Help please, bsod, crashing problems

K

k4p84

New member
Hey all,

Trying to fix my housemates pc.

Firstly its AMD based and i am an Intel lad so excuse my ignorance.

This pc has always been problematic but had been stable for nearly a year.

It had a known motherboard issue, only one dimm worked.

The pc would not boot so we presumed the MB had finally given up the ghost.

Got a replacement MB from here courtesy of SimonD.

Now we are still not getting boot into Windows.

I have swapped out the PSU, HDD, DVD Drive since i have some of those spare.

I can swap out the GFX but that would require dismantling my SLI rig .

I am currently installing a fresh copy of XP using my pc to make sure his drives have not been corrupted.

Presuming that the MB i got from here is A1 stable that leaves the CPU and RAM.

I can get into bios fine and the temperatures all seem ok.

I have it out in a benching config atm with 8 fans blowing from all angles to be sure.

I am wondering if the CPU is poorly seated, i had a similar issue myself but that was with the new Intel socket, aka pinless CPU but pinned socket, if you catch my drift.

specs that i know.

AMD CPU 2.2ghz

Asus A8N32-sli

256 Kingston ram

Nvidia 7800GTX

All help is greatly appreciated

ED
 
I am doing a fresh install of windows on one of my spare hdd atm to see if the old install on his drive is corrupted since it has crashed soooo much

ED
 
Save all the personal crap and do a fresh install.

Think we've all been here. U might get it working `somehow` and be walking on eggshells from that point onwards.
 
Did you reinstall on the HDD using your Intel board and then swap the drive over to the ASUS A8N32?

Whenever I've swapped a drive onto another mobo, I've made sure to update the SATA drivers for the mobo / HDD.

Of course, you've most likely done this when setting up the new mobo?
 
ok update.

done the fresh install using my pc.

i borrowed some ddr ram and popped that in. same issues, the rig crashes out just prior to boot.

there is no guarantee this ram is any good, though i have 10 sticks to try out!

i'm going to reset cmos now.

i dont want to go near bios flashing since i have no stability.

i'm starting to suspect the cpu. though i would have thought that a cpu fault would stop posting regardless.

any more ideas??

ED
 
Ur right, flashing the thing would be dangerous.

I'd be tempted to run a dos based test like memtest for a few passes to be sure both the cpu and memory are ok.

Minimalize the components u have plugged in would be best, mobo/cpu/gfx/1 stick memory - no drives or anything else. Once that works in memtest, try 2 sticks.

If u get errors, try a different slot.
 
I was planning on stripping kit off it and running ye old tests.

I know i made a memtest cd somewhere.

I do believe this requires hunting through the rather large cd wallet after work today.

BLOODY COMPUTERS!!

ED
 
Computers suck big time.

It's all a con at the end of the day.

In all honesty, u should buy the components and the manufacturers should pay U to put it together :p Including tech support rates if there's issues.
 
Ok

I can no find anything wrong with the hardware!

Ram passed 8 hours of memtest and the HDD passed all Western Digital diagnostics with flying colours.

The only things i can not replace are the GFX and CPU.

The psu i am using does not have the 8pin plug needed to pop in and use one of my GTX 280's. Though i have done it before using the pin layout and lose wires. Worked a treat actually :), but anyway..

I have no access to another socket 939 CPU. Would i not be correct in thinking that if the CPU had failed i would be getting nowhere at all?

The bios speaker is giving me one beep, aka boot fine, too.

Now can we try and explain this.

I have tried to install XP. I get through the first stage fine. ie the blue screens, loading basic drivers etc.

Then the pc will reboot as it is supposed to do.

Upon reboot we see the XP logo etc. Now we have the actual installation of XP. About a minute in the pc will always crash, same time frame every time.

What can we conclude from this?

ED
 
You don't say whether you've loaded the SATA driver for this mobo before trying to install XP? If this mobo has never had XP used on it with a SATA drive, XP doesn't install without the SATA drivers being installed first (in my experience)

If the HDD is SATA and you're doing a fresh install of xp, during the initial XP setup it asks if you need to load sata drivers and if yes to press F6. You need to do this before you install xp. (and have the drivers ready)

NB. SATA drivers are still needed even if you're not using a RAID setup.

You use a floppy to load the drivers you've downloaded from ASUS via the download link in the weblink in your earlier post (unless they're on the mobo driver CD, but save/extract the driver onto a floppy so you can keep the XP DVD loaded).
 
IDE HDD ideas

Have you loaded the BIOS setup defaults?

What are the settings detected in the bios for the IDE?

- Primary IDE master with DMA and SMART enabled or set to Auto?

- (and jumper on the HDD set back to master, well it was used in another PC!)

Are you installing XP on a 'primary' or 'logical' partition and have any other OSs been installed on the drive?

Another option (with care) is you could try FIXMBR from the recovery console using the XP disk, possible issue if this drive's been used as a slave in another PC with another drive/OS

Finally, can you expand on what you've connected to the 4pin EATX12V and 24 pin EATXPWR power connectors if your PSU doesn't have both as you mentioned this in an earlier post?
 
Hi all,

Firstly thank you very much to all those who have given there time to trying to solve this problem.

I have now got it sorted.

It is a motherboard issue, though one i did not think could exist!

It will not work with Windows XP, period. I have installed Vista and it works fine.

Very disappointed in this Asus product. They have stopped all support and updates for it since it has so many issues.

If you care to read further into this hear is a link to the Asus Forum where it is discussed a little further:

http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?id=20080510114803593&board_id=1&model=A8N32-SLI+Deluxe&page=1&SLanguage=en-us

Thanks again

ED
 
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