eny said:
Paul: I reseted the DIMM and all the ligths are on now, the monitor turns on
fine but I think I have motherboard problems, I tried to delete and create
partition and then re-format the hard drive but the computer freezes and it
won't allow me past the deleting and creating of the partition. Thanks again
Check the hard drive and see if it has a label. The manufacturer's name
should be on it somewhere.
Some of the manufacturers have diagnostic software for their disk drives.
Download a copy and put it on a floppy. Try the diagnostic. Maybe that
will give you some idea as to what is wrong. There are two possible
outcomes - either the drive passes completely (meaning there is some
other kind of problem), or you'll get a cryptic error code. The
manufacturer diagnostic is not intended to tell you exactly what is
wrong, rather it is intended to indicate whether the drive needs
warranty service.
In terms of cabling, if the disk drive is connected via IDE ribbon cable,
and there is only one drive on the cable, the drive should go on the
end connector. The best kind of cable to use, is the ones with 80 wires.
They are better than the 40 wire kind used for things like CDROM drives.
Check that this issue is not caused by bad cabling, or even a
flaky jumper connection of a jumper on the drive.
If the machine has a CD drive, you could also download Knoppix or
Ubuntu LiveCD software. That is an OS that boots from a CD. The
download is 700MB and is in the form of an ISO9660 file. You'd need
another computer, one with a CD burner, to burn the software onto the
CD (I use Nero for that). The benefit of booting with an alternate OS, is
being able to test the computer, to see if it is otherwise operating OK.
(knopper.net for Knoppix, ubuntu.com for ubuntu)
The reason for suggesting some tests, is to try to dig up a few more
symptoms to go on, to decide what needs to be swapped next.
I suppose it could still be a memory problem, and you could try
memtest86+ from memtest.org to test that possibility. Just because
the diagnostic LEDs are now clear, does not mean the memory is perfect
in every way. Microsoft has their own test software, that does the
same thing.
"Windows Memory Diagnostic"
http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp
Paul
