ABIT fixed, but all new data integrity problems???

[CMB]

Incidently...
i tried Supreme snowboarding to sooth my nerves.. and it crashed out grrrrrr

seems my game playing wasnt as assured as i thought.

dodgy processor?

[Mellow_Dude]

Hey CMB,

If your cpu is only 4 months old it should get replaced under warrenty. The company you got the system from needs to fix this problem or replace the system.

It's like if you buy a car and it blows the cam belt after 4 months and stuffs the motor then the manufacturer is obliged to replace and repair.

If it were me I think I would demand a refund and look for a system elsewhere.

However, they should atleast give you another processor to try or give you a refund for your old processor. If they dispute that the CPU is faulty then they shouldn't complain about getting it back. After all they might just sell it to someone else. They would probably want to fit it themselves though.

Here in NZ a service tech would probably come to the house to do it just to protect the companys image.

Good luck anyway. It will be interesting to see if the CPU is actually the prob.

I don't know for sure if the CPU is the prob but your symptoms are so similar its uncanny.

[CMB]

Hey Mellow_Dude
The system its self is about 2 years old
and I bought the CPU to upgrade from a Pentium 2 300

Things sure sound better in newzealand customer service wise. Here, ive been told this shop will take it in. look at it for a few days then tell me its fine and IM doing something wrong? And thats from an ex-employee. Granted it might be slightly biased but it still makes me wary. plus i dont think they make P3 450 anymore, so i dont know what they're likely to swap it with. Also i have to go through the hassle of carting my tower into town and i dont have the time right now.. all my free time is like before 8am and after 10pm on a night. I was planning to upgrade to a 600 when they were a little cheaper.. just looks like im gonna do it earlier now.

The symptoms i am experiencing do sound uncannily like yours. But the nature of them means that if i took it in for testing. the testiung person would only experience some of them in the limited time he/she tested it if you know what i mean. I really really do hope that this fixes it because i dont know what to do otherwise.

What else could it be now?

[Alf]

When CPU is overclocked too high, defrag and scandisk are the first ones crying. Try lowering your FSB and see if the errors in scandisk disappear.

cheers,

Tomi

[Mellow_Dude]

Good Luck is the only thing I have to offer now.

Even if the P3 450's are obsolete then the Intel distributor should give you a refund of some sort to reduce the cost of the P3 600 you want. In NZ it was the Intel distributor who gave me a refund and not the dealer I got the system from. The dealer simply got the faulty CPU checked for me. They did however loan me a laptop for the 2 weeks it took to get a response from the Intel distributor (Again good service!).

Anyway, Once I fitted the replacement PII 300 SL2YK @450 (Needed to increase the core voltage to 2.2)every problem went away. I havn't had any other prob's since and hope it stay's that way.

By the way.

Remember that your P3 600 only costs you 319 pound but would cost me over $1000.00 in NZ. A G400 Max retails here for $599.00 aswell.

Although we have good service we also have very high prices compared to other countries.

Success soon should be your reward for outstanding patience.

[CMB]

Alf,Interesting... i'll try lowering my FSB and see if that helps.. what about lowering the voltage too? would that help.
Also i am currently running at 100. you did know that right? i cant do any more damage i guess or make things worse..

Perhaps me overclocking to 112 FSB and in combination with my PC not starting due to it being improperly seated has fried some aspect of it grrrrrrrr

every shop i try or online order service doesnt have any P3's they are all expecting them in :O(
Memory warehouse had a P3 500 for £270?????
they said it was due to be in a system but "crackle crackle crackle" thats why the price is so high

(my mobile freaked out ok :O)

ive to try again tomorrow though for a more reasonable price and range of chips :O)

do you reccomend contacting Intel UK???
and describing the problem??? or will they just say ive bust it my self. (not that ill mention overclocking of course)

[bongo]

First off i am not even sure how to look up if a HDD is master or slave
or whatever, but here are the following details:

I have a Abit BE6 m/b, P3-500cpu, WIn98 SE, a MAXTOR 9-1366U4, Seagate
UDMA33 9GB HDD, Highpoint HPT366 ultra66 drivers.

WHen I boot up I get the following: Primary Master: ST39140a, P Slave:
None, Secondary Master: Pioneer DVD, Sec Slave: None.

