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PC freezes on BIOS... what is the problem?
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integraol
Junior Member
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25. March 2006 @ 12:23 |
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Hi all,
I've had this Abit mobo, AMD 1.4ghz processor, 256mb Kingston ram running for about 3 years now. Never had a problem with it.
Last week one of my 2 DVD drives decided to stop Ejecting the tray... i figure it was old and just craped out (like 5-7 years i believe). 2 days ago I come in and see a black screen, would not wake-up. I hit reset, and nothing, no signal to the monitor. I had to hold down power to turn her off... waited... and started again... ran through the BIOS and goto the RAID controllers, and stalled. Had to manually turn off and on again... this time it went though and Windows came up.
I figured maybe the DVD drive would be screwing something up so I took it out and re arranged the internals... formatted Windows and reinstalled everything.
Everything was running smooth, no problems, until this morning, I turn it on then BIOS detects the drives then Keyboard then mouse then stalls. Had to manual shutoff then on again... went though the bios and RAID controllers then before starting Windows it stalls with a cursor on a black screen.
I let it sit for about 4 hours, and now it's running normaly again.
Ideas what the problem is?
Sorry for the long post but I wanted to get all the info I could for you all!
Thanks!
J
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integraol
Junior Member
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25. March 2006 @ 12:29 |
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well, 10 seconds after i posted the above... the PC Froze again.
I hit reset and nothing came up... no signal to the monitor, but the hdd LED stays solid red.
I hit reset again, does the same thing... I turn it off/on manualy and now it's fine.
thoughts?
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Senior Member
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25. March 2006 @ 13:50 |
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It just might be time to replace the PSU. Generic ones that come with cases, tend to give out either painfully slow..giving you problems that typical solutions don't seem to fix...or they go out with a bang. Literally.
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integraol
Junior Member
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26. March 2006 @ 16:25 |
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You'd assume it's the P/S? I've had it for about 4 years and it's 500W... is that the usual "life" for a P/S?
Thanks!
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integraol
Junior Member
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28. March 2006 @ 05:37 |
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i checked the PC Health:
CPU 127F
System 80F
VCore 1.79V
3.3V 3.42V
5V 4.83V
12V 12.12V
is the VCore good? and what about the 5V?
Thanks all!
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boxwrench
Suspended due to non-functional email address
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28. March 2006 @ 07:40 |
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That cpu temp. looks a little high,(compared to the mother board temp.)the vcore voltage should be ok and all else appears fine,though the 5v is a little low.It still could be an intermittent psu problem though not likely.You might want to power it down and remove each card connector etc..one at a time making sure everything is seated correctly and all electrical connections are good. Best of luck.
Main System- Amd/64 3800x2 currently@ 2.5ghz. Asus A8N-E,win.xp-pro.4x1gb.Ocz platnium ddr 400,Maxtor 40gb.& 250gb.ide & 2x W.D.250 sata,Benq 1650V dvd Reader & Benq DW-1655 Writer,EVGA Geforce 7600gs,Creative Audigy-LS,Antec 750w psu. Vizio 37"hdtv monitor 1360x768@75hz.
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integraol
Junior Member
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28. March 2006 @ 10:32 |
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the CPU temp has always been high since i installed it, i read up on it then and it seemed to be the avg. temp for that one perticular...
hmm... the pain in the ass is, it dosent always do it... it will go days and all of a sudden spaz out.
damn thing.
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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29. March 2006 @ 10:07 |
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The power levels are fine, assuming that's how they're staying.
The problem sounds like it could possibly be memory related. It's not impossible for a memory module to go bad after a length of time, you may want to try another cheap stick of RAM, or while you're at it, go for more. 512MB modules are cheap now. The sudden stop and no activity points to either RAM or CPU. Not only is RAM cheaper and far easier to replace, it's also a more likely culprit. Freezing at random intervals in windows, and not resetting I'd try another stick of RAM first.
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integraol
Junior Member
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29. March 2006 @ 18:08 |
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if i add another stick of 512 to the mobo... but keep the "bad" stick, will the problem still occur, or will itbe fine with at least 1 good stick with the bad?
