Re: What on earth is happening - long
From: Richard Dower (richarddower_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 09/25/04
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Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 02:40:17 +0100
5 tests?....the extended test runs for 6-8 hours.
"Tim" <Tim@NoSpam.com> wrote in message news:cj2a8q$aq8$1@lust.ihug.co.nz...
> Step 1.
>
> Get memtest86 and run it using extended tests for a minimum of 5 full
> cycles. If you get 1 error then no OS will run correctly - your memory
> configuration will need sorting out before you can progress. Report Back.
> Note what the web sites says about test#5.
>
> - Tim
>
>
> "Louie" <me@privacy.net> wrote in message
> news:1096049131.9qHx5AW8dqQssoPr8/rXCA@teranews...
>> Please help me from tearing out what is left of my hair! :-)
>>
>> About 22 months ago, I bought what I thought was a nice Gigabyte m/board,
>> (GA-7VAXP) a
>> 2100 Athlon, 60 gig Maxtor drive and set it all up under 98se.
>> I had quite a few problems (very often with Outlook Express), but
>> also strange things like losing the HDD, then it would be recognised
>> soon after, and any number of system lockups.
>>
>> Anyway, after getting fed up with all this, I decided to migrate to
>> XP Pro. This was been a complete nightmare. I seemed to spend more
>> time putting problems right than using the machine!
>> Setting up XP was OK at first, but when I upped the memory from
>> DDR2100 to DDR3200 it would not install unless I put the DRR2100 back
>> in.
>>
>> Using it would give me blue screens with all sorts of messages,
>> usually the dreaded DRIVERL_NOT_LESS_THAN_OR_EQUAL, and numerous
>> spontaneous reboots, usually with a split-second blue screen so I
>> could not determine the cause.
>>
>> I'd be working merrily away (again often on OE6) and the thing would
>> just reboot itself for no reason I could see, losing my work. I
>> discovered that there was a bug in one of the OE updates and managed
>> to get that dealt with for a time.
>>
>> I suspected a virus or Trojan, but this did not seem to be the case
>> as virus scans would find nothing, and anyway, I'd fdisk /mbr'ed and
>> then set up all new partitions before re-installing Win 98 and then
>> XP later on. I had all the latest bios updates and driver files
>> from the G/byte website as well as re-setting the bios before
>> updating by shorting the mobo pins as per manual.
>>
>> Thinking I may have a hardware problem (I've always suspected the
>> mobo - see later), I replaced the HDD for a new 80 gig - same
>> problems after a while.
>> Then I replaced the 256 Samsung DDR2100 with the same of Crucial
>> DDR3200.
>> All was OK for a while, but eventually the problems recurred.
>>
>> However, in general, things would last for about 2-3 weeks or so
>> before problems became so impossible that I'd have to re-install.
>> I could always tell they were on their way because, after boot-up,
>> (which would by then be taking longer and longer) the signs were -
>>
>> Despite disabling the FDD on bootup, after bootup the desktop would
>> appear and then something would try to access the floppy. There
>> would be a delay where I could do nothing (clicking an icon would
>> just cause further delay and the hourglass + a freeze-up), and then
>> there would be another few attempts to access the floppy drive.
>> Then the desktop would refresh and all would be accessible. Usually -
>> sometimes
>> everything would hang and I'd have to be patient while it did what
>> it did before I could start working on it. I ensured that there was
>> nothing whatever in the startup files or startup group.
>>
>> Sometimes the machine would refuse to boot and tell me there was a
>> problem and please start again.
>> Very often INDEED the thing would crash and ask me to report the
>> problem to Microsoft which I did. It always said that it was a
>> device driver causing the problem. However, I could not see what
>> device driver it might be.
>>
>> I began to strongly suspect Norton Systemworks and removed it, and
>> although the problems seemed to ease, they did not go away entirely.
>> Then when I was trying to set up the RAID on the G/byte board it
>> just would not work at all unless the drives were set up as ATA 133
>> drives, which XP would recognise.
>>
>> However, eventually I just could not connect to the
>> net at all using the built in LAN or with a separate NIC. I called
>> my ISP tech support people and the machine would not even see
>> 127.0.0.1, much less the LAN card, the cable modem or the router.
>> I took it to a friend's shop and we tried everything. It would not
>> connect to his ADSL line with the internal LAN, or an external card.
>> When we tried re-installing XP we just could not do a thing. It
>> blue-screened all the time.
>>
>> Unfortunately, in frustration his lad pulled every cable from the
>> mobo and tried to set it all up again on Win 98 and it would not
>> even do that. I took it back home and next day Ghosted over the
>> partition from my backup HDD.
>>
>> I tried to connect again. This time it did, both with the internal
>> NIC and with a external in a PCI slot. This of course re-installed
>> XP. It worked OK and I thought my problems were over. Ha! Never
>> count your chickens, etc ...
>>
>> The same old stuff started happening and I threw the mobo in the box,
>> chucked it on a shelf and installed an Asus board which was a piece of
>> piss to set up and I've never had a problem with anything in almost 15
>> months.
>>
>> Anyway, I then found the Gigabyte crap again and decided to return it to
>> Giga UK in Milton Keynes. I paid £18.20 for the RMA and to be fair, it
>> came back in about 5 days. From the incomprehensible paperwork sent back
>> with it it seems there was a bios data error and it looks like they
>> replaced the bios chip. However this is odd, as it is a dual bios board
>> and I'd tried booting from either bios and whatever way, it still stayed
>> knackered.
>>
>> When it was returned I sent it to my pal mentioned above and asked him to
>> try it out. He reckoned it took about 5 minutes to even recognise the
>> board on bootup and when he tried to install XP, it took 20 minutes to
>> even get to the stage when it wanted to format the drive before
>> installing Windows!
>>
>> I've asked them to take it back again and check it, but they seem
>> reluctant. Was it a waste of £90-odd at the time and are all Gigabyte
>> boards so rubbish? Any ideas?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> First setup -
>>
>> Gigabyte GA7-VAXP
>> AMD Athlon 2100
>> Samsung 256 - DDR 2100 (later changed to Crucial 256 - DDR3200)
>> Maxtor ATA133 60 gig HDD (later changed to 80 gig with 60 as backup
>> drive)
>> ATI Radeon 7000
>> Liteon DVD
>> Asus CD/RW
>> Eventually 2 x 2.1 gig Fujistu tried to set up as RAID, then ATA133
>> Macron 300w PSU (this may well not be beefy enough)
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
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