Hey everyone,
I?m having some serious trouble putting a new machine together for my parents. I?m hoping you guys will have some insight.
Ok, heres the story. The computer is able to boot from the WinXP (I?ve also tried Win2k) CD but it hangs during install every time. It always hangs before the part where you?d format the hard disk. What happens is that the computer boots up and gets to the part where you have to choose ?Enter? to install windows in this computer. Then normally it would go right away to a screen that allows you to set up partitions and format. However, it never reaches that part. When you hit enter it just hangs forever.
Earlier it wasn?t always stopping at that point. It would hang at seemingly random points (it never has got past that part though). This lead me to think that perhaps the heatsink wasn?t seated properly and therefore the proc was overheating. I reseated the heatsink and now it always gets to the part I mentioned above. However, there is now a definite error message. The installer says that windows cant find a hard disk to install to. This message has only started showing up since I reseated the heatsink.
I?ve tried several hard disks with different but very similar results with all of them. One in particular had some interesting results. The disk is kind of loud so I can really hear the spinning behavior. When you hit enter at the screen mentioned above and while you?re waiting for the format screen the disk sounds like it is trying to spin up but cant quite reach full speed. It does this a couple times and then just spins down completely and the install hangs. With this particular disk there is no error message, the install just stays on that screen till I reboot. The error screen I mentioned above happens on a couple other hard disks but not this one.
The weird spinning behavior of this hard disk (and I think others were doing the same thing although they were harder to hear) make me think that perhaps the power supply is having problems. Maybe the disk isn?t getting enough power. All that is hooked up to the power supply is the mobo, cdrom, and hard disk so I?d think there would be plenty of power to go around. Also, I?ve never had a bad power supply before so I have no idea if the behavior being exhibited could be caused by a bad power supply.
I?ve also tried 3 different optical drives, all 3 of which were known to be working.
So, what do you guys think it could be? I don?t think ram because the problems seem to consistent to be ram related (ie. Always stopping in the same rough spot during install). So I guess it could only be the power supply, mobo, or proc. I?ve never had a bad power supply or proc so I don?t know if their behavior is similar to my problem, I have had a couple bad mobos before but never with this kind of behavior, they were either DOA or had bad pci busses.
This has been a very frustrating problem and any ideas you may have would be tremendously helpful.
Thanks,
Marshall
Ooops, forgot to mention. A friend of mine who really knows their stuff suggested for me to try flashing the BIOS so I'll be trying that tonight.
I?m having some serious trouble putting a new machine together for my parents. I?m hoping you guys will have some insight.
Ok, heres the story. The computer is able to boot from the WinXP (I?ve also tried Win2k) CD but it hangs during install every time. It always hangs before the part where you?d format the hard disk. What happens is that the computer boots up and gets to the part where you have to choose ?Enter? to install windows in this computer. Then normally it would go right away to a screen that allows you to set up partitions and format. However, it never reaches that part. When you hit enter it just hangs forever.
Earlier it wasn?t always stopping at that point. It would hang at seemingly random points (it never has got past that part though). This lead me to think that perhaps the heatsink wasn?t seated properly and therefore the proc was overheating. I reseated the heatsink and now it always gets to the part I mentioned above. However, there is now a definite error message. The installer says that windows cant find a hard disk to install to. This message has only started showing up since I reseated the heatsink.
I?ve tried several hard disks with different but very similar results with all of them. One in particular had some interesting results. The disk is kind of loud so I can really hear the spinning behavior. When you hit enter at the screen mentioned above and while you?re waiting for the format screen the disk sounds like it is trying to spin up but cant quite reach full speed. It does this a couple times and then just spins down completely and the install hangs. With this particular disk there is no error message, the install just stays on that screen till I reboot. The error screen I mentioned above happens on a couple other hard disks but not this one.
The weird spinning behavior of this hard disk (and I think others were doing the same thing although they were harder to hear) make me think that perhaps the power supply is having problems. Maybe the disk isn?t getting enough power. All that is hooked up to the power supply is the mobo, cdrom, and hard disk so I?d think there would be plenty of power to go around. Also, I?ve never had a bad power supply before so I have no idea if the behavior being exhibited could be caused by a bad power supply.
I?ve also tried 3 different optical drives, all 3 of which were known to be working.
So, what do you guys think it could be? I don?t think ram because the problems seem to consistent to be ram related (ie. Always stopping in the same rough spot during install). So I guess it could only be the power supply, mobo, or proc. I?ve never had a bad power supply or proc so I don?t know if their behavior is similar to my problem, I have had a couple bad mobos before but never with this kind of behavior, they were either DOA or had bad pci busses.
This has been a very frustrating problem and any ideas you may have would be tremendously helpful.
Thanks,
Marshall
Ooops, forgot to mention. A friend of mine who really knows their stuff suggested for me to try flashing the BIOS so I'll be trying that tonight.
