New homebuilt PC running WindowsXP and 98 freezes constantly

  • Thread starter Thread starter Sabyasachi Basu
  • Start date Start date
S

Sabyasachi Basu

Hi,

I have just put together a PC with the following configuration:

1. U8668D-Z4 VIA P4 M266A + VT8235 Motherboard
2. ATI Radeon 7500 128MB Graphics card
3. 512 MB Simmtronics 266MHz DDR RAM
4. Seagate 80GB 7200 rpm Harddrive as Primary Master
5. LG CDW GCE-8523B as Secondary Master
6. LG DVD GDR-8161B as Secondary Slave

I have installed Windows 98 SE on a FAT32 partition of 10GB and Windows XP
on an NTFS partition of 15GB. There are two other FAT32 partitions.

Both 98 and XP keep freezing constantly, sometimes even minutes after
booting. I have installed the VIA 4-in-1 driver but things havent improved.
I removed the ATI Radeon card and tried to install the drivers for the
on-board AC-97 video; however the installation failed: 98 simply frooze
while running the setup from the VIA motherboard CD, whereas XP gave an
error to the effect the driver installation had failed.

Is the problem because of some hardware mismatch? If needed, I am willing to
swap my VIA motherboard for another one. Is there a better motherboard which
will take the ATI Radeon 7500 card? Or is there some other hardware/software
that I need to change?

Thanks in advance.
Sabya
 
set the bios to PNP OS installed to disable and reset config data to
enable-- reboot (with or without 7500 card) also make sure the primary video
is set to AGP or PCI whichever is correct AND disable OBvid if your not
using it

AND PLEASE CHILL ON THE CROSS POSTING!!!!!!!
 
Next time you have a question or comment pick just **one** [ 1 ] [ I ] [
uno ] [ 3- 2 ] [ 5 -4 ] [ the whole number after zero ] newsgroup to post
to [ or, if it is *really* necessary or *really* relevant, maybe two ] and
stick to that when posting a question. When you do that - stick to one -
then I'm not forced to cross-post all over the 'Net when replying to your
crosspost because I can't mind-read and know which group *you* are reading
from.
Click to expand...

Uhm... if he posted to all of them, he's watching all of them.

We have no idea what group you are replying from. You should trim your
answer down when replying to the OP.
 
Could be a weak psu what's your power supply unit specs? Are you using the
extra P4 power connection? Disconnect hd, cdw, dvd and see if the PC stays
on for awhile. Then add the hd and see if it's stable.

Did you disable the onboard video before installing the ATI and Windows?
Set your bios to optimal compatibility settings and then disable used IRQ's
like IRDA.. Then I'd start over by wiping out the W98 installation and
reinstall W98. You should be able to run both onboard and the ATI but it
might be a problem with your mb.

Is Simmtronics quality memory? Bad memory can be a problem and cause
freezes among other things.
 
Sabyasachi Basu said:
Hi,

I have just put together a PC with the following configuration:

1. U8668D-Z4 VIA P4 M266A + VT8235 Motherboard
2. ATI Radeon 7500 128MB Graphics card
3. 512 MB Simmtronics 266MHz DDR RAM
4. Seagate 80GB 7200 rpm Harddrive as Primary Master
5. LG CDW GCE-8523B as Secondary Master
6. LG DVD GDR-8161B as Secondary Slave

I have installed Windows 98 SE on a FAT32 partition of 10GB and Windows XP
on an NTFS partition of 15GB. There are two other FAT32 partitions.

Both 98 and XP keep freezing constantly, sometimes even minutes after
booting. I have installed the VIA 4-in-1 driver but things havent improved.
I removed the ATI Radeon card and tried to install the drivers for the
on-board AC-97 video; however the installation failed: 98 simply frooze
while running the setup from the VIA motherboard CD, whereas XP gave an
error to the effect the driver installation had failed.

Is the problem because of some hardware mismatch? If needed, I am willing to
swap my VIA motherboard for another one. Is there a better motherboard which
will take the ATI Radeon 7500 card? Or is there some other hardware/software
that I need to change?

Thanks in advance.
Sabya




sounds like an overheating problem check all, especially the cpu
Click to expand...
 
Really sorry about the cross-posting. Perhaps, once in a while sheer
frustation can get the better of even someone who has been using these
newsgroups for years. My apologies for having violated the cardinal rule of
newsgroup posting.
Anyway, I have trimmed down the list to three. I am afraid I wasn't able to
cut it down to one or two because I wanted to include people who had replied
only in one of these three groups. I'll be glad if you can overlook this
eggregious error *this once*. Thanks.


Franklin said:
Next time you have a question or comment pick just **one** [ 1 ] [ I ] [
uno ] [ 3- 2 ] [ 5 -4 ] [ the whole number after zero ] newsgroup to post
to [ or, if it is *really* necessary or *really* relevant, maybe two ] and
stick to that when posting a question. When you do that - stick to one -
then I'm not forced to cross-post all over the 'Net when replying to your
crosspost because I can't mind-read and know which group *you* are reading
from.
Click to expand...

Uhm... if he posted to all of them, he's watching all of them.

We have no idea what group you are replying from. You should trim your
answer down when replying to the OP.
Click to expand...
 
1. Yes, I bought a brand new cabinet and power supply for this system.

2. I'll download memtest86 today and let it loose on the system.

3. Is there some easy way to check if the sytem if getting overheated? When
I boot up, the first display screen shows the CPU temperature as 45 degree
Celsius. Is it normal?
 
I am willing to buy a better motherboard. Can you suggest some good P4
motherboards with an AGP slot to take my ATI Radeon 7500 card.

