Blue screen of death

[bcote]

I recently changed the power supply and the CPU fan on a Legend QDI G Titanium 1B mobo with a P2 350Mhz CPU. The original power supply literally fried itself, smoke and a resistor blew up. I was using Win 98 SE and I would get all sorts of errors and crashes. I reformated the hard drive and did a clean install of Win ME and now I get less crashes but I often get the Blue screen of death on various programs being run from installations to any Office program. I suspect that the the BIOS may be need to be updated, as the original BIOS is dated 09/01/98. I can't find an updated version anywhere on the Net.
My questions are;
Will the BIOS update help at all?
Should I update (regress is more like it) with an earlier version of the BIOS?
One observation is that the QDI management program shows a problem with the -12V, the BIOS page shows that -12V is only getting -11.5V while the QDI program shows it fluctuating between -11.44V and -11.5V and the program is set to show a problem at .8V difference.
Any other suggestions would be appreciated as well.
thanks
bcote

[bassman]

Hello Bcote and welcome,
My first recommendation is to take ME off this machine.
I am one of the biggest deffenders of ME on this board, but I do believe it does not play well with older components.
You should try a clean install of 98SE on it before you try the BIOS route.
Hang on a bit for some other recommendations though.

As for the voltage readings, I think you are just fine where it is.

P.S. I just got an old machine (P-166, 32Mgb SIMMs, 2G hdd) that has been running ME for about a year with no real problems. This is totaly contrary to my beliefs about ME and I am now on a quest to wreck this thing like a stolen 4X4 http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/eek.gif

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A real Christian is one who can give his pet parrot to the town gossip.
Frank's Place (http://dreamwater.net/tech/frankscomp/)

[bcote]

Thanks bassman, I'll try a clean install of Win 98 SE. When I had originally installed Win ME I had a lot of other problems so I did a clean install of Win 98 SE and it worked until the PSU blew up. The CPU fan wasn't running too well either so I was wondering if a slightly charred CPU would cause the same Blue screens and other crashes as well?

bcote

[bassman]

Bcote,
A damaged CPU could certainly cause these kinds of problems, but most likely it would progress to total failure very quickly and I doubt you would have ever seen any improvement.
Overheating could also cause this without actualy damaging the CPU if you are lucky.

You certainly want to replace the CPU fan before going on much longer, and see how a clean install of 98 treats you.

Good luck http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/cool.gif

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A real Christian is one who can give his pet parrot to the town gossip.
Frank's Place (http://dreamwater.net/tech/frankscomp/)

[bcote]

I reinstalled Win 98 SE and had some more problems so I installed Win 98 and then tried to upgrade to Win 98 SE and still have some errors, most of them being read errors or unable to open .dll files. I reformatted and have tried to reinstall about 3 times and still with errors but no system crashes. I found the mobo manual online and it says that the fastest Intel processor to work on the mobo is a 233mhz. When I went to install the CPU fan I noticed that the new fan would not touch the CPU so I rigged up the old setup with the new fan. I am beginning to suspect that even though the system worked for about 3 years the mobo isn't fast enough for the CPU and I can't find any docs on overclocking this mobo or having a faster processor than the mobo was originally designed for. I think that I will either try and find another more compatible mobo or go for a new mobo and CPU and try from there.

Bob

[mjc]

Hmm...beginning to look like maybe there was either a problem with old PSU long before it fried, or maybe it something else out with it....either that board had a voltage problem that actually was what allowed you to run the faster chip or a voltage regulator died when the PSU did....a voltage regulator being out could also explain some of the other errors.

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mjc
Links list:Computer Links (http://www.dreamwater.org/tech/mjc/index.htm)

Celts are the men that heaven made mad, For all their battles are merry and their songs are all sad.

[bcote]

Thought I'd let you know what happened, I bought a used P6SBS mobo and installed it and loaded Win ME, it appears that when the machine was purchased we thought it was a P2 350 but the new mobo recognizes it as a P2 233mhz which is why it ran on the old mobo after all. Intel should print the speed a little larger on the chips. I reloaded all the periphs and the drivers and it's running well. Not sure what happened on the old mobo though.
Thanks for your help
later,
bcote