I also have a pnp Adaptec ISA SCSI card attached to my CD writer

The Highpoint Bootup screen pops up and shows the MAxtor 13 gig hardrive
at location C:

Then a further Boot sequence info screen says:
Primary Master: LBA, UDMA33, 9115mb
Primary Slave : none
Secondary Master: CDROM, UDMA33
Secondary Slave: none
(the Abit Bios seems to be detecting the ATA 66 hdds Ultra33 even
though it is in the ATA 66 port)

So, How do I change the ABIT to detect the Maxtor as Ultra66 AND

How do I put the Maxtor on IDE1, is there cable tearing involved (ie, do I need to open the box)

thanks

[CMB]

Hi...
The simplest way to make your maxtor the boot disc is to open the case and swap the connecting leads round on your hard drives.
So your maxtor would be the primary and the other the primary on the hoghpoint.

Or, i cant quite remember if this will work cos you have a drive on IDE 1 but you can try

Go into the bios and change the boot sequence to A,EXT,C then change the External option to mean UDMA then when you boot up, it should make the maxtor on the hiighpoint controllers your C: drive

Also an update regarding my own problem...

I have been for 2 days now running fairly trouble free. no scandisk or registory errors. and UT works fine. Only problem being that after an hour of it it freezes but a reboot fixes it. How did i acomplish this? I overclocked my FSB to 110 to run at just under 500mhz ??? i didnt know wht it made a differnce but it seemed to. Earlier tonight i went in the case to tidy some cables up. and i discovered that when checking my CPU was in correctly i had forgotten to reconnect the fan to the motherboard.. so i reconnected it. booted up and within the hour i had scandisk and registry problems.... i reboot try UT and it fails BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH..

I switch off, open the case.. disconnect fan. And EVOILA.. running fine..

The support brackets for the processor i got with the motherboard are different with this abit. I can only assume they dont hold it as securly as my previous ones and vibraton from the fan is causing trouble... So now my only problem is the locking up of UT after about an Hour.. i assume its heat since theres no fan on the CPU and its about 10 degress higher then with the fan.. so I have now reduced the voltage from 2.3 to 2.00 and all seems fine so far.

allthough i did like the idea of a p3 600 this way i get to save £300 and go to Amsterdamn next month :O)

ALSO on a totally unrelated note. YOU MUST PLAY RESIDENT EVIL: CODE VERONICA on DREAMCAST. Its stunning, and the graphics are astounding... oh and anyone played NBA LIVE I put on a demo yesterday and the graphics are stunning not just the models and textures but the animation of the players in the warm up before a game is breathtaking :O)
oopss better stop now.. we'll get this bumped to MATROX GAMES

BWAA HAA HAA

[CMB]

Just an update really.
I booted upi yesterday and my pc was all crappy again. booting problems and all

After thinking about it all week i decided to shop round for a new P3

all the online places i tried are all expecting orders. and the latest news on them all was Intel's P3 shortage which will continue through march, driving prices up and availability down.

I was disheartend. but happend to try Memory warehouse in my town centre (Hull)

They did indeed have in 1 P3 500 left.
so after pleading for a lift there i went and purchased it. a P3 500 with heatsink and cooler for £217 something.

i had problems at first. but they seem to be less and less and without wanting to tempt fate its looking promising.

only strange thing is when i booted up this morning my Bios had forgotten everything. suspecting the battery. I set it all again then powered down. tried it a few minute slater and all was fine still.. weired??

now im just wondering which slot to put my RRG in as my free ones. PCI4/PCI3/PCI1 all share either IRQ's Bus master signals or other things unknown with something else...

but once again thank you all for your help and wisdom. its really helped me through and im sure it will again..

Thank you all!
CMB

[HollyBerri]

What I'm wondering is: does this lead anyone else with more experience than I have to wonder about the quality of power coming from the outlet?

I'm feeling intuitively that this could indicate a fluctuating power source, either the wiring or the p/s.

Could CMB possibly need a line conditioner?

Just a concept....

---------------------------
Holly

[CMB]

hey my power supply has always reained the same
250 watt
i guess you could be right its about 2 years old... but would this explain why things are ok now??

incidently when i push cap lock on my keyboard i get a buzzing sound from my pc. whats that all about???

[Bixler]

CMB:

Holly's talking about a unit that smooths out the power before your internal p/s gets it. If you are getting voltage spikes from your mains, it could be the root cause of many of the problems you are experiencing.

