Abit BH6 and Celeron 300a problems

[Pyroclasm]

Hey guys,
Well, my Celeron 300a system (128mb PC100,Abit BH6) had been running great for a year and half, until my system ate a virus and died. So, after low-level formatting my HDD and getting all my ducks in a row, I tried to reinstall Win98 SE. Wild errors, and random crashing. Now, I know my system was going to die at some point (450Mhz requires 2.3v on SoftMenu), but I'm not quite sure that's it. I then tried to install Win2k Pro, and it gave me some random register errors, citing it could not continue because of an error. I really want this system to work, but its been nothing but a problem ever since the virus. Can anyone help me out? Could it be the CPU? Or is the motherboard? It all posts correctly... but I'm not sure what the problem is.

Thanks,
Aaron

 

[Doublearon]

bump

 

[Slapstick]

Try putting it back to 300Mhz and installing Win98, then put it back to 450 Mhz. Win98 doesn't like to install the 300a overclocked to 450.

 

[Pyroclasm]

And if I've tried that already? Could anything else be the matter? I've been running the system at 2.3v (I know its bad... but it works)... and its never given me a problem until now.

Thanks again,
Aaron

 

[Slapstick]

Try setting the BIOS to default then fdisk and reformat. By chance you didn?t originally set the hard drive up with a disk overlay program? They can cause install problem since Fdisk can?t totally remove the overlay. The other thought is the hard drive is hosed not the CPU. The other thing I would check is to make sure the CPU isn?t over heating, you know check to make sure the thermal compound hasn?t dried up, all the fans are working and dust hasn?t built up. I have a hard time thinking your CPU died since it was running fine before the virus, I lean more towards a hard drive problem. BTW you didn?t mention which virus but isn?t there several that fdisking couldn?t get rid of?

 

[Pyroclasm]

Well, whatever virus it was, Norton couldn't find it. But it made enough of a nuisance to kill my system. Anyway, I've been using a new HDD I had bought for a clean install, not the old HDD (as well as a brand new stick of PC100 128mb Crucial). I'll take a look at the heatsinks and fans, but what about Win2k's memory address error? Is there any significance to that?

Aaron

 

[Slapstick]

New stick of memory, if it's bad or not seated right then you'll get Windows registry errors. Do you have your old memory to put back in and try to see if you can get Windows installed.

Also I once got a "new hard drive" from a major online retailer that in fact was a returned drive that someone tried to set up with a drive overlay program. Caused all kinds of problems until I figured out what was going on. In fact that drive is currently on a BH6 with a 300a @ 450 who's only job is cracking RC5 all day long. If you have the old drive try installing on that if all else fails.

I guess what I'm trying to say it put it back as close as you can to the orignal config and start trouble shooting from there.

Post how it turns out and I'll keep thinking about it.

 

[xyyz]

you check your cooling... it might be time for a new heatsink/fan?

 

[The Wildcard]

Or for a new cpu....i have had a similar rpoblem too with my celeron 300a @ 450mhz. i just did a routine cleaning of dust on my computer with a compressed air can and then turned my comp back on. Then afterwards, my comp started crashing all over the place. Tried underclocking back to 300mhz, fooled around with voltage and the memory. Even decided to run my case open to reduce any heat issue and still it was crashing. Even finally reformmatted with windows 98 and so finally i got a new cpu.

 

[Pyroclasm]

Well, the problem turned out to be a whole bunch of problems. 1) The dual heatsink/fan combo I had built failed... the fan on the front died. So I swapped the one of the back to the front. 2) One of the 64mb sticks (2x64mb,1x128mb) was not being registered in BIOS, and was seemingly a bad stick (one of the old ones). So, as an experiment, I tried swapping the stick with a friend of mine, and it turns out that it worked... both sticks registered. Honestly, I have no idea what happened, but it works now. Left the system clocked down, and installed windows 2000 pro on the system. I'm now running it again at 450Mhz, now at a lower voltage (with some ghetto cooling... [house fan in open case] ) and running stable, ignoring one instance of a random kickdown to reboot, possibly caused by a thermistor spike... no clue... Anyway, thanks for the help... it seems it was just a weird quirk. Oh well. Now for a new processor...

Thanks again,
Doublearon