Help Needed - I really don't know what's going on with this thing

[nothingman]

Hi everyone,

I really need help, I'm not new to tweaking / playing with the computer but I'm really pissed off, this is my computer:

Pentium 4 2.6c
2 x 128MB Kigston valueram DDR400 (running dual channel)
MSI 865Pe Neo2
Saphire Ati RAdeon 9000 128 MB
Phillips Acoustic Edge
K-World TV/capture card
Plextor Plexwriter 12/10/32A (IDE)
Lite On 16X DVDROM
Generic (Micronics) Case with 350W PSU
Windows Pro XP SP1
Quantum fireball 30GB 72100 rpm hard drive

So this is what is going on:
9 out of 10 times the computer does not completly boots up, it always stays with just the desktop, all the icons bla bla but the icons in the tray bar do not load completly and I can do anything (the cursor is in "waiting mode", with the time clock by its side, you know), other times it stays in the welcome screen, and I always have to reset the computer and it does the disk check up and always finds "truncated entries", "missing chains", etc. (it always does corrections to the disk system), and after 3 or 4 tries, if finally works. I have tried disabling most of the things that load at boot up (point32.exe, my AV software, windvr, etc.) but to no efect, the problem always come back, sometimes I have found things like ctfmon and minidump in my start up settings ... I really dont know what to do. A couple of things, the hard drive has gone from fat32 to ntfs to fat32 using partition magic (could a bad FAT be the problem), and recently I have found it has bad sectors (could the hard drive be the problem), all the components ran just fine in my old pc (1 ghz celeron with 256 pc133 and the sam drives, and pci/agp cards),

So is it the PSU ???
Should I disable dual channel ??? (I have no tried this yet)
Could the hard drive be dying ???

Any help will be greatly (sorry for the english it is not my mother language) appreciated ... I'M DESPERATED

If I have to detail more things please just tell me ... thank you very much

 

[ZL1]

Id check the PSU first

download MBM5 and see what the voltages look like
http://mbm.livewiredev.com/

if its all good, download memtest86 and test the ram
www.memtest86.com




D

 

[nothingman]

thanks ZL1, this is how MBM looks like, what do you think

core 0 1.54v
core 1 1.71v
+3.3 3.25v
+5 5.11v
+12 12.16v
-12 11.94v
-5 5.19v

CPU @ 2635 mhz / 42 C (is this too high, it's idle)

 

[ZL1]

Originally posted by: nothingman
thanks ZL1, this is how MBM looks like, what do you think

core 0 1.54v
core 1 1.71v
+3.3 3.25v
+5 5.11v
+12 12.16v
-12 11.94v
-5 5.19v

CPU @ 2635 mhz / 42 C (is this too high, it's idle)

I think its reading core1 wrong, thats ram volt and it should be 2.5-2.6, but thats probably just a wrong reading (mine is reading 3.18 for some reason )
the rest look ok

the cpu is a bit high, but that cant be the reason for your trouble (this cpu has a 70c max, dont go there though )

did you try memtest ?


D


P.S. try resetting bios

 

[fredtam]

Hard drive.

 

[ZL1]

Originally posted by: fredtam
Hard drive.

you dont know that, its not for sure, noooooo
give it another chance
live, live damnit !!




just read the whole post (sorry I tend to skip through at times )

it does look like its the drive, but Id still give it another chance, after all its a quantum !
do you have any important data on it ? if so back it up and fdisk it and reformat, lets try and save this brave soldier !


D

 

[nothingman]

ran memtest all night, like 43 passes and 0 errors, so I guess it is the drive, I'll buy myself a seagate today and then I told you .. a couple of things I forgot to mention, sometimes when I try to open a directory the computer just stops there, and after a while it comes back to life, sometimes when browsing the internet the same thing happens, and my father has experienced reboots while playing spider (that card game that comes bundled with xp) ... is there any reason why while in safe mode I can't access the control panel (the computer just stays there when I try to open it) ... thanks everyone

 

[nothingman]

bought a 80gb 72000rpm IDE seagate (barracuda IV), but still the same crap, although my boot problems have seen to be gone (still a couple of times it freezes at the beggiing), now the computer suddenly freezes for about 1 minute then everything goes back to normal (this usually happens when copying/moving files, installing something, turn on media player or real player) .... HELP !!!!!!! .... what could it be ???, by the way I did a clean install of xp ...:|

 

[Budman]

It's the motherboard that's total crap,I had one & could not get rid of it fast enough.

return it & get yourself an Asus P4P800 or Abit IS7 and your problems will magically disappear.

 

[nothingman]

I did a little research and it seems that MSI's 865 boards have some issues (slow system, no booting, lock ups, reboots, all of thsi has happened to me), the bad thing is that here in Peru we don't have RMA, so I will have to figure other things to do, probably I'll get myself a new mobo, which would be better ASUS P4P800-UAY or DFI Lanparty 865 (nobody sells ABIT here), my 2.6c can do 3.2 whitout problems so keep in mind I wil overclock

 

[ZL1]

Originally posted by: nothingman
I did a little research and it seems that MSI's 865 boards have some issues (slow system, no booting, lock ups, reboots, all of thsi has happened to me), the bad thing is that here in Peru we don't have RMA, so I will have to figure other things to do, probably I'll get myself a new mobo, which would be better ASUS P4P800-UAY or DFI Lanparty 865 (nobody sells ABIT here), my 2.6c can do 3.2 whitout problems so keep in mind I wil overclock

what u mean no RMA ? contact MSI directly

for new board Id recommend the Asus
I got one and Im very happy with it


D