Dazed and Confused

[stevenpfo]

Usually I can work my way through things and fix stuff myself. But not this time.

A few months ago I went to a highly recomended computer store and bought a new motherboard, processor and power supply. Ever since then i've been having some problems. I paid them to install everything so it would be 'covered.' But when I got it home and started having problems I phoned them and they said they would fix it ... If I paid them $45 (Canadian $35 American?) an hour. They lost my business there because they are the ones who installed it improperly.

They stated everything was compatible because I took my comp in and showed it to them so there would be no mistakes. The first problem I had, though, was the insane load up times. It would show a pic of the intel HT motherboard info for about 30 secs, try to load, get some writing that would only let me bypass it by ctrl-alt-deling it and then back to another intel pic for the motherboard info. I timed it once ... it took about 1.5-2.5 mins (i'll have to double check it again sometime). I even d/led a program that monitors performance for boot ups to see what was the problem, but it wouldn't even recognize that long waiting periods as part of the boot up and other than the intel stuff and the ctrl-alt-del part it loaded fast.

Now i'm having problems installing stuff. I get the BSOD that tells me its beginning the physical memory dump everytime I try to install something large from disc. Doom 3, Harry Potter game and now a pre order disc for Everquest 2. I somehow got Doom 3 to install after 2 full days of fiddling.

I plan on buying more memory and a new HD soon and possibly a new video card but would like this fixed before I add more hardware onto the pile when maybe some of the current stuff is messed and needs replacing.

Hopefully someone can help me out because i've spent countless hours trying to fix it and searching help forums and FAQs galore and never once found anyone with a similar problem. Lots of BSOD being triggered by different things and never once the intel MB hanging problem.

Thanks in advance.

Specs (will open up my box to get more info if required, this is all off the top of my head):

Windows XP
2.4 Ghz
512 RAM (Kingston?)
P-4
SP1
Radeon 9500/9700
HD 5400 rpm
MB Intel PERL865

[stevenpfo]

One thought I just had: Could the problem be my cd-rom drive? I've updated everything since I got this comp except the cd-rom drive and the HD. Sometimes while trying to install these things the comp freezes and restarts while the cd is even trying to just load. I also got one BSOD and one freeze before Star Wars: Battlefront would install.

[Doby]

Hi,

When they installed the mobo did they reinstall window? If they did not then that is the root of your problem. You would then need to format and do a clean install but you need all the drivers and cd's that came with mobo.

More specs on the cpu and ram would help

Rick

[mgrist]

I think Doby hit it. I had the same problem and once I did a format and reinstall everything was OK. You can get what drivers you don't have from the internet.

[stevenpfo]

Yeah, they did a clean reinstalation. I also did another one myself a few weeks after theirs. I may just go ahead and buy a new HD and do it then.

[Doby]

Did you test the Ram? run memtest86, leave run for at least 3 passes.

Any errors at all is no good and could be your problem

[stevenpfo]

Ok, this might seem like a dumb question but if I don't have a floppy and use a cd rom I just place the memtest.iso on a cd by itself and restart my comp?

[Doby]

No that ain't a dumb question, and no that won't work because the cd would have to be bootable, maybe there is a way of doing it but I don't know. You run memtest before the OS boots. There is a memtest you run in windows but I never used it.

Maybe someone else does and will respond.

You could start another thread and ask.

Rick

[stevenpfo]

Ahhh, found a solution and a problem and yet another solution.

There's a button in my burner that says "make into a bottable cd" but it requires a floppy in the a: drive (i don't have a floppy) so it can make the bootable disc. BUT. My wife is on her way here now with a borrowed floppy from my parents place. hopefully this tells me something ... it better after all the trouble I've gone to to get this to work *shakes fist*

[Doby]

Ok, after thinking about it if you have Nero burning software you could make a bootable cd and transfer the files to the cd and I guess it would work

[Doby]

Well if you get a floppy, just use the floppy and don't worry about the cd.

You really do need to run this test to eliminate the possibility of faulty ram

[stevenpfo]

thanks doby. i'm thinking this might be it because i had a problem with ram before (awhile before i got the new MB proc and PS). But i'm still using one of the same sticks i had back then. if this is the case i might just scrap both 256mb sticks and buy a couple of 512s. if not then i'll buy the 512s and use the 256s all together :P honestly i hope it is the sticks though. it'd be cheaper than a new MB if that is toast. or even better the HD since i'm going to replace that anyways.

[Doby]

Don't go scraping booth sticks, test each one by it selve to find the bad one, it is better to run the test on each one individually anyway.
I'm goind away for a couple days so some other thoughts, if the ram passes then that not the problem, but I would make sure it is compatible with mobo and cpu.

List all the specs for cpu,ram.psu and mobo you can.

Run prime95 it will test cpu,mobo,psu,ram and heat related problems.
So if you eliminate the ram witch I don't think you will cause ths computer seems to be having trouble loading things into memory, so that leaves the others.

heat you can check for by using motherboard monitor if your mobo is capable download and try it.

Mobo,cpu and psu is very hard to pinpoint without swaping parts, but hey you borrowed that floppy,

The next step would be to do a out of case with minimal components test but thats for another day after the other tests.

[stevenpfo]

I couldn't get the memtest86 boot floppy to work so i made one using the microsoft boot memtest program and it reported no errors ...

[stevenpfo]

Ok, i'm an idiot and I got memtest86 to work. No errors there either. But I forgot to mentiont hat when I tried to run the microsoft mem test it said that there was a problem in the Windows Memory Diagnostics. There were deficiencies in the WMD and not my comp. It also said that there were one or more memory map were aligned in a way that could not be processed.