Ok guys, here's a big one for ya. I just finished putting my box together thursday. It's made up of:
1GHz athlon
abig kd7-raid
120GB 7200rpm western digital HD
MSI geforce4 ti4600
soundblaster live
5232/52 LITEON CDRW
chieftec case w/400 watt power supply
1GB PC2100 DDR RAM (4x 256MB sticks)
Now, I originally booted my comp up using only 2 sticks of RAM (512MB, I'd heard of previous abit boards only supporting 2/3 sticks of unbuffered RAM so I thought I'd playt it safe to start). All was well, so as I was doing the routine windows updates I threw in the other two sticks of RAM between reboots. All was still good. Now I, for some reason, thought I had a 1.4GHz proc (I bought it like 2 years ago and am now finally using it), but when the comp detected it at 1GHz, I thought it was a mistake, so I slowly upped the juice until I finally hit 1.4GHz . At this point everything was still running fine. My comp was fast (kicked the crap out of the highest settings of ut2k3 and ran planetside very respectively), it was stable (thus far), and ran at a nice 41 degrees celsius during moderate load. Life was good. So, when I shut it down before bed time and when I came back to it the next day after work, it wouldn't boot. It would power on, but every 5 seconds or so, it would send off a 3 second beep and would not start booting up. After several attempts, I reset the bios using the jumpers on the board, bringing my clock speed back to the original 1GHz (it must have just been a 1 gigahertz proc, i probably just forgot). I, however, felt it more likely that the 2 extra stick of ram were the culprit so I removed them as well. After that it booted up nicely and worked just fine. Thinking perhaps it was merely the RAM, i bumped the proc up to 1.4 again and played around for a little bit (it was actually at this point i tested ut2k3 so it must reaaaally scream if it has a gig of ram to work with). anyway, i shut it down and went to bed again and this morning...beeeeeeeep. It did it again. This was really starting to perplex me as the night before i could shut down, start up, shut down, start up all i wanted and it would work just fine. But not this morning. So this led me to believe my OCed proc was the problem. so i reset the bios again and tried to boot. Unfortunately it wouldn't, it just did the beeping thing again. So i tried again with no luck.
Now unfortunately, the above problem described is only the first part of the problem as there are now more pressing issues at hand (to be described below). However, it is something i must eventually (hopefully soon) address, so if anyone has any insight on the situation (i've never heard of an OCed proc behave this way...especially since it ran quite cool), it would be much appreciated. Perhaps it is the extra ram or even the proc OCing. My friend tends to think it's the PSU, but i find it odd that it would work one night and not in the morning. anyway, this concludes part two.
At this point i thought perhaps i'd have better luck if i changed the memory config (that seemed to work well last time), so i thought i'd add a stick of ram. Well, unfortunately i must not have secured it all the way or had it in wrong as after trying it i noticed the little clip on one side wasn't all the way up, and i also noticed the bios jumper was still in the reset position, so i switched that too. This distressing thing is what happened when i tried to boot up. It would power on, only after about 7 seconds, it would shut off. Everything, fans, HD, the works would completely lose power. Very odd, i thought so i removed the RAM, unplugged it for a few seconds, reset the bios, and powered on again. Again the same thing, it would power on and a few seconds later it powers off again. A friend thoughti had perhaps fried the sticks of RAM i had in there, but i tried each one individually to no avail (I know they couldn't all have been fried in the mishap because when i booted with the one not perfectly inserted, i only used 3 of the 4 sticks). The motherboard does the same thing no matter how much ram is in there (even if there is no ram inserted). i've looked around and i don't think the mobo is touching anything it shouldn't be and i've made it a point to relocate any potentially troublesome wires. I find myself thinking i might have damaged the motherboard when attempting to change the amount of ram (i really hope i didn't, though). another odd thing is that it seems like the longer i don't try and boot it, the longer it will go before shutting off. multiple attempts lead to decreases in running time (down to like 2 seconds eventually), so i'm thinking this may lead somewhere else. I'm thinking it's either the mobo (as i said) or perhaps the power supply.
So that is my situation. If anyone has any insight at all on either situation, i would greatly apreciate it as i am at a loss here.