Thanks!
J
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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29. March 2006 @ 22:12 |
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In general, whenever one stick of RAM is faulty, the effect will still notice. If you add a stick of RAM and keep a faulty one, assuming the stick is faulty, the same problem WILL recur, be it not booting, or restarting or whatever it is.
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integraol
Junior Member
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31. March 2006 @ 18:36 |
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well, i could'nt get it to boot past the bios screen... but was able to get into the bios and change settings to "failsafe mode"... after doing then and getting it to boot to the bios again (i'd say 3 minutes of hitting the reset button) the bios came on and said "CPU UNWORKABLE OR CHANGED..."
took the tower out and took the RAM STICK out (got the idea from above, replacing the RAM), blew on it... wiped the contact points off... blew into the holder... reinstalled... restarted and BIOS came right up, again with the "CPU UNWORKABLE OR CHANGED...", went into bios and changed to "LOAD OPTIMIZED SETTINGS"... restarted and now everythings working normaly.
WTF? dust on the RAM caused all of this?
I'll give it some time and see if it happens again....
Thanks all for the help so far!
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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1. April 2006 @ 00:56 |
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It's possible I suppose.
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integraol
Junior Member
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1. April 2006 @ 07:29 |
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will running memtest86+ see if there are any problems with the RAM?
also, i keep checking the V's and CPU temps... so far they are all staying the same...
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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1. April 2006 @ 07:39 |
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Yeah checking the memory's a good idea.
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integraol
Junior Member
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28. September 2006 @ 18:32 |
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well since i wrote this the first time, the problem fixed itself.
i move the pc to my new office and bam! starts happening again. I did'nt do ANYTHING to fix it the first time, just moved it since then... any idea what else it would be besides the RAM?
I was able to get into the bios and test the V's:
Vcore: 1.79
3.3 = 3.42
5 = 4.88
12 = 12.06
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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29. September 2006 @ 01:15 |
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Voltages look alright. Were there any memory errors?
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integraol
Junior Member
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29. September 2006 @ 15:41 |
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no, no memory errors at all... so I did the same thing i did last time, took the stick out, wiped it off and blew in the slot... stuck it back in and have not had a problem yet.
It makes no sence why thats happening. Theres only a small amount of dust in it and i blow it all out, it still skips but once i take the RAM out and wipe it down, it seems fine.
??????????
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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29. September 2006 @ 16:04 |
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It may be a bit of a problem stick, and cleaning it happens to cure the problem temporarily. If cleaning the memory halts the problem for a while I'd try replacing the stick.
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integraol
Junior Member
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29. September 2006 @ 17:54 |
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gotcha... the next time it starts doing it again i'll go get a new one and set this one to the 2nd slot.
Thanks again for the help!
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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30. September 2006 @ 03:51 |
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If you have a bad stick you don't want to supplement it or the problem will still happen, you will need to get rid of it.
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integraol
Junior Member
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10. November 2006 @ 07:01 |
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ok, well i got a new 512 stick about a week ago... everything was running fine again... lastnight the same damn thing happened. It just froze, goto reboot and nothing... wait a little bit and start it up again, goes to the windos screen then freezes... wait a bit longer start it up again, works fine.
If it's not the memory stick, what else could it be?
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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10. November 2006 @ 07:15 |
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I'm looking at a possible intermittant motherboard fault...
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Senior Member
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10. November 2006 @ 07:27 |
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maybe its the ram slot thats faulty, refitting the module worked till you moved it, maybe the move knocked it and started the fault of again, and then same again when you installed your new ram.
maybe its to do with your hdds, your first post said it started with a freeze at the raid controller, are they striped or mirrored?
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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10. November 2006 @ 07:48 |
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It stops at a seemingly random point so the RAID controller looks doubtful, if you read his earlier posts it stops in all sorts of places! I reckon there's something wrong with the motherboard (not really relevant what if it's something like RAM slots or chipset).
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