mobo dead? CPU dying?

[DrJaymez]

Long standing issues with voltage that were unchanged by changing from an enlight 300W to a Herolchi 350W. mbm5 voltage log My symptoms have been random reboots and occasionally the screen corrupts and I have difficulty scrolling in Internet Explorer. This fixes itself in a few seconds. I recently reformatted and reinstalled Windows XP Pro after a bum overclock attempt. I am running the latest NVIDIA WHQL drivers and the latest 4in1s. This morning, I was still getting random reboots, so I went into CMOS and started trying to relax my timings and whatnot. When I restarted I had a checksum error in the CMOS. I restored defaults and went into CMOS again. The PC powered itself off while I was poking around in CMOS. I Just left it off and shouted a few choice words of profanity at it. So, is it the motherboard? Is it the CPU (on and off overclocked up to 1.4 at 1.85 V, but with good cooling)? Here's my setup:

AMD T-bird 1.2
ECS K7vta2 Rev 2.0
256 MB Kingston ValueRAM DDR (recently switched to from 256 MB of crucial SDRAM)
A maxtor 40 GB, a Samsung 30 GB
Geforce2 mx by leadtek (overclocked to 205/200) 32 MB
Herolchi 350W PS
Cyberdrive 32x burner.
Fail-Safe defaults in the BIOS.

Thanks,
James

 

[DrJaymez]

Update:
Went ahead and fired it up last night. The BIOS again had a checksum error, so I went into BIOS, restored fail-safe settings, disabled onboard sound (I don't want XP installing drivers) then quit and saved without a problem. She booted Xp beautifully, and I was able to burn a CD. I haven't stressed it much in XP yet. I will download Prime95 to test the CPU integrity. Any other suggestions?
--James

 

[DrJaymez]

I'm not getting much help here guys...
OK, so what happens now is: The PC is booting normally. No more CMOS issues. It runs windows but eventually locks. It keeps doing whatever it was doing (winamp, visualization, CD Burning, etc). but I lose the ability to direct it. The power button initiates a soft shutdown that doesn't complete, so I have to do the 6 second ATX power button hold-down trick to shut it off. Then it boots and everything is "fine" again until that repeats. I still haven't tried prime95. I Am half-curious if within Windows it is a USB issue, as I am using a USB keyboard and mouse. I may try a PS2 keyboard/mouse to see if that helps. I am also curious if there is anyone even reading my thread, so feel free chime in with an idea.
--James

 

[sabrownfl]

I am currently having problems with random shut-downs of my system. People have suggested cooling, but I am leaning toward a power supply issue.

Since you stated that you updated your PS, I am leaning toward a USB issue. I use a Logitech usb optical mouse, and it freezes whenever I insert a CD into one of my optical drives. Once the drive has identified the disc and started the appropriate app, all is well again. My mouse is connected to the VIA onboard usb on my Abit KT7 (which had numerous USB issues.) I have a four port USB PCI card as well, but have not tried connecting there. If you have that option give it a shot.

Also, did you install the VIA usb mini-driver? That could be part of the issue. I know XP is supposed to be great with VIA chipsets, but I had to install the complete 4in1 with updated IDE driver to access UDMA for my hard drive.

I'm no expert, just offering up suggestions...

 

[DrJaymez]

Thanks for the tip. I may drop a PCI USB card I have sitting around in there and see what that does. Did that VIA USB mini-driver come as part of the 4in1s? I installed everything that is a part of that setup...I guess I can check on that myself. For now I switched to the main USB on the back of the PC rather than the ports I added to the front (via the USB header on the mobo). I haven't done enough since I did that to tell if the problem is fixed or not. Interestingly enough, I also have a logitech optical mouse. I will probably never purchase a motherboard based solely on price again.

 

[sabrownfl]

No problem... I got the USB Filter driver here:
LINK

Don't remember if it is part of the 4in1s or not. Make sure the add-in USB card is not based on a VIA usb chipset. Check USBman.com for details.

sabrownfl

 

[TheCorm]

350W is plenty of power for that system so should eb okay there. What kind of temps are you getting? What cooling do you have on the CPU? Any additional cooling?

Have you tried running your system with the GF2 MX at stock speeds?

Also try going to Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Event Viewer and checking out the logs for any errors (primarily ones with red cross circles and yellow exclamation triangles!)

Corm

 

[DrJaymez]

Thank you for the help! Here is where we are now. I think we have two distinct problems.

Video front:
Now we're cooking. Nearly every error in the error log (of hundreds because every few minutes it generates one) is as a result of "nv" which I am assuming is Nvidia. I will try on older driver revision (I think I ran 29.xx with nice results, although I do like the new interface...). The geforce2 mx has been running at stock speed since the reinstall of XP. My initial post was in error.

USB front:
The auxilliary USB ports on the front of my PC seem to be hit and miss as far as working, so I just plugged a hub into the back, and so far things are OK. I installed the USB filter driver off the viaarena page, but not the one linked to here because that is for an add-on PCI card (thanks for the tip anyway. It led me to the other driver). I was having problems with mouse unresponsiveness and whatnot while I have my USB printer plugged in. I am no longer having these problems. But, my PC no longer recognizes any devices plugged into the front ports. Yes, i verified they are plugged into the motherboard, activated in the BIOS, and they show up as working fine in XP. Go figure. I am getting by with the hub for now, and may leave this alone until I get these video issues settled.

I will let you know what the older drivers do for me.
Thanks for all your help.