Do your overhead lights dim occasionally?

Are you living near any heavy industry?

Do you have any major power sucking appliances like a big A/C or heating unit?

If you live in an apartment, any of your neighbors could be causing some of these problems.

Don't KNOW whether this could cause your various failures, but it would be worth checking out.

[CMB]

aha i see
ummm well everything seems fine now.
i there is a factory nearby
but im more concerned that i run everything from a 6 way adapter thing. it has voltage protection and everythinin it
it cost me £30

[Bixler]

Do something NOW about the supply. Garbage in, garbage out.

Get your Computer on its own line!

Or at least, try a connector to the mains that can't be 'pulled down' by the startup of another load on the same connector!!!!

(and don't worry too much about the necessary excuses to upgrade...we've all done that. )

Way to go HOLLY!!!

[This message has been edited by Bixler (edited 15 February 2000).]

[HollyBerri]

Thanks, Tim!!!

But let me see if I can explain this more clearly for CMB...garbage in, garbage out isn't much help to someone new to the innards of his/her PC ...

Look at it this way, CMB... you know how in the summer your city or neighborhood gets brownouts or blackouts because so many people are running their airconditioners & fans?

If you think about it, what that means is: too much power being used and the lights don't work right (even though there's nothing wrong with the lights, per se).

Well, too much power being used in your house or neighborhood, and your PC doesn't work right (though there may be nothing wrong with the PC... but we'll get to that).

The electric co. sends a certain amount of power to your district, which will be shared among all the electricity-using homes and businesses in the district. Your area may get a bit more due to that factory, but let's face it, there's only so much electricity being produced in the first place, so there is a ceiling on it.

So the first drain is going to be that factory, which probably has times that it is using less power and times that it is using more, depending on what machinery they use, or their production cycle or whatever. So your house probably is not getting a steady supply of electricity in the first place.

Perhaps lights and such are not so sensitive that it's noticeable... but a PC definitely is.

Then we have your house itself. You probably know that your fuse box (or the house mains, or whatever you call them) are split into sections of the house... you may even have them labelled. If you don't it's not a bad idea to do so.

But let us say that you have a main with 4 switches, in a one storey house, with 2 bedrooms, a bathroom, kitchen and living room. If you go around turning off each switch in turn, and seeing what turns off in the house, you might find:

• Switch #1 controls the lights in the kitchen and hallway, the outlet in the hallway, and 2 of the outlets in the kitchen but not the one the refrigerator is plugged into.
• Switch #2 controls outlets and lights in the living room and Master bedroom.
• Switch #3 controls outlets and lights in the 2nd bedroom and the outlet in the bathroom, but not the lights in the bathroom;
• Switch #4 controls the outside (porch) light and outlet, the outlet in the kitchen the refrigerator is plugged into, and the lights in the bathroom.

I just made that up of course, but electrical wiring tends to be just that mixed up, in an effort to balance the load on the system at all times.

Now you plug in your PC, to the one outlet in your room, with the 6 way adapter.

So now this house main, controlled by Switch #3 has to use its portion of the house power to power up:[list=1][*] Your room lights;[*] Your PC p/s;[*] Your printer;[*] Your monitor;[*] Your speakers, probably;[*] Your desk lamp;[*] Your clock-radio.[/list=a]

And don't forget, this is not even a steady stream coming into the house mains in the first place.

Still... your line might be able to handle this fairly well... till someone plugs in a hairdryer in the bathroom (which is on the same line).

Now you might not blow a fuse, but everything is going to get less power than it wants at this moment.

And if you're trying to save a file, or read your HDD, having less power than your PC wants or needs is very bad.

Your data might be OK (or it might not). But even if it's OK now, it won't stay that way for long if you don't make some changes to assure yourself that the PC is getting as much power as it needs at all times.

• Do find out what other power-using devices share the line with your PC.
• Try to move those other devices off the line, or move your PC to a line that has fewer devices on it.
• If the problem is the fluctuation to the house mains from the factory, then a line conditioner is in order (which I believe is a different item than a surge supressor). Someone else might know if a UPS or a larger p/s for your PC would help as well/instead.

Spikes and surges could also be the cause of failed mobo components, and might very well trash your PC's p/s over time (power supplies don't like making those kinds of adjustments a lot, and will burn out). So it's definitely something to move to the top of the 'to do' list.

Good luck!

---------------------
Holly