Dead PC - advice please !

HI All Apologies in advance for any funnies with the format of this posting, my copy of 'agent' is on my main PC, which is 'a bit broken'

Main PC is an I-friend (from CPC). It's been on&off reliable over the past 2 years - spec is Celeron

1.7ghz, micro-atx, motherboard spec VIA P4M266A + 8235. On Saturday night the PC was left on standby - on Sunday AM the PC was sat with both front panel lights 'on' (HDD & ?power?) but completely unresponsive to power switches, keyboards, mice etc...

Removing power & reapplying didn't result in any further activity, no disks spinning up, no beeps, no POST.

It appears that i-friend have disappeared - sent them a couple of emails but no response so far....

Had a look inside (my PC-assembling expertise ended at the '486 stage!)

- found that one of the PSU fans was jammed stationary - so located a new PSU, ordered & fitted it, and same 'dead' symptoms still apply.....

So - suggestions as to a 'next step', please ?....

Can't seem to find a replacement Celeron 1.7ghz anywhere - can anybody recommend a good, cheapish, motherboard / cpu bundle. Application is just email, web, bit of paintshop pro, web authoring - nothing all that fancy.....

Alternatively - and looking at the cost-effectiveness of the whole thing

- any suggestions for a complete replacement system unit.....?

Many thanks in advance

Adrian Suffolk UK

Reply to
Adrian
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So do you have green Chinese capacitors on this motherboard? See swollen or burst capacitors?

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gb

Reply to
g. beat

HI GB

Thanks for the suggestion - but all the caps on this board are black rather than green, no signs of anything out of the ordinary there....

Thanks all the same Adrian

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Reply to
Adrian

Yes - +12v and +5v present and correct. They were actually there with the original PSU - but I guessed (wrongly) that the seized fan in the original PSU might be causing a problem..

Regards Adrian

Reply to
Adrian

Have you tried basic troubleshooting like removing all the drives and cards and reseating the memory then powering it up? If that doesn't work, remove everything except the processor and power it up. It should give you some beep codes (memory or video) if the board and processor are working.

- Mike

Reply to
Michael Kennedy

Yup - tried all that.... no change to the reported symptoms.

I've just ordered a 'drop in' motherboard bundle - let's hope that fixes it (after all - there's not much else to go wrong !)

Thanks Adrian

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Reply to
Adrian

I had a dead computer donated recently that had a bad momentary switch. Gateway had used some strange type of black glue to hold it to the front of the cabinet, and it had softened up to the point it would slide back in its mount instead of letting the plunger move. A quick cleaning and some decent glue, and it works OK.

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Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

Nice one ! Nothing quite so 'simple' in this case - unless you count motherboard replacment as 'simple'. Guess it's simple - but not inexpensive....

Ah well - wait for the nice parcel delivery man later today...

Regards Adrian

Reply to
Adrian

Not inexpensive? Really? I would have thought you could buy an old celeron board capable of supporting a 1.7ghz for $20 or less.. I personally would use this as an opportunity to upgrade the motherboard and cpu.. Celerons aren't exactly the best cpus out there. They're actually second rate pentiums.

Comparison between Celeron, (1.7ghz) and Pentium 4, (1.7ghz) .

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Athlons and Pentiums have almost equilivent peformance and usually AMD processors are cheaper than Intel's.

You can buy an AMD Athlon 2200 with motherboard, built in video, sound and cpu fan for $56.99 after the rebate.($76.99 before rebate) It is a far superior processor to the celeron 1.7ghz.

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I would consider returning the motherboard that you purchased if it cost more than $50.

Hope that helps..

- Mike

Reply to
Michael Kennedy

Actually, with that Gateway case replacing the motherboard would have taken less time. I just wanted to point out the fact that there are a lot of odd failures that can be overlooked. I repair a lot of stuff that the local computer stores toss out just to keep my skills sharp. I spent years troubleshooting complex and expensive SMD PC boards on a production line under a stereo microscope.

--
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Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

Been there - done that ! Fun, eh ??

Anyway - good news - got the nedw kit. Bad news - (as I think somebody on here predicted) WinXP doesn't like new motherboards. Have tried the 'restore' cd that came with the original PC - and, fater lots of pretending to install windows it ends up with a Blue Screen - a a 'stop error' - STOP 0x00000024 and NTFS.sys reported error.

So - I guess I need to buy a new copy of XP ??

My wife's already asked 'How much cheaper would it have been to buy a complete new PC ?' Good question

Bl++dy XP, rotten Microsoft, bother said Pooh !

Thanks for any suggestions Adrian Suffolk UK

Reply to
Adrian

I've got the solution for you on the new xp!!! Don't buy a new cd yet!

