Ok here's the deal..a few weeks ago, I come into my room and see my computer is off. It won't turn back on. I thought it was the vid card at first, so I tested it in a different computer. It worked perfectly. I then did this with the hard drive, which also ended up working in a different computer. So I finally decide it's the mobo/cpu so I go ahead and buy new components. I ended up buying a few other components since I was in the upgrade mindset. Anyway, here's what I got:
ASUS A7V8X (RAID/SERIAL ATA)
AMD Athlon XP 2200+ (retail)
ATI Radeon 9000 Pro 128MB
Western Digital 120GB SE 8MB (oem)
Western Digital 120GB SE 8MB (retail)
I got the second hard drive after thinking the first one was defective, but both wouldn't work (will go into that later). Anyway, once I had all the parts, I put everything together into my Antec SX1030B case and Q Technologies 300W PSU (the one sold by SilentPC.com), which have both worked flawlessly since I purchased them a year ago. The computer also contained 512MB Crucial PC2100 DDR-RAM (2x256) and Pioneer DVR-104 DVD-RW drive.
Everything was hooked up and I proceeded to install from a legal Win2k Pro cd-rom. It allowed me to format the drive but as it was copying the setup files, I got a blue screen. That continued to occur EVERY time I tried to run the install.
I tried swapping out vid cards, power supplies (tried a 300W Antec), hard drives (the two Western Digitals along with an IBM 60GXP), cd-rom drive (used a Plextor 12/10/32S with Adaptec 29160N )controller), and I even tried taking out a stick of ram. NOTHING worked
Here's the odd thing..I could get into the bios and the system would POST when turned on (believe me when I say it looked completely ready to go..just needed a hard drive setup with windows), but I'd just get that blue screen every time I tried to install Win2k. I thought maybe it was the new hard drives so I plugged them into another computer as both a slave and a secondary ide device, and I GOT THE SAME BLUE SCREEN! I don't understand that..perhaps it was a bios limitation since the other computer was a couple years old.
Anyway, I've removed every single unnecessary component..running only the bare necessities..and it still won't work (keep crashing). Oh and I've also updated to the newest bios revision for the motherboard.
My latest attempt involved removing the vid card and swapping in another one. Guess what? Now I don't even get a picture I tried sticking in the other card, which was working ok before, but once again I'm not getting a picture. I have an SGI 1600SW LCD which can be incredibly picky when dealing with DVI cards, but seeing as how it was working perfectly previously (amid all the crashes), I just don't understand why it's not kicking in now.
Yea it's been a bad week (laptop busted down while tryin to install print drivers earlier this week..I was trying to print out a lab I hadn't saved to disk..which was also due 15 mins later). I'm at the end of my rope and am now considering purchasing a barebones Alienware or GamePC comp, and then configuring it with my own peripherals later on. I'll gladly eat all the return shipping and restocking fees for the stuff I purchased. I'm just so tired of this mess
But before I go that route, does anyone have any ideas for fixing my comp??
ASUS A7V8X (RAID/SERIAL ATA)
AMD Athlon XP 2200+ (retail)
ATI Radeon 9000 Pro 128MB
Western Digital 120GB SE 8MB (oem)
Western Digital 120GB SE 8MB (retail)
I got the second hard drive after thinking the first one was defective, but both wouldn't work (will go into that later). Anyway, once I had all the parts, I put everything together into my Antec SX1030B case and Q Technologies 300W PSU (the one sold by SilentPC.com), which have both worked flawlessly since I purchased them a year ago. The computer also contained 512MB Crucial PC2100 DDR-RAM (2x256) and Pioneer DVR-104 DVD-RW drive.
Everything was hooked up and I proceeded to install from a legal Win2k Pro cd-rom. It allowed me to format the drive but as it was copying the setup files, I got a blue screen. That continued to occur EVERY time I tried to run the install.
I tried swapping out vid cards, power supplies (tried a 300W Antec), hard drives (the two Western Digitals along with an IBM 60GXP), cd-rom drive (used a Plextor 12/10/32S with Adaptec 29160N )controller), and I even tried taking out a stick of ram. NOTHING worked
Here's the odd thing..I could get into the bios and the system would POST when turned on (believe me when I say it looked completely ready to go..just needed a hard drive setup with windows), but I'd just get that blue screen every time I tried to install Win2k. I thought maybe it was the new hard drives so I plugged them into another computer as both a slave and a secondary ide device, and I GOT THE SAME BLUE SCREEN! I don't understand that..perhaps it was a bios limitation since the other computer was a couple years old.
Anyway, I've removed every single unnecessary component..running only the bare necessities..and it still won't work (keep crashing). Oh and I've also updated to the newest bios revision for the motherboard.
My latest attempt involved removing the vid card and swapping in another one. Guess what? Now I don't even get a picture I tried sticking in the other card, which was working ok before, but once again I'm not getting a picture. I have an SGI 1600SW LCD which can be incredibly picky when dealing with DVI cards, but seeing as how it was working perfectly previously (amid all the crashes), I just don't understand why it's not kicking in now.
Yea it's been a bad week (laptop busted down while tryin to install print drivers earlier this week..I was trying to print out a lab I hadn't saved to disk..which was also due 15 mins later). I'm at the end of my rope and am now considering purchasing a barebones Alienware or GamePC comp, and then configuring it with my own peripherals later on. I'll gladly eat all the return shipping and restocking fees for the stuff I purchased. I'm just so tired of this mess
But before I go that route, does anyone have any ideas for fixing my comp??