Re: Problem with Hard Drives or Motherboard?

Good result Daniel. Thanks for reporting the outcome.


--
Regards.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Daniel wrote:
Hi

Gerry, Rich, Anna, Richard,

I hope you are all checking back to this thread, you have given me a
lot of knowledge
on how to fix these issues, all of your emails are saved in my help
file, I owe you a BIG thanks, I have been able to save my Rambus PC,
it is a very good unit that out performs much later models.

I did the clean up, and made sure everything was seated properly,
then I staterd to install software, thinking everything was running
well, then on the first reboot I got a BSOD and the rebooting cycle
started again, so I switched off knowing that it would start up when
it had cooled down.
When I got home this afternoon I remembered the advice to check the
Event Log, BINGO, many errors, Disk and ATAPI, IO erors the help file
attached to the link said simply "Typically caused by faulty cables.
Remedy: Replace the cable:

So, after $350:00 two new Hard Drives, several trips to the repairer
and hours spent looking for solutions, it turns out it was a $5:00
cable, why didn't the repair guy check the event log??

The PC has been up and running for five hours, not a single error in
event log and many reboots as I load software with disdain :-).

Thanks again for your help.

regards

Daniel - Sydney


"Gerry" <gerry@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:emw6a261HHA.6128@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Daniel

I am quite sceptical about the need to replace two hard drives. I
would stay from that computer repaire in future.

Please post copies of all Error and Warning Reports appearing in the
System and Application logs in Event Viewer for the last boot. No
Information Reports please. Indicate which also appear in a previous
boot.

You can access Event Viewer by selecting Start, Control Panel,
Administrative Tools, and Event Viewer. When researching the meaning
of the error, information regarding Event ID, Source and Description
are important.

HOW TO: View and Manage Event Logs in Event Viewer in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308427/en-us

Part of the Description of the error will include a link, which you
should double click for further information. You can copy using copy
and paste. Often the link will, however, say there is no further
information.
http://go.microsoft.com/fw.link/events.asp
(Please note the hyperlink above is for illustration purposes only)

A tip for posting copies of Error Reports! Run Event Viewer and
double click on the error you want to copy. In the window, which
appears is a button resembling two pages. Click the button and close
Event Viewer.Now start your message (email) and do a paste into the
body of the message. Make sure this is the first paste after exiting
from Event Viewer.




--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Daniel - Sydney wrote:
Anna and Rich

thanks you for your comprehensive replies, I will start by cleaning
out the PC, although it get's a clean every year, and make sure
everything is seated properly, I will then have a look at the disks
in DOS, I have a basic boot disk with a lot of stuff on it including
Fdisk, if the problem comes up indicating it is hardware, I will
look at the hardware starting with the Graphics card.

Then I will look at everything else in your replies.

I'll let you know and thanks again.

regards


"Anna" wrote:


"Daniel - Sydney" <DanielSydney@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
message news:71E11327-8351-4D2E-927A-438693A96D4F@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hi

I am using XP Pro,
I have two Hard Drives, and both have been replaced because
the repair people said first that the second was gone, then when
the PC failed to boot when I got it home I was told the problem
was the first (C:) drive, which was then replaced.

The PC still boots only intermittently, going through a BOD then
reboot cycle,
if I turn it off and try again it some times boots, sometimes not.

Both new hard drives pass the Seagate DOS hard drive short and
long test, and I have tried a repair install on one of the few
occasions that the PC booted up,
that seemed to fix the problem but after my next shut down it was
back to problems.

I am now told it must be the motherboard.

How do I test the motherboard, can it be done in DOS or in the
BIOS? Any ideas on what else I should look at, this is a
brilliant 6 yr old PC with 784 Meg of Rambus, which performs as
well as my other new PC with DDR2.

All help and advice will be appreciated and followed up.

regards


Daniel:
It's a problem all right. We'll of course assume that your HDDs are
non-defective and that the OS has been properly installed. You're
certain the OS was properly installed and your HDDs (both the boot
drive *and* the secondary HDD have been properly
connected/configured, right?)

I just can't believe it's the RAM. Working with a good deal of
RDRAM over the years we've never encountered another type of RAM as
rock-stable as Rambus. I'm hard-pressed to think of a single
instance of that type of RAM becoming defective *after* an initial
successful install. It just seems to go on forever. But that's
ancient history of course since Rambus has long since left the
consumer market. Still, if it *was* defective RAM that was causing
your problem that would be the end of this story. Your only
practical alternative (it would seem to me) would be to come away
with your two new HDDs after jettisoning the rest and build
yourself or have built another machine.

Anyway...

It could be your motherboard. You say "I am now told it must be the
motherboard." Who told you this - the repair shop? If so, do you
have any idea as to whether they tested the MB? Or was this
"conversation talk"? You are, of course, dealing with a pretty old
machine. Unfortunately, the only practical way to tell if this is
so by the end-user is to replace the MB with a working one. I'm
assuming here that you previously made no hardware
changes/modifications prior to this problem arising.

It could also be a defective power supply or even a defective
graphics card. That's the problem with the kind of problem you're
describing which we're assuming is hardware-based. Any major
component in the machine could be the culprit. And once again, the
only definitive way to tell is to substitute known working ones for
potentially defective ones.

But try this in the meantime...

I assume your machine has a floppy disk drive and you have a DOS
boot disk - maybe one of the Win9x or Me startup floppy disks.
Connect only your boot drive (not your secondary HDD) and boot to
the DOS floppy disk. Also disconnect any optical drives or any
other storage devices of any kind. Play around with the FDISK
command (I assume you know your way about this) - without, of