You need to get to the recovery console, it looks and works much like dos. You then need to copy from C:\WINDOWS\repair\SAM (Note: SAM is the filename) to C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\ and Copy C:\WINDOWS\repair\system (Note: system is the filename) to C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\

If I remember right these are the only 2 files you need to copy over to change a motherboard out. I did this the last time I ugraded so I didn't have to re-install everything on my computer. When windows booted up the first time it just said found new hardware for all of the new devices that my motherboard had that the old one didn't.

Hope that helps some.. If you don't understand how to use DOS then you should probably just put the hdd in a working computer to copy the files in windows.

- Mike

Reply to
Michael Kennedy

HI Mike

Thanks for the suggestion. We're of today for a family party at the other end of the country - so I shall not get another chance to look at the PC until Tuesday. Good thing too - need a break !

I'll try what you suggested - probably best to transplant the disk into another PC temporarily , at least I can see what sort of wreckage is left on there !

Out of sheer stubbornness I tried two other clean formatted hard drives with the new motherboard last night. Both of them appeared to go though an XP install - but both eventually locked up, a reboot or two after the bit where you input your serial number. I'm using the serial key that came with the original PC (on the holo label on the case) - all very odd.

I'm tempted to reformat one of the hard disks and then try puttins a copy of win98 onto it - just to 'prove' to myself that the hardware will coexist together.... - getting desperate or what ??

It's all very frustrating. I think this is only the 2nd time I've had to do an install of XP - other time was on a friend's laptop (using the 'demo' cd purchased on ebay) - and that simply installed without so much as a hiccup - I was well impressed.

Have just powerd up the PC this morning for one last try before hitting the road, and it's booted from the hard drive, and is currently at the 'Setup will complete in approximately 35 minutes' stage - the 'traffic lights' say that it's done 'Collecting information', and 'dynamic update' and 'preparing installation' and is now 'installing windows'.There was some activity for a couple of minutes - installing devices, I think'

The pesky thing has just hit a Blue Screen and the error message "A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer. If this is the frst time you've seen this stop error screen, restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps. Disable or uninstall any anti-virus, disk defragmentation or backup utilities. Check your had drive configuration and check for any updated drivers. Run CHKDSK /F to check for hard drive corruption and then restart your computer.

Technical info

***Stop: 0x000000024 (and some more hex groups) **Ntfs.sys - Address F770B59D base at F76E8000, Datestamp 3d6de5c! Beginning dump of physical memory Physical memory dump complete Contract your system administrator or technical support group for assistance"

This was after an install on what I believed to be a clean hard disk, which the install then formatted, with the CD from ebay which previously installed without problems on my friend's laptop.....

Rebooting after the error message took me back to the Windows setup process, same as before - claiming that setup will complete in 39 minutes.

It then goes through the setup again and gets as far as 26 minutes to go

- and "Performing configuration" before blue-screening again - this time with a 8E error - suggests I should disable BIOS memory options...

Ah well - time to hit the road - I'll be back after the weekend and will check this thread to see if there might be any 'magic' solutions !

Many thanks in advance to all

Adrian Suffolk UK

Michael Kennedy wrote:

Reply to
Adrian

Well did you attempt to reinstall windows xp over your original hard drive? I don't know if my suggestion will work unless the original windows installation is intact on the hdd.. If it isn't I can only speculate on how to go about this. One guess might be for me to send you the SAM and system files to put on your computer, but I'm not really sure if that will work on the setup program since they can customize it to install certain drivers for the original equipment.

- Mike

Reply to
Michael Kennedy

HI Mike Tried that yesterday - can't quite remember the result - it all got a bit confused

Got to rush now - will look at your solution again when i get back

Many thanks Adrian

Michael Kennedy wrote:

Reply to
Adrian

Final update on the 'dead PC' saga....

Summary - it's fixed - but at a cost

Details - Failure of XP to install was apparently due to a dodgy RAM stick that came as part of the motherboard bundle - had the effect of causing random 'Blue Screens' with seemingly unrelated error messages- not good news. Tech Support at the supplier didn't seem all that surprised when I told them about the RAM - have returned it to them. Finally managed to get XP installed (on a blank HDD) by swapping in some 'spare' RAM from the old 'dead' machine. Putting the new RAM back after install caused spontaneous 'dead stop - reboot' situations....

The cost ? Well - there's the new motherboard bundle - but I guess I was long overdue for that. Literally hours of time spent banging my head against the 'why-the-hell-wont-it-install' brick wall.

Oh - and the other thing - somewhere in the reinstall process Win XP decided to vape all of my stored email...... ah well, I guess that's progress !

Many thanks to everybody who assisted on this thread !

Adrian Suffolk UK

Reply to
Adrian

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