mandelbrot
03-09-2006, 10:08 AM
Dear All,
As this is my first post, I'd like to present you all with a teaser. I am completely new to most of the hardware side of the game - I can plug memory in, install hard-drives and all the basic stuff, but have very little knowledge of the "bigger picture".
I bought a PC from a friend who tends to build his own machines. This was an AMD (Thoroughbred) 2600+ running at 2083MHz. Also installed is a Radeon 9700 (dual), and the usual additions that come in every computer system, including HDD, DVDRW etc.
At first, this PC worked famously well, though the motherboard (I believe) is running at 133MHz. A couple of months or so into its use, the system reset itself while I was playing a game (could well be something to do with the 9700 sucking up the voltage, but I wasn't sure). The other problem was that on occassion the PC would not start-up properly - it would simply hang with no beeps - suggesting PSU or motherboard problem. I checked the PSU, and it's 400W, so I suspect that rules the PSU out.
At first, suspecting the CPU of not providing enough power, I disconnected various devices to see if this made any difference, but it didn't seem to. I did disconnect the floppy drive, and this seemed to help (strangely). A little while after, however, the problems came back.
These symptoms continued to happen intermitently until I grew completely hacked off with it and opened the case... Big mistake! The first thing I checked were the stats produced by the BIOS. I don't know how odd this is, but my BIOS has several voltages listed, some within what it calls the VCORE and others elsewhere. The CPU ran, surprisingly at 1.66 continually without fluctuation. Others, however, ran at up to .2 volts less than it should (for instance, one of the readings should have been 3.3, but was actually fluctuating between 3.1 and 3.28). I don't know how significant this is to the problem, but percentagewise that is quite large.
I also checked some of the settings in the BIOS, resetting them if they didn't work. This is where something else happened that I find rather strange - the keyboard would intermitently not work when the BIOS was activated. This continued to get worse, until now I cannot access my BIOS at all (or at least I can access it, but the keyboard doesn't work!). The keyboard works fine outside of the BIOS - I can press DEL, start windows etc - keyboard and mouse work fine! As soon as I start the BIOS the keyboard dies - no lights, no buttons work (usual Numlock test to see if the light comes on etc) - NOTHING!
I pulled the jumpers to reset the BIOS, and it's all still the same (barring the fact that the defaults have been reset).
If anyone can point me in the right direction, I would really appreciate it.
Many thanks in advance,
Paul.
As this is my first post, I'd like to present you all with a teaser. I am completely new to most of the hardware side of the game - I can plug memory in, install hard-drives and all the basic stuff, but have very little knowledge of the "bigger picture".
I bought a PC from a friend who tends to build his own machines. This was an AMD (Thoroughbred) 2600+ running at 2083MHz. Also installed is a Radeon 9700 (dual), and the usual additions that come in every computer system, including HDD, DVDRW etc.
At first, this PC worked famously well, though the motherboard (I believe) is running at 133MHz. A couple of months or so into its use, the system reset itself while I was playing a game (could well be something to do with the 9700 sucking up the voltage, but I wasn't sure). The other problem was that on occassion the PC would not start-up properly - it would simply hang with no beeps - suggesting PSU or motherboard problem. I checked the PSU, and it's 400W, so I suspect that rules the PSU out.
At first, suspecting the CPU of not providing enough power, I disconnected various devices to see if this made any difference, but it didn't seem to. I did disconnect the floppy drive, and this seemed to help (strangely). A little while after, however, the problems came back.
These symptoms continued to happen intermitently until I grew completely hacked off with it and opened the case... Big mistake! The first thing I checked were the stats produced by the BIOS. I don't know how odd this is, but my BIOS has several voltages listed, some within what it calls the VCORE and others elsewhere. The CPU ran, surprisingly at 1.66 continually without fluctuation. Others, however, ran at up to .2 volts less than it should (for instance, one of the readings should have been 3.3, but was actually fluctuating between 3.1 and 3.28). I don't know how significant this is to the problem, but percentagewise that is quite large.
I also checked some of the settings in the BIOS, resetting them if they didn't work. This is where something else happened that I find rather strange - the keyboard would intermitently not work when the BIOS was activated. This continued to get worse, until now I cannot access my BIOS at all (or at least I can access it, but the keyboard doesn't work!). The keyboard works fine outside of the BIOS - I can press DEL, start windows etc - keyboard and mouse work fine! As soon as I start the BIOS the keyboard dies - no lights, no buttons work (usual Numlock test to see if the light comes on etc) - NOTHING!
I pulled the jumpers to reset the BIOS, and it's all still the same (barring the fact that the defaults have been reset).
If anyone can point me in the right direction, I would really appreciate it.
Many thanks in advance,
Paul.