question about a dead Duron

[chrismcclellan]

I know this probably might be better dealt with in the tech support area, but I thought maybe some of you might know about this.
I've been reinstalling Win98 SE, and it's had a lot of problems in the install, particularly with constantly redetecting hardware that's already installed (thus having 2 or 4 of the system devices in the device manager). I've had this problem before, and it's easily fixed, but this time on mine it was a little more difficult. Windows would keep freezing the computer and HD when it would shut off, and I'd have to kill the power each time to it because it would just hang. Finally after doing this, I lost everything--nothing displayed on the screen--no bios, nothing. Smart LED (it's a MSI K7T Pro 2a board with a Duron 800)hangs on Processor Initialization. Has my processor died, or do I have a mainboard problem? The only thing that happens when my computer comes on is that the hard drive goes crazy when power comes on, accessing like crazy (I think there could even be a problem with it--boot sector?), and then even that stops. I've never had a problem with cooling, and the CPU temp has always stayed around 85-95 degrees F. I normally overclock mildly (using FSB--was feeling a little timid with this one and didn't unlock the multiplier) to around 105Mhz FSB, but I put everything back to normal for the Windows install. Any help any of you could give would be greatly appreciated!

Chris McClellan

When it works, my system is:
Duron 800
MSI KT7 Pro 2a
13.6g Western Digital ATA66 HD
3g Quantum Fireball ATA33Hd
Iomega Zip CDRW 12x4x32
128mb generic PC133 RAM
Radeon LE (got ripped off on that one)
Realtek 10/100 PCI Lan card
Guilletmot Maxi Sound Muse sound

 

[CichliSuite]

There are varying reasons for the Windows hang at shutdown.
For some video cards, its necessary to assign an IRQ to the card in the bios. There's usually a setting that you just have to enable.

Actually, I had this problem just two days ago. It turned out that the video card was jiggled a bit when I had popped off the case and foooled around with a fan inside. I was really scared that I had shorted something or otherwise destroyed my setup! I reseated the card after remembering the same symptoms and solution when I first installed the system - it booted up fine.

Hope this helps!

 

[chrismcclellan]

I tried taking the card out and trying it again--no luck with it. I don't think it's any of the cards necessarily--it doesn't seem to make it far enough into the boot up to even do anything with it. All of this trouble makes me wish I ONLY had a Windows problem! Thanks for your suggestion though!

 

[Miraluka]

Lower your FSB. Try running at your default settings. I have problems running stable at 105 fsb on my MSi K7T Pro2-A with Duron 800. So lower your FSB, that might help. Thats always the problem to fix whenever my system either doesn't post, or hangs at the windows screen.

If you have another setup that you can use, try swapping the CPU. If the CPU works on your K7T Pro2-A, then you know its not ur mobo. Swap parts until you find the faulty one. But try lowering the FSB first.

 

[chrismcclellan]

I had quit running at 105 FSB about 3 or 4 days ago--I put it down to 100 when I started the process of reinstalling Windows, as I don't feel comfortable doing an OS install when everything is running out of spec.

 

[chrismcclellan]

I had quit running at 105 FSB about 3 or 4 days ago--I put it down to 100 when I started the process of reinstalling Windows, as I don't feel comfortable doing an OS install when everything is running out of spec.

 

[JokerF15]

hey, start the computer, right away press insert, press it a few times, this will start the computer with default bios values. try that, if it works, then lower ur overclock.

thanks.

 

[chrismcclellan]

Thanks, I'll try that. I also called MSI, and they said to see if the memory and video cards aren't the culprit because those could cause the same failure. They also suggested that the CPU could have burned out, but that would be really weird considering the heat sink stays cool and the two system fans have always run.

 

[CichliSuite]

actually a cool heatsink doesn't necessarily mean that the cpu is cool. It could be cool because its not properly absorbing the heat!

Sorry that the suggestion didn't help. To save you a good deal of headache by endless speculating, I would go to a local shop and have them pop the cpu into another board just to see if it boots. If they are half decent people then they should charge for something this simple. If it works, then have them pop another cpu into your board. One way or another, you'll find out whats wrong - if its the motherboard or cpu or if its some sort of configuration/component problem.

 

[chrismcclellan]

Thanks to everybody who helped me and offered suggestions. Turns out it was a BIOS problem. The hitting the insert key worked once, then it failed again. Eventually, after doing it over and over (and stripping everything down to barebones as well), it booted and said BIOS had a checksum error, and that it was reverting to original settings. Then it booted correctly again straight into Windows.