Now heres a hardware puzzle

[madman045]

Ok, built a pc for a customer, they have the problem where by the pc keeps randomly rebooting on them.

Spec

XP3200
Gigabyte GA-7VT600 1394 x2 (RMA'd the 1st one)
Currently has a GA-7VT880-L in it
1GB PC3200 (2x 512mb)
1 40gb maxtor 7200 ide
1 80gb maxtor 7200 ide
1 liteon dvd-rw
1 Zip 250 internal drive
1 floppy
Nvidia FX5700LE 256mb
Creative SB Live 5.1 Digital (also tried the onboard sound)
Tried a none branded 400w & 550w psu

Also this is the 2nd CPU & the ram has also been replaced

As I could not pin point the problem exactly, thought it was heat as its at 50c idle & 62c full load, tried two different heatsinks including the new Gigabyte 3d cooler.

stuck a new 40gb drive it & tried to install a fresh copy of windows 2000, setup hangs on "setup is detecting your hardware"

powered it off, powered it on, got 5 short alarm beeps & the pc switched off, disconnected the power, set the fsb jumper to 100mhz, powered the pc on, went into the bios, loaded optimized defaults, saved & pc rebooted.

powered the pc off, set jumper to auto, powered pc on & its now back to a 3200.

Tried loading 2k again, got further again, setup started to load files from the cd & stopped part way through.

Ive tried it with just one ide drive, dvd drive & floppy drive plugged in, still the same issue.

Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions before i end up RMA'ing the lot & suggesting a P4 system?

thanks

[yamangman]

Make sure you have unchecked the box 'Automatically Restart' in the system failure panel in advanced... startup and recovery settings on the System Properties app (right click My Computer... properties... advanced... startup and recovery setiings...).

[madman045]

Make sure you have unchecked the box 'Automatically Restart' in the system failure panel in advanced... startup and recovery settings on the System Properties app (right click My Computer... properties... advanced... startup and recovery setiings...).

Too late for that now, cant even get into windows at all....

[catattack]

Try resetting bios?... If you can get into bios, reboot from windows cd and repair, maybe reformat.

[invalidpagefaul]

Have you tried installing at a lower FSB,despite what some motherboard manufacturers claim 200FSB can still stress a system?I have had two separate systems refuse an install an OS because either the memory and/or motherboard refused to run at 200fsb stable enough to allow the OS to install without corruption of some kind.If you can,try going down to 166fsb and attempt your OS install.

[madman045]

Have you tried installing at a lower FSB,despite what some motherboard manufacturers claim 200FSB can still stress a system?I have had two separate systems refuse an install an OS because either the memory and/or motherboard refused to run at 200fsb stable enough to allow the OS to install without corruption of some kind.If you can,try going down to 166fsb and attempt your OS install.

Tried that & it still failed, managed to get windows installed with 1 stick of ram, 100fsb & all onboard devices that could be disabled, was.

Also removed the creative card & used onboard sound.

installed windows ok, installed the motherboard drivers ok, shutdown the pc.

Up'd the fsb back to 200, windows is ok, loaded all the devices one by one rebooting windows after each one ok.

shutdown the pc, put the 2nd stick in for dual channel, pc reboots itself while loading windows, also checked in the bios & its idling at 68c!

dropped the voltage from 1.65v (default) to 1.55v

Windows still will not load, moved the 2nd stick into slot 1, windows now loads in single channel.

shutdown the pc, added their old 80gb drive, windows loaded fine, tried to install the nvidia drivers & the pc hangs, checked the cpu & it was at 72c load at stock volts, 65c at 1.55v

tried running passmark burn in software, its ok until the sound test & i get a blue screen for swmidi.dll, now this is for the onboard sound & alternative drivers is looking unlikely.

anyone got any ideas, seems the xp3000 & xp3200s run v hot.

[mike_w]

Tried Memtest? Sure that the heatsink is on properly?

[ed^chigliak]

Read a thread here exactly like this a few weeks back... CPU always ran hot no matter what cooler was installed. It turned out to be a faulty motherboard.

[ultimate]

Have you tried installing at a lower FSB,despite what some motherboard manufacturers claim 200FSB can still stress a system?I have had two separate systems refuse an install an OS because either the memory and/or motherboard refused to run at 200fsb stable enough to allow the OS to install without corruption of some kind.If you can,try going down to 166fsb and attempt your OS install.

As I had a similar prob but on a very low spec machine i.e. amd k6/500 and I was convinced it was the M/board until I saw your advice here, so I lowered the cpu down to 450mhz just on the chance and viola!! it worked.

So thanks for your advice mate

[invalidpagefaul]

Tried that & it still failed, managed to get windows installed with 1 stick of ram, 100fsb & all onboard devices that could be disabled, was.

Also removed the creative card & used onboard sound.

installed windows ok, installed the motherboard drivers ok, shutdown the pc.

Up'd the fsb back to 200, windows is ok, loaded all the devices one by one rebooting windows after each one ok.

shutdown the pc, put the 2nd stick in for dual channel, pc reboots itself while loading windows, also checked in the bios & its idling at 68c!

dropped the voltage from 1.65v (default) to 1.55v

Windows still will not load, moved the 2nd stick into slot 1, windows now loads in single channel.

shutdown the pc, added their old 80gb drive, windows loaded fine, tried to install the nvidia drivers & the pc hangs, checked the cpu & it was at 72c load at stock volts, 65c at 1.55v

tried running passmark burn in software, its ok until the sound test & i get a blue screen for swmidi.dll, now this is for the onboard sound & alternative drivers is looking unlikely.

anyone got any ideas, seems the xp3000 & xp3200s run v hot.

It's a strange prob,i have a unlocked 2800 barton @3200 speeds and above with stock volts and it sits at less than 40c depending on how much i turn the wind up on this coolmaster leaf blower.Have you managed to boot completely into a winxp front end totally stable with the CPU speed lowered?If you have then the CPU is at fault.If the memory was borked winxp would blue screen you even if you dropped the FSB down to 166 as it's mega sensitive to bad ram.However have you tried slacking the timings on the ram?

All in all the CPU is running way to hot,it's either poor cooling or a dodgy chip.Perhaps a remarked chip.

I hope you get it sorted,i know the feeling of a basket machine from hell and a customer giving you that look.