CPU - MOBO Problem resolution

Hello,

I have an (in)stability PC Win2K Prof. problem that I have narrowed down
to either the MOBO or the CPU.

System hangs on reboots or boot, usually after POST & listing of
OS/Recovery Console choice.
MOBO A MSI-7125 ATX Board
CPU AMD Athlon 64x2 Dual core processor 3800+em
Seems impossible to test mother board, ran various Stress Test on CPU
such as CPU Burn-in, StressCPU and Mersenne Prime Test but these seem to
be designed to determine breaking point as a measure of breaking point
limits under overclocking, am I wrong? The system eventually comes down
and I do not know how to evaluate that event occurrence point - or is
there some test (memtest type w/ defined results or reference standards)
that I can use to eliminate the CPU as a potential problem source?

Thanks

-- Adam --

Adam Smith wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I have an (in)stability PC Win2K Prof. problem that I have narrowed down
> to either the MOBO or the CPU.
>
Have you swapped out the power supply? Often what is perceived as
cpu/mobo instability is a bad power supply.

Jim Garrison wrote:
> Adam Smith wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> I have an (in)stability PC Win2K Prof. problem that I have narrowed down
>> to either the MOBO or the CPU.
>>
> Have you swapped out the power supply? Often what is perceived as
> cpu/mobo instability is a bad power supply.
Thanks Jim,

I was considering that, I did check the voltages and they were OK but
couldn't conveniently test for the amperage under load. I was thinking
of increasing the power on the PSU, I'll just go ahead and do that, will
see if that solves the problem.

Thanks again.

Adam Smith wrote:
> Jim Garrison wrote:
>> Adam Smith wrote:
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> I have an (in)stability PC Win2K Prof. problem that I have narrowed down
>>> to either the MOBO or the CPU.
>>>
>> Have you swapped out the power supply? Often what is perceived as
>> cpu/mobo instability is a bad power supply.
> Thanks Jim,
>
> I was considering that, I did check the voltages and they were OK but
> couldn't conveniently test for the amperage under load. I was thinking
> of increasing the power on the PSU, I'll just go ahead and do that, will
> see if that solves the problem.
>
> Thanks again.
If your PS is manufactured by Antec in the last 24 months the odds
of it being bad go WAY up. Antec had a large batch of bad
capacitors.

I've had 2 Antec PS go bad, and both were replaced under warranty.
In both cases, the voltages were OK when tested with a DVM with
PS_ON shorted to ground. Problems occurred only under load.

CPU's almost never fail, unless they have been severely overclocked.
Motherboards, on the other hand, regularly fail.

--
---------------------
DaveW
"Adam Smith" <adamsmith@econ.com> wrote in message
news:vrKdnSc0Wty538nbnZ2dnUVZ_gKdnZ2d@speakeasy.ne t...
> Hello,
>
> I have an (in)stability PC Win2K Prof. problem that I have narrowed down
> to either the MOBO or the CPU.
>
> System hangs on reboots or boot, usually after POST & listing of
> OS/Recovery Console choice.
> MOBO A MSI-7125 ATX Board
> CPU AMD Athlon 64x2 Dual core processor 3800+em
> Seems impossible to test mother board, ran various Stress Test on CPU
> such as CPU Burn-in, StressCPU and Mersenne Prime Test but these seem to
> be designed to determine breaking point as a measure of breaking point
> limits under overclocking, am I wrong? The system eventually comes down
> and I do not know how to evaluate that event occurrence point - or is
> there some test (memtest type w/ defined results or reference standards)
> that I can use to eliminate the CPU as a potential problem source?
>
> Thanks
>
> -- Adam --