought an Intel product before. The reason I set my budget so high is because I was really shooting for either a P4 1.8 or 2.0 ghz chip, and those are still a little pricey.

Also, there's a little added cost because I'm thinking of getting a Swiftech cooler for my chip with a copper shim. Those coolers run about $75 US, so that adds a bit to my price...

[bwkaz]

Ah, true, it will add.

I found the motherboard, processor, and Volcano 6 at www.newegg.com. I got the memory from www.ocsystem.com, but I'm not sure I'd buy from them again. No really good reason, there was just something slightly, I don't know, odd, I guess, about the whole thing. The memory works fine though... Anyway, I'd check Newegg and Pricewatch first. And www.resellerratings.com for anyone that comes up on Pricewatch.

[Alex Cavnar, aka alc6379]

Okay... I think I've settled on what I'm going to get...

Here's the specs, lemme know what you guys think.

From SMK Superstore: (http://www.smksuperstore.com/)

Athlon 1900XP processor
MSI 745 Ultra mobo (ATA100, 5 PCI, 4x AGP, 3GB max DDR)
The "Mega Fan" 80mm CPU cooler w/ copper shim
$206.64 US, shipping included

From DV Century: (http://www.dvcentury.com/)

Either 512MB PC2700 DDR, or 256MB PC2700 DDR:

$115 US for 512MB
$62 US for 256MB

Free Shipping! I think I might go with the 256MB now and buy another 256MB down the road-- That way it'll be a little cheaper at the outset...

Then, my case, from CompUSA: (http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product%5Fcode=282436&csearch=)

Antec SX830
300w PSU
3 external 5.25" bays
2 external 3.5" bays, 3 internal
2 case fans already included
Swing-out locking side door

$87.79 US with my local sales tax-- I'll pick this up my self.

All in all, I think I hit my budget perfectly-- this totals up to $356.43, which I plan on spreading out through two paychecks. I'm going to buy the case and memory this week, and the mobo/proc combo next check. By the time my memory show up, I should have the mobo/proc combo here!

[bwkaz]

The one thing you might want to look at is the SiS 745 chipset. I don't know if the agpgart.o module supports that chipset... If it doesn't, you should be able to just pass agp_try_unsupported=1 when you load agpgart (or add an options agpgart agp_try_unsupported=1 to modules.conf), and it might work. But as it says, it's unsupported.

But have a look at your kernel's drivers/char/agp/agpgart_be.c file. Do a search for "#ifdef CONFIG_AGP_SIS". There will be one hit part of the way down the file; ignore this one and search again. The second hit should be as part of a list of chipsets that the agpgart module will support. If one of the items in that list starts with PCI_DEVICE_ID_SI_745, then your chipset should work. It's there in kernel 2.4.19, but check whatever kernel you're running to make sure it's there in that version as well.

Oh, and make sure your video card supports AGP 4x and 1.7V power, because it looks like that motherboard won't use the 3.3V power and 2x / 1x speeds.

Everything else looks pretty good to me.

[ChadMan]

I just got a P4 2.4 and the Asus P4S8X MB in a thermaltake
Xaser 5000b case Sweet! Quiet!

The mother board does a recorded voice boot sequence check.


On your MB problem, get a list of beep codes and do this:
Unplug everything from the MB except the CPU and cooler (leave the power connector plugged in) and then power up and listen to the beep codes. I am not sure if you can do this without the CPU in place. Next plug in the Ram one at a time and do the same thing. Then go for the video card then the HD. Your beep codes might help you find out what the problem is. You will need to have the speaker plugged in.

ChadMan

[Alex Cavnar, aka alc6379]

Hrm.. I hadn't even thought about the agpgart support for the SiS 745...

All and all, I think that it won't matter too much-- I'm running kernel 2.4.19 on all the installations I have running on the current system. I try to make it a point to roll my own kernel as soon as the install process finishes on any installation I run...

Thanks for all of input, guys. I should be getting the case and memory tomorrow!

[mrpurple]

if you are really going to try for a new mobo/cpu combo try shopping at either newegg.com (if you are west coast) or novapcs.com (if you are east coast) for great prices.

However, I am inclined to think this might be a hard drive problem.

Do you have an old hard drive around you can toss in real quick? Are your OS installs on differnt drives or just partitions on the same drive?

If you go to Maxtor.com, you can download a small utility that will create a drive tester on a bootable floppy that doesn't care what OS you might be running. it just test the read/write on the drive and the motor. If you do that, you can at least say yes it is my hard drive or no, it is not the hard drive.

That is worth a shot before you drop money on a cpu/mbd that you might not actually need.

[Alex Cavnar, aka alc6379]

I know that it's not the hard drive. I slapped it into another box yesterday and ran the Maxtor test program on it. I happened to have that program in an archive of diagnostic tools that I keep...

For now, I think I'm going to do some more research on new parts. I've put my old Duron 700mhz box back into service with the memory, burner and hdd from the "dead" machine. It's working great-- I've even got Mandrake 9 running on it. Now, I've got a 700mhz box with 512MB RAM and 110GB disk space!

Eventually, I will replace my 1.4ghz machine, because my Duron's motherboard setup doesn't play nicely with dual monitors. But for now, I've got a working machine again. It's surprising how arduous things can be by not having a working box for two weeks!