New computer can't do anything......

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kcbass

Golden Member
Mar 15, 2001
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ok...changing the cd drive also had no effect. So i've now replaced every part of this stupid computer, and nothing has had any effect. What do I do now? Any other suggestions? I'm gonna call crucial tomorrow to make sure the memory's compatible, but I don't know what else to do 
 

ScrapSilicon

Lifer
Apr 14, 2001
13,625
0
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Originally posted by: kcbass
backup hdd didn't work either. My last step is to remove a cd drive from my computer to try on this one's hardware. After that, I have literally no more options. 

use the ide cables from your(or another known good working) comp when doing that ..
 

kcbass

Golden Member
Mar 15, 2001
1,378
0
71
hmm...that's the one thing I don't have spares of around that I know to be good. I've got a bunch of sealed ones from old motherboards that I didn't use 
 

kcbass

Golden Member
Mar 15, 2001
1,378
0
71
found some spares, and I'm gonna try connecting the hdd and the cd drive to the same cable. I'll let you know what I find out 
 

kcbass

Golden Member
Mar 15, 2001
1,378
0
71
nothing yet. I tried the two I already had in the case, except I kept the hdd and the cd drive on the same one just to see if one of them was bad. Neither of them worked, so now I gotta part my system again and see if I can come up with a decent combination of parts. I have absolutely no idea what's wrong with this system 
 

chadwick626

Member
Sep 16, 2004
33
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well its at least good to see kids buildin thier own rigs instead of buying dells... gotta learn from ur mistakes i suppose.
 

kcbass

Golden Member
Mar 15, 2001
1,378
0
71
The problem is i'm not entirely convinced this is one of my mistakes....The different cables don't seem to help. I can't help but feel like i'm overlooking something simple, so I'm gonna try low leveling the hdd before I try anything else. Know of a site to get a free bootable low level tool?

All I know is the freezes I get usually take place either on the "creating list of files to be copied" or about halfway through the transfer process. These are hardware freezes as I cannot change the status (on, off) of the num lock key. The blue screens I get are always with 100% of files transferred, and they are either page_fault_in_nonpaged_area or irql_not_less_or_equal, usually caused by ntfs.sys. The two times I have managed to get winxp on the drive, it's frozen and restarted so much that I can't even log on reliably. 
 

kcbass

Golden Member
Mar 15, 2001
1,378
0
71
Thanks for that. I saw the thread in GH, and followed the link, but I don't know specifically which one is a low level format. Does it come on a 98 boot disk? 
 

kcbass

Golden Member
Mar 15, 2001
1,378
0
71
Got killdisk from my GH thread, and i'm using it now. only 6 and a half hours left. Then I'm gonna fdisk, format to ntfs, and try winxp install again. I'll let you know. Here's hopin... 
 

kcbass

Golden Member
Mar 15, 2001
1,378
0
71
well....killdisk stopped operating or, froze, (numlock still works, so it's not a hardware freeze this time....) at 64% complete with 4 hours 21 minutes remaining. Does this tell me the HD is bad? That would certainly explain a lot. If it is, it's goin back to justdeals for a refund, and I'm getting a seagate or WD 
 

imported_Phil

Diamond Member
Feb 10, 2001
9,837
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0
Originally posted by: kcbass
well....killdisk stopped operating or, froze, (numlock still works, so it's not a hardware freeze this time....) at 64% complete with 4 hours 21 minutes remaining. Does this tell me the HD is bad? That would certainly explain a lot. If it is, it's goin back to justdeals for a refund, and I'm getting a seagate or WD 

It sounds bad, but you really need to run the Western Digital Data Lifeguard tools - download them from here, and it'll prompt you to make a floppy that you can boot from to diagnose the hard disk.
Given that you've changed everything else, my money's on that hard disk being flakey.
Perform a full test on the drive, which may take anywhere between 30-60 minutes.

Hope this helps :)
 

kcbass

Golden Member
Mar 15, 2001
1,378
0
71
that's nothin compared to 15 hours for killdisk. My concern is that it's not a WD, but i'll run the test anyway. 
 

kcbass

Golden Member
Mar 15, 2001
1,378
0
71
well, I installed it, but i can't get it to run thanks to service pack 2 (on my computer, not the one i'm having problems with). Not sure what to do now since I can't get it to make a disk 
 

kcbass

Golden Member
Mar 15, 2001
1,378
0
71
nevermind, i got it. One thing that I just thought of...even if the hdd is bad, why wouldn't the computer install winxp on the other hdd that I've been using for years? 
 

kcbass

Golden Member
Mar 15, 2001
1,378
0
71
well, I went to run the WD diagnostics, and it said No western digital drives found. I guess that option's out. 
 

kcbass

Golden Member
Mar 15, 2001
1,378
0
71
Could it be the onboard video that's causing this? I mean, that's the whole reason I bought this board so that I wouldn't have to shop for a vid card. Shouldn't it work with its own built-in hardware? 
 

kcbass

Golden Member
Mar 15, 2001
1,378
0
71
I'm running killdisk on the drive one more time just to be sure, then i'm submitting an rma request. The website says 30 day warranty, but since this is the second drive they've sent me and it never did work, I'm hoping to get a refund. 
 

kcbass

Golden Member
Mar 15, 2001
1,378
0
71
well, killdisk went through the second time, then i ran fdisk, then formatted, then formatted to ntfs, then tried to install winxp (this time with everything possible disabled in the BIOS). I got about halfway through the windows installation this time, even past transferring files and all that, when I got a blue screen. I tried it with the other HDD, but couldn't even get that far. Not sure what's wrong, but I am RMAing the HDD. Any ideas? 
 

compudog

Diamond Member
Apr 25, 2001
5,782
0
71
I think I read every post, but could have missed something. Did you RMA the mobo and get a new one? If it's the same mobo, you have tried 3 different RAM, new PSU, new HDD, but the only thing that stayed the same is the CPU and mobo. Can you still return the mobo? or CPU?


Wow! You've bee through alot!


 

kcbass

Golden Member
Mar 15, 2001
1,378
0
71
I did RMA the mobo, and had identical results with both. I can not RMA the CPU (it was one of those 30-day warranty OEM deals). I don't have a spare CPU to try, but I've never known the CPU to cause something like this.