Thank you for your help and patience,
Mike
1GHz athlon
abig kd7-raid
120GB 7200rpm western digital HD
MSI geforce4 ti4600
soundblaster live
5232/52 LITEON CDRW
chieftec case w/400 watt power supply
1GB PC2100 DDR RAM (4x 256MB sticks)
Now, I originally booted my comp up using only 2 sticks of RAM (512MB, I'd heard of previous abit boards only supporting 2/3 sticks of unbuffered RAM so I thought I'd playt it safe to start). All was well, so as I was doing the routine windows updates I threw in the other two sticks of RAM between reboots. All was still good. Now I, for some reason, thought I had a 1.4GHz proc (I bought it like 2 years ago and am now finally using it), but when the comp detected it at 1GHz, I thought it was a mistake, so I slowly upped the juice until I finally hit 1.4GHz . At this point everything was still running fine. My comp was fast (kicked the crap out of the highest settings of ut2k3 and ran planetside very respectively), it was stable (thus far), and ran at a nice 41 degrees celsius during moderate load. Life was good. So, when I shut it down before bed time and when I came back to it the next day after work, it wouldn't boot. It would power on, but every 5 seconds or so, it would send off a 3 second beep and would not start booting up. After several attempts, I reset the bios using the jumpers on the board, bringing my clock speed back to the original 1GHz (it must have just been a 1 gigahertz proc, i probably just forgot). I, however, felt it more likely that the 2 extra stick of ram were the culprit so I removed them as well. After that it booted up nicely and worked just fine. Thinking perhaps it was merely the RAM, i bumped the proc up to 1.4 again and played around for a little bit (it was actually at this point i tested ut2k3 so it must reaaaally scream if it has a gig of ram to work with). anyway, i shut it down and went to bed again and this morning...beeeeeeeep. It did it again. This was really starting to perplex me as the night before i could shut down, start up, shut down, start up all i wanted and it would work just fine. But not this morning. So this led me to believe my OCed proc was the problem. so i reset the bios again and tried to boot. Unfortunately it wouldn't, it just did the beeping thing again. So i tried again with no luck.
Now unfortunately, the above problem described is only the first part of the problem as there are now more pressing issues at hand (to be described below). However, it is something i must eventually (hopefully soon) address, so if anyone has any insight on the situation (i've never heard of an OCed proc behave this way...especially since it ran quite cool), it would be much appreciated. Perhaps it is the extra ram or even the proc OCing. My friend tends to think it's the PSU, but i find it odd that it would work one night and not in the morning. anyway, this concludes part two.
At this point i thought perhaps i'd have better luck if i changed the memory config (that seemed to work well last time), so i thought i'd add a stick of ram. Well, unfortunately i must not have secured it all the way or had it in wrong as after trying it i noticed the little clip on one side wasn't all the way up, and i also noticed the bios jumper was still in the reset position, so i switched that too. This distressing thing is what happened when i tried to boot up. It would power on, only after about 7 seconds, it would shut off. Everything, fans, HD, the works would completely lose power. Very odd, i thought so i removed the RAM, unplugged it for a few seconds, reset the bios, and powered on again. Again the same thing, it would power on and a few seconds later it powers off again. A friend thoughti had perhaps fried the sticks of RAM i had in there, but i tried each one individually to no avail (I know they couldn't all have been fried in the mishap because when i booted with the one not perfectly inserted, i only used 3 of the 4 sticks). The motherboard does the same thing no matter how much ram is in there (even if there is no ram inserted). i've looked around and i don't think the mobo is touching anything it shouldn't be and i've made it a point to relocate any potentially troublesome wires. I find myself thinking i might have damaged the motherboard when attempting to change the amount of ram (i really hope i didn't, though). another odd thing is that it seems like the longer i don't try and boot it, the longer it will go before shutting off. multiple attempts lead to decreases in running time (down to like 2 seconds eventually), so i'm thinking this may lead somewhere else. I'm thinking it's either the mobo (as i said) or perhaps the power supply.
So that is my situation. If anyone has any insight at all on either situation, i would greatly apreciate it as i am at a loss here.
Thank you for your help and patience,
Mike
