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System Sudden Failure

N

nuclfusion4

Junior Member
I finished building the following computer:

EPoX 9NPA Ultra
eVGA 6800 GT Ultra
1 GB OCZ Premier Ram
WD Sata HD

I finished building the system Wednesday night. The first problem I ran into was installing Windows Xp. The system wouldn't recognize any of my Windows XP Cds, so I was forced to install Win 2k until my department releases Win 64 in the next two weeks.

Here's my main problem. Earlier this morning, I was playing World of Warcraft when the video froze up. By frozen I mean pixels shaded everywhere and a complete system lockup. I figured it was an isolated incident and didn't bother with it. About 3 hours ago I'm in the middle of another WoW session when my monitor shows itself going into Power Save mode. Usually it enters that if the system's idle. I go ahead and reboot, and instantanously the monitor goes back into Power Save mode. I try rebooting with my old CRT monitor with the same result. I'm thinking somehow my video card's been damaged (not sure how). I try my monitors on my old system to make sure the monitors were operating (they were).

I go ahead and open the case. The hex reading on the mobo states FF. According to the manual, FF reads "Boot Attempt (INT 19h)." 19-1Ah states "Reserved." At first I thought of RMAing the video card, but more and more it seems that the motherboard has failed. The CD rom refuses to open. However, all fans are operating, CPU seems to be operating, video card appears to be functioning. I'm not entirely sure what the problem is. Anyone that has knowledge with this, any help would be most appreciated.

Thank you.


Update: I removed the ram from the system and tried to boot the system up. I tried 4 or 5 different RAM configurations as well, but the system would not POST. I'm not leaning toward a dead motherboard. How or why it would die two days after I got it and installed it is beyond me.
 
Sure.

EPoX 9NPA+Ultra Motherboard
eVGA 6800 GT Ultra
WD 160GB SATA II
CD ROM
Floppy
A64 Venice 3000+
Antec Neopower 480W
Antec P180 Case
OCZ Premier Series PC-3200 Dual Channel 1 GB

I believe that covers it. The system was not overclocked. The only BIOS setting I changed was the AMD Cool n Quiet from disabled to Auto. Nothing else was changed. Timings on RAM were defaulted as well as whatever the CPU specs were. If I could access those I could, but yeah =/


Update: Tried resetting CMOS. Still no bootup. All components in the system work, but I instantly get the FF boot code with no picture or any signs of life that the system's POSTing.
 
Darn. Got a PCI video card you could slap into it as a fact-finding step, with the 6800 Ultra removed? I assume you had the 6800's auxiliary power cable hooked up, etc 😱
 
I wish. It's a PCI-e card. My last system used AGP heh but that card died about a week ago (it's not fun seeing your old system constantly reboot with an error message saying "This was caused by your GeForce Ti 4400). I honestly don't think it's the video card though. I'm honestly leaning toward either the mobo being completly fried or I didn't set the CPU up correctly. I used Arctic Silver Thermal Paste in place of the default AMD paste. The fan was mounted correctly and the CPU was aligned properly in the motherboard.
 
It could be a bad board, yeah. I had an EPoX 8RDA+ back in the day, and one day I rebooted it and it didn't POST. Fans running, drives running, no POST. I fussed with it and got a couple POSTs but eventually it was clear that it had gone on to The Great ATX Case In The Sky. So I picked up an Asus A7N8X Deluxe and replaced it.

Tangentially, you could always download or order a free trial of WinXP Pro x64 Edition from Microsoft if you want to try that out for a while. Start here.
 
Well I've heard nothing but good reviews about this board. I figured it was fairly inexpensive but it still accomplished what I wanted. I may go ahead and RMA it for the same board. If I see that this is a recurring problem, I'll go ahead and grab an Asus A8N-E Ultra (I believe that's the model type). Maybe things'll work out in the morning lol.
 
Thanks for the help again last night mchBgone. I tried things again this morning, but no response from the motherboard. I think I'm officially calling it dead. *sigh* It was working so well for 2 days as well heh. Thanks again though!
 
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