HowToFixComputers.com

thedreaming · Member Joined: 15 Dec 2005 Posts: 3

Hi, I need help. This is my second week without a working computer and I have no idea how to proceed. Here is the story:

My old motherboard died, I replaced it with a Chaintech CT-7NJL6. Here is the current stats of the system:

Chaintech CT-7NJL6 motherboard
2 PC2700 DDR memory modules
Geforce FX 5500 video card
160G Sata HD.
AMD Athlon XP 2600+ (Barton)

The computer boots up, I try to install Windows XP w/SP2 and during the installation, the system completely locks up. No blue screen, no mouse movement, no keyboard response.

Everything on the computer is new except for two things: The CPU and the power supply.

Question: Should I go ahead and just replace the cpu and the heatsink/fan with another one or should I replace the power supply or both or neither?

I honestly don't know which is the culprit and I rather not spend more money on parts until I know just which one really needs to be replaced.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Guy · GURU Joined: 08 Feb 2005 Posts: 171

Before you go blow cash on more new hardware, let's make sure all your motherboard BIOS settings are stable.

Can you access BIOS? You will need to go through your manual, basically between pages 7 and 33, and verify settings.

Plan on clearing your CMOS (page 14) first to reset your system.

Verify your JP3 jumper is on pins 1 and 2 (page 15).

This board defaults to a PCI video card (page 22).

Check your boot sequence and make sure it supports what you are trying to do (page 23).

Are you booting to the XP cd, or trying to install over what you already have?

Also, your SATA setup concerns me. Is that a Maxtor drive and did you have it set up as SATA previously?

Also, it is odd but the single most common failure for me when I upgrade is the CD-ROM drive. I lose one every time I upgrade (but this is anecdotal, not scientific).

I am sure at least two other very qualified people will post soon. It might take a couple of days to troubleshoot, so hang in there!
_________________
Guy

thedreaming · Member Joined: 15 Dec 2005 Posts: 3

[quote="Guy"]Before you go blow cash on more new hardware, let's make sure all your motherboard BIOS settings are stable.

Can you access BIOS? You will need to go through your manual, basically between pages 7 and 33, and verify settings.

Plan on clearing your CMOS (page 14) first to reset your system.

Verify your JP3 jumper is on pins 1 and 2 (page 15).

This board defaults to a PCI video card (page 22).

Check your boot sequence and make sure it supports what you are trying to do (page 23).

Are you booting to the XP cd, or trying to install over what you already have?

Also, your SATA setup concerns me. Is that a Maxtor drive and did you have it set up as SATA previously?

Also, it is odd but the single most common failure for me when I upgrade is the CD-ROM drive. I lose one every time I upgrade (but this is anecdotal, not scientific).

I am sure at least two other very qualified people will post soon. It might take a couple of days to troubleshoot, so hang in there![/quote]

Thank you for replying!

I reset the cmos, checked JP3, Set the system to startup on the AGP and not PCI first, and set the boot sequence to start with the cdrom, then a hard drive.

I'm booting from the xp cd and I'm doing a fresh install every time.

Yes, it is a maxtor and it's a SATA drive natively, I'm not using that weird adapter thing.

One thing that I forgot to mention. When I had my old 30g ide drive connected, I did manage to install iwndows xp on it and it didn't lock up. I assumed all my problems were over and decided to add another 512M of memory (512M pc2700 by ultra) and the 160g Maxtor SATA drive. That's when I started getting the lockups.

I keep thinking that it's a power supply problem, but why would that be the case, I'm only running one drive at a time, not both of them and even then, it should be able to handle two hds and a dvd burner with no problems, shouldn't it?

My power supply is a 425W.

I'm going to disconnect the SATA and reconnect the 30g and see if it locks up, but if it doesn't lockup, those that mean that the SATA is just bad? It's easy enough to exchange for another one or a different brand.

thedreaming · Member Joined: 15 Dec 2005 Posts: 3

Current Update:

I disconnected the SATA drive and reconnected the 30gig maxtor drive. The computer booted up to windows xp and didn't lockup. I loaded most wanted and started playing and it threw me back to the desktop. I updated the video card drivers to the current ones and tried to play again. This time, the game played very well and didn't throw me back to the desktop.