Thanks.
 
Is there a simple way to ascertain that it is indeed a overheating problem?
The temperature reading that gets displayed on bootup is 45 degrees Celsius.
I don't know whether that is normal or not.
 
45c is not overheating....at boot? meaning your going into bios-cmos /
hardware monitor/ and viewing it temps there?
 
Sabyasachi Basu said:
1. Yes, I bought a brand new cabinet and power supply for this system.
Click to expand...

what brand is the PSU? a brand new, noname PSU is still suspect. Nor is a
brandname 200W unit.
2. I'll download memtest86 today and let it loose on the system.

3. Is there some easy way to check if the sytem if getting overheated? When
I boot up, the first display screen shows the CPU temperature as 45 degree
Celsius. Is it normal?
Click to expand...

grab motherboard monitor and keep an eye on the temperatures while doing
something to send your cpu utilization to 100%. You can also monitor
voltages on the mobo with it. While mobo sensors are low quality if they're
reading more than ~.25v low your PSU is probably not upto the task of
running your system. To stress your system DL and run any distributed
computing program. seti@home, folding@home, distributed.net, etc.

mbm is available from http://mbm.livewiredev.com/download.html
 
I replaced my third-party VIA chipset motherboard with an Intel D845GEBV2
this weekend and the freeze problem seems to have vanished completely.
However, when I try to run memtest86, the screen freezes within 5 - 10
seconds, though I don't seem to face any problem in running either XP or 98.
 
BAD Motherboard suspected.

I have the same issue ... same M266B board ... different Processor (Celleron
2.2Ghz) ... also 512Mb DDR ... After some experimentation I believe that
it's the M266A. It only freezes once every two days on average.

Running BIOS v1.8. Awaiting response from Asus.
 
Thomas Clijsner said:
Have a look if your cpu and the cpu-fan haven't to much
dust on them. (sounds perhaps silly but I've experienced it)

I read in some newsgroups that leaving the case off will
give better cooling. Perhaps that's true (don't know). I did
this (like half a year ago), but since a few days my pc started
te freeze unpredictably. I had tested most of the pc's
hardware (memory, pci-cards, videocard, HD...) , but didn't
know what it was. I knew it wasn't software (both linux and
winXP freezed). So after having a better look at my CPU I
found there was a lot of dust on it.
So I cleaned the CPU and he runs fine now.

As you can see, leaving the case open DOES cause
some problems.
Click to expand...


Did the CPU have a dedicated fan blowing on the CPU's
heatsink, or did the CPU not have a fan?


*TimDaniels*
 
A closed case, with proper vent fans will cool better than a
case with the cover off because the air will flow past the
CPU and GPU providing better cooling. An open case does not
control air-flow and there can be stagnant pockets of hot
air.


|
| "Thomas Clijsner" wrote:
| >
| > Have a look if your cpu and the cpu-fan haven't to much
| > dust on them. (sounds perhaps silly but I've experienced
it)
| >
| > I read in some newsgroups that leaving the case off will
| > give better cooling. Perhaps that's true (don't know). I
did
| > this (like half a year ago), but since a few days my pc
started
| > te freeze unpredictably. I had tested most of the pc's
| > hardware (memory, pci-cards, videocard, HD...) , but
didn't
| > know what it was. I knew it wasn't software (both linux
and
| > winXP freezed). So after having a better look at my CPU
I
| > found there was a lot of dust on it.
| > So I cleaned the CPU and he runs fine now.
| >
| > As you can see, leaving the case open DOES cause
| > some problems.
|
|
| Did the CPU have a dedicated fan blowing on the CPU's
| heatsink, or did the CPU not have a fan?
|
|
| *TimDaniels*
 
Have a look if your cpu and the cpu-fan haven't to much dust on them.
(sounds perhaps silly but I've experienced it)

I read in some newsgroups that leaving the case off will give better
cooling. Perhaps that's true (don't know). I did this (like half a year
ago), but since a few days my pc started te freeze unpredictably. I had
tested most of the pc's hardware (memory, pci-cards, videocard, HD...) ,
but didn't know what it was. I knew it wasn't software (both linux and
winXP freezed). So after having a better look at my CPU I found there
was a lot of dust on it.
So I cleaned the CPU and he runs fine now.

As you can see, leaving the case open DOES cause some problems.
 
Jim Macklin said:
....An open case does not control air-flow and
there can be stagnant pockets of hot air.
Click to expand...


If there is no fan to cool the heatsinks, the only
air movement can be by *convection* - not very
great when compared to forced air motion.


*TimDaniels*
 
You left out the part of my post that said properly vented.
All power supplies have one or more fans and most cases have
fans and most CPUs have a fan.

Even a water cooled computer will have a fan(s) on the power
supply and there will be air exchange inside the case.


|
| "Jim Macklin" wrote:
| > ....An open case does not control air-flow and
| > there can be stagnant pockets of hot air.
|
|
| If there is no fan to cool the heatsinks, the only
| air movement can be by *convection* - not very
| great when compared to forced air motion.
|
|
| *TimDaniels*
 
Here is the whole quote as I posted...
"A closed case, with proper vent fans will cool better than
a
case with the cover off because the air will flow past the
CPU and GPU providing better cooling. An open case does not
control air-flow and there can be stagnant pockets of hot
air"


|
| "Jim Macklin" wrote:
| > ....An open case does not control air-flow and
| > there can be stagnant pockets of hot air.
|
|
| If there is no fan to cool the heatsinks, the only
| air movement can be by *convection* - not very
| great when compared to forced air motion.
|
|
| *TimDaniels*
 
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