About 3 weeks ago, I swapped out my generic CPU heatsink/fan for a ThermalTake Golden Orb (CPU is Athlon 700 Slot A). Ever since then, I've been having a very annoying problem. The system is locking up. Never a Blue-Screen-of-Death or any error message, but simply total system lockup; display is frozen where it was, mouse is stuck, hard drives stop accessing (CDROM/DVDROM still spin).
I'm absolutely stuck on what is causing it. Here's what I've tried so far:
-new power supply; upg. to 300 from 250W - no change
-different operating systems; same symptoms in 98SE, ME, 2kPro
-formatting, reinstalling OSs - same.
-changing hard drives; no help
-changing ram chips; no help (currently am using new Kingston 128MB ValueRam)
-using different onboard IDE controller, no help
-powering only 1 IDE device, no help
-changing display adapters, no help (have tried both PCI and AGP, am currently using RivaTNT 16MB)
-enabling/disabling almost all onboard features in varying arrangements (USB, FDC, onboard sound, LAN, modem)
-disabling internal and external cache in BIOS
My motherboard is a PCCHIPS (ick!) M800LMR, cpu is Athlon 700 Slot A, RAM is Kingston, hard drives are Maxtor, Seagate, Western Digital (and others, depending on what I'm trying at the time), CDRW drive is a Plextor, DVDRom is Samsung 6X.
Everything was working just about right before the fan upgrade, which took my CPU temp from 147 degrees F (ow!) down to a nice 93 degrees F when working really hard; system temp is <80 degrees F at all times
Hmonitor Pro (shareware from download.com) had this to say about my voltages, though:
+12V: +12.45V; CORE: +1.69V (this was outlined in red; A700's core is 1.6V according to this site, but the program seems to think CPUs should be closer to 2V); +5V: [varies between +4.46 and +4.51V] <---this, I think might be the problem. Whenever system freezes, it seems to be at 4.46 or maybe just about to dip lower, and hard drive is always just then being accessed for something.
Any ideas on cause or resolution?
Thanks a million.
I'm absolutely stuck on what is causing it. Here's what I've tried so far:
-new power supply; upg. to 300 from 250W - no change
-different operating systems; same symptoms in 98SE, ME, 2kPro
-formatting, reinstalling OSs - same.
-changing hard drives; no help
-changing ram chips; no help (currently am using new Kingston 128MB ValueRam)
-using different onboard IDE controller, no help
-powering only 1 IDE device, no help
-changing display adapters, no help (have tried both PCI and AGP, am currently using RivaTNT 16MB)
-enabling/disabling almost all onboard features in varying arrangements (USB, FDC, onboard sound, LAN, modem)
-disabling internal and external cache in BIOS
My motherboard is a PCCHIPS (ick!) M800LMR, cpu is Athlon 700 Slot A, RAM is Kingston, hard drives are Maxtor, Seagate, Western Digital (and others, depending on what I'm trying at the time), CDRW drive is a Plextor, DVDRom is Samsung 6X.
Everything was working just about right before the fan upgrade, which took my CPU temp from 147 degrees F (ow!) down to a nice 93 degrees F when working really hard; system temp is <80 degrees F at all times
Hmonitor Pro (shareware from download.com) had this to say about my voltages, though:
+12V: +12.45V; CORE: +1.69V (this was outlined in red; A700's core is 1.6V according to this site, but the program seems to think CPUs should be closer to 2V); +5V: [varies between +4.46 and +4.51V] <---this, I think might be the problem. Whenever system freezes, it seems to be at 4.46 or maybe just about to dip lower, and hard drive is always just then being accessed for something.
Any ideas on cause or resolution?
Thanks a million.
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