TheOverlord
Platinum Member
Here's a bit of background first: I've been running a dual p3-700 @ 933 sys for 2+ years. It was loaded with stuff, 3 hdds, 2 cd-roms, a slew of pci cards and 4-5 fans. About 2 weeks back it started randomly restarting, after spending a long afternoon testing I found that it would run ok when i clocked it back to the normal 700. However over the next few days it would still restart at random times, though it would go a few days between each one (as opposed to a few minutes/seconds when at 933).
Thinking that perhaps the chips/mobo just couldn't handle the higher speeds (and wanted to upgrade from the now slow dual 700s) I grabbed a K7S5A Pro & 2000+ combo from fry's. I made sure to get a new mobo (I've dealt with Fry's enough to know theri stuff isn't always top of the line). I swapped out the mobo & cpu, leaving everything else the same (RAM, PS, cds, hdds, etc).
Now when I went to power it up and do my fresh install of XP it booted to the cd and ran the install, then rebooted to keep going. However on that reboot it stopped after it finished all the POST stuff, when you should normally see the windows xp logo with scrolling green line. I rebooted again, same thing. Rebooted again and clocked it back to 100mhz sync bus and it went on through to the XP setup and completed it, then restarted and went into windows fine. I grabbed sandra and MBM5 for testing, installed and then restarted. But it hung at the place where you should see the XP logo and green scroller again. Mind you this is now at 1.2ghz, not 1.6 as it should be. If i shut down and let it sit a few minutes then i can boot into windows again, even run sandra a while and heat things up, no crashing. But when i restart it won't make it and fails just before the XP logo and green scroller.
What I'm not sure of is what I need to look at first. I'm leaning toward the PS as it is merely a 300w that came with my Addtronics case (Nspire branded). The ram is 2x256mb sticks of Kingston Value RAM PC133. It could also be at fault becuase it was common to both mobo/cpu combos. Then of course I can't be 100% certain the mobo i just bought is good but I'd like to trouble shoot some other stuff before I return it and swap it out.
Anyone have some ideas? Seen this before? Am I right to think I need to try and new PS first?
And if you do agree on the PS as the culprit, please recommend me a good one. I need something that is decent but won't break the bank, preferable $40-50. Are the allied ones on newegg any good?
Thinking that perhaps the chips/mobo just couldn't handle the higher speeds (and wanted to upgrade from the now slow dual 700s) I grabbed a K7S5A Pro & 2000+ combo from fry's. I made sure to get a new mobo (I've dealt with Fry's enough to know theri stuff isn't always top of the line). I swapped out the mobo & cpu, leaving everything else the same (RAM, PS, cds, hdds, etc).
Now when I went to power it up and do my fresh install of XP it booted to the cd and ran the install, then rebooted to keep going. However on that reboot it stopped after it finished all the POST stuff, when you should normally see the windows xp logo with scrolling green line. I rebooted again, same thing. Rebooted again and clocked it back to 100mhz sync bus and it went on through to the XP setup and completed it, then restarted and went into windows fine. I grabbed sandra and MBM5 for testing, installed and then restarted. But it hung at the place where you should see the XP logo and green scroller again. Mind you this is now at 1.2ghz, not 1.6 as it should be. If i shut down and let it sit a few minutes then i can boot into windows again, even run sandra a while and heat things up, no crashing. But when i restart it won't make it and fails just before the XP logo and green scroller.
What I'm not sure of is what I need to look at first. I'm leaning toward the PS as it is merely a 300w that came with my Addtronics case (Nspire branded). The ram is 2x256mb sticks of Kingston Value RAM PC133. It could also be at fault becuase it was common to both mobo/cpu combos. Then of course I can't be 100% certain the mobo i just bought is good but I'd like to trouble shoot some other stuff before I return it and swap it out.
Anyone have some ideas? Seen this before? Am I right to think I need to try and new PS first?
And if you do agree on the PS as the culprit, please recommend me a good one. I need something that is decent but won't break the bank, preferable $40-50. Are the allied ones on newegg any good?
