Is it HW or SW? How do you know?

Barny

Member
Aug 28, 2000
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I've recently built a new system. Been having weird problems. How can I determine if its HW or SW?
1. System would reboot when I select Shutdown.
2. Modem connection would 'hang'. Still connected but no traffic.
3. Reformat, Reinstall W98SE, getting errors loading device drivers.
Windows registry checker pops up after install SB Live but no errors found running scanreg. BSOD - fatal OE at xxxx:xxxx..
4. Now, after install HP CD Writer it boots up to the windows splash screen then powers off. Last thing I see is an error loading user.exe.

Are there diagnostic programs available that will test your hardware and/or software?

I'm taking it down to a 'minimum config' to see what happens and if successful I'll put things back one at a time. But I'd like your advice on how to isolate these kinds of problems short of getting a bunch of replacement parts and swapping till I find the problem.

System config - ASUS A7V / TBIRD 750 / Mushkin 128MB PC133 /
SB Live Value / LinkSys NIC / Best Data 56K modem / HP CDRW / IBM 75GXP 30GB Harddrive / Creative DVD Dxr-3 / Pioneer DVD
 

pm

Elite Member Mobile Devices
Jan 25, 2000
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You could run some DOS-based apps. There are some memory testers out there that could check memory. www.softseek.com

Windows should be able to check for device conflicts - I presume that you have checked device manager for problems. Another way to troubleshoot this would be to set "PnP OS" to disabled in the BIOS and see how the device assignments come out.

Subtle failures are a pain to debug. But the obvious way is to take everything out, format, put in a new mostly-stable OS like Win98SE/WinME or ideally Win2000, and check for problems. Then add things back. If it fails at any one point, then you know what's wrong. If it fails on the OS install then it's either the video card (unlikely if the screen looks ok), the memory (which can be checked with a tester), the CPU (you'll need to swap with someone to check this) or the motherboard (this is more common than the other three combined).


Call me crazy, but shouldn't that .sig be "to die with ones sword sheathed would be..." . I thought that sheathing a sword was putting it in it's sheathe. So if it was unsheathed, then it would be out in the open, ready to use. The way it's written it comes out as "to die with a sword in your hand would not be good" - which doesn't sound like anything that I'd imagine a samurai saying. It just struck me as odd.
 

Barny

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Aug 28, 2000
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Thanks for the reply PM,
You were right about my sig, I've corrected it.
No device conflicts in Dev Mgr. PnP not enabled in the BIOS.
The BIOS settings are the defaults. It never fails on the OS (w98se) install.
The errors occurr when I start loading device drivers and related SW. It would be nice if these things came with diagnostics.
Ran scandisk and it found invalid attributes in the c:\windows directory and couldn't correct them. I've reformatted the HD and ran surface scan with no errors.
I'll start fresh with just the AGP card, which is an ASUS V7100.
softseek has a freeware docmemory v1.3 that I'll also check out.

Based on all this, would you be leaning toward a SW/Config problem or a Hardware problem? Also, any recommendation on the order I should add the adapters one-at-a-time in (NIC, modem, sound, and dvd encoder)?
 

obenton

Platinum Member
Oct 11, 1999
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Another possibility iw R/W errors from IDE controller. Do you have latest drivers, etc.
 

Barny

Member
Aug 28, 2000
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I've got my IBM 75GXP on the Primary Ultra ATA100 controller and the CDRom drives on the Primary IDE controller. Are there different drivers for these or is the Promise ATA100 drivers what you're referring to? After the format of the HD I believe they're not there anymore. I'll put them on.
BTW, It's showing signs of failing already. Little annoying things like shutting down hangs at the 'Windows is shutting down screen'.....sigh.
 

Barny

Member
Aug 28, 2000
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Just moved the harddrive off the ultra ata100 ide to the primary ide to see if that make a difference.
In doing so I noticed a new symptom to add to the list. When I plug the power cord in it no longer powers up for a second then goes back off. It either powers on and boots or doesn't do anything until I hit the power on button on the front.
 

Barny

Member
Aug 28, 2000
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I think my problems here are solved. After moving my IBM 30GB 75 GXP to the Primary IDE controller I've had no problems. So the problem was in the ATA100 Ultra onboard controller. I've since updated it with the latest firmware but I think I'll wait a day or two just to be sure all is well before moving it back to see if it was the downlevel drivers or some other problem with this controller.
Thanks for the suggestions and ideas! The one from Obenton gave me the idea to move it.