I've reconnected the SATA drive, but in SATA2, not SATA1. With the 30gig maxtor drive still connected. I now have the 30 gig as a boot and the 160gig as a 'slave' or secondary drive.

I'm in the process of copying some 30 gig worth of files into it to test to see if the system will lock up or not. So far, so good, but why can't I have the SATA as the only drive on the system, even if I connect it to SATA1?

Guy · GURU Joined: 08 Feb 2005 Posts: 171

Try switching the IDE drive to the IDE 1 channel (instead of IDE 0), and see if you can boot to the SATA drive.

Good Luck!
_________________
Guy

thedreaming · Member Joined: 15 Dec 2005 Posts: 3

thedreaming · Member Joined: 15 Dec 2005 Posts: 3

Guy · GURU Joined: 08 Feb 2005 Posts: 171

I had a similar problem with my 7NJL6 and XP 3000 system, running Viking PC3200 RAM (2 X 512). I had to slow my FSB to 133 before taking it back up to 200. My final stable configuration for this chip is 166.

Are you sure you have a Barton core and not a Thoroughbred or Palomino? If it is a Barton running at 133, your system should report 1529 MHz. If it is a Tbred at 133, it will report 1662, and if it is a Palomino it will report 2128 (or 2133 by the manual).

If the system reports 2128 (2133), then your chip is running to profile as a Palomino. If it is running at one of the other speeds, then you are indeed underclocking. In that case, look at your memory and try to get a CAS latency of 3.

If you decide to upgrade and if you can find one, the 3000 should support 2700 memory without problems.
_________________
Guy

nthums1 · Forum Regular Joined: 20 Aug 2005 Posts: 47

Hi Dreaming,
You have concerns on cpu. I would load speedfan and monitor temps to start and maybe even re-dope the cpu just to be sure. Remove all old dope and clean with a zero residue solvent. Claims are that even oil from the skin can foul the situation. If using conductive dope, such as artic silver, you have to be very careful not to short any of the leads on the chip.
After re-doing mine, I dropped about 2 degrees C, not a significant amount, but indicative that maybe I didn't get it very good the first time and I really need to do it again as I didn't use a solvent cleaner and spread it with my finger. So maybe I have room for improvement but just not seeing it as a problem yet. Since I did the north chip simultaneously and it definitely needed doing because it appeared the sink was dislodged after the compound dried. Since that requires removing the mobo to do, I'm waiting until I get a quieter cpu fan/HS, a fan for the north, something for the south(maybe with fan) and a blower for the ATI 9600. Gee, that dang thing runs hot. I'm guessing there is something peculiar about mine, maybe related to firmware/bios that ATI flashed it with. I've run the tests over at pcpitstop several times and it is way ahead of anything else similar whether I'm running video at 16 or 32 bit. This doesn't make sense. The 9600 came in 4 flavors, mine is supposedly the 2nd level up, but always reports in utilities as being the Pro. Not overclocked.
BTW, I suspect that production may have been sloppy on doping chips when heat wasn't near the problem or maybe trying to conserve on dope and maybe they haven't gotten the word to all personel to not skimp on the dope with these newer hotter chips. This 9600 had only about 1/2 the chip covered with dope. At this point of discovery I pulled the card from my older machine running an MX2, which never seemed a problem in relation to video, but also found only about half the chip had dope. And usually the HS would get barely warm to the touch. I note your 5500, but have no idea to its heat situation. I've noted the 9600 puts a lot of heat in the area of the north chip. Also leaving the bios at the default of PCI doesn't seem to effect anything.

On your 2 drive situation, does using one pata and one sata have any special jumpering requirements. Normally you have to set jumpers accordingly for pata drives, unless running all pata in cable select, which I understood this board could do. Maybe that is necessary when running a combination of sata/pata? RAID didn't default to on did it?

Good luck.

nthums1 · Forum Regular Joined: 20 Aug 2005 Posts: 47

Dreaming,
I wonder if you would see much gain by moving to another cpu if you are running a Barton. (512k cache). To see any big move, still not likely a tremendous boost, you'd need to go to 400FSB which means only a 3000 or 3200 Barton and hard to find, unless, as I, am thinking of getting one of the 2900's like Guy has, but he'd know best how it compares to a 3000 333FSB. He hasn't seen the boost I anticipated he would get by coupling with 400FSB RAM I thought he would. Need to ask him how that worked out and what testing(utilities) he did.