Recently built a new T-Bird computer on an Asus A7V-e (PC133 RAM) motherboard. It seemed to work fine for a while. It booted fine on its very first boot, and ran just fine. The next day I was going to boot it, it took forever, though. I finally was greeted with the sight of windows, I got an error writing to registry, forcing me to reboot.. Later, these errors on boot became more serious. I'd lose files, like kernel32.exe, ifshlp.dll and dblbuff.sys, forcing me to either re-install or replace the missing files.
I've done several thorough scans of the HDD with scandisk. I've defragmented it, and it's ok. I've tried with two different sticks of RAM, without that fixing the problem. I've tried running my RAM for three days now in a friend's computer, and it's rock stable without any of my problems popping up. The GFX card I used in this computer is an old one, which worked perfectly in my old 440BX Celeron system up 'till the day of my upgrade, so I'm pretty sure it's not that. I've tried taking out every other component not necessary, but it doesn't work.
Finally, these troubles seem to grow worse.. At some point when I was running MemTest-86 2.7, the computer shut itself down. WHen I rebooted, the RAM frequency had been set to 100Mhz, even though it IS PC133 and works perfectly at that frequency in another computer using the same type of motherboard... Setting the frequency back to 133Mhz causes another shutdown and a total INABILITY [1] to power up again. Resetting cmos didn't work. I actually had to physically remove EVERYTHING in the motherboard - power it up and then re-install the "bare-bones" components. Processor, RAM and GFX card, to be able to power up again.
At some point, I ceased to be able to boot the computer at all. It would just lock during boot. I've now tried Windows 98, 98 SE and ME - and they all gave the registry error and loss of files at one point. Now, though, I'm unable to install a new OS at all. It just locks up in the installation process. "Wait while windows is loading the wizard that will help you through the rest of this installation"... Total freeze at 100%, ironically enough.
Neither of my components are overclocked, nor have ever been. I doubt this is a temperature problem, as my CPU temp for the 1.2GHz T-Bird (200FSB) has never risen above 52Celcius....
Any suggestion as to what's wrong with my computer?
[1] Meaning that nothing would happen when I turned the power on. The CPU fan would start spinning briefly, but it would shut itself down in a heartbeat. No CD-ROM drives or anything of that sort would have time to even make noise from spinning up. The power-cut would be fast an brutal, for whatever reason....
I've done several thorough scans of the HDD with scandisk. I've defragmented it, and it's ok. I've tried with two different sticks of RAM, without that fixing the problem. I've tried running my RAM for three days now in a friend's computer, and it's rock stable without any of my problems popping up. The GFX card I used in this computer is an old one, which worked perfectly in my old 440BX Celeron system up 'till the day of my upgrade, so I'm pretty sure it's not that. I've tried taking out every other component not necessary, but it doesn't work.
Finally, these troubles seem to grow worse.. At some point when I was running MemTest-86 2.7, the computer shut itself down. WHen I rebooted, the RAM frequency had been set to 100Mhz, even though it IS PC133 and works perfectly at that frequency in another computer using the same type of motherboard... Setting the frequency back to 133Mhz causes another shutdown and a total INABILITY [1] to power up again. Resetting cmos didn't work. I actually had to physically remove EVERYTHING in the motherboard - power it up and then re-install the "bare-bones" components. Processor, RAM and GFX card, to be able to power up again.
At some point, I ceased to be able to boot the computer at all. It would just lock during boot. I've now tried Windows 98, 98 SE and ME - and they all gave the registry error and loss of files at one point. Now, though, I'm unable to install a new OS at all. It just locks up in the installation process. "Wait while windows is loading the wizard that will help you through the rest of this installation"... Total freeze at 100%, ironically enough.
Neither of my components are overclocked, nor have ever been. I doubt this is a temperature problem, as my CPU temp for the 1.2GHz T-Bird (200FSB) has never risen above 52Celcius....
Any suggestion as to what's wrong with my computer?
[1] Meaning that nothing would happen when I turned the power on. The CPU fan would start spinning briefly, but it would shut itself down in a heartbeat. No CD-ROM drives or anything of that sort would have time to even make noise from spinning up. The power-cut would be fast an brutal, for whatever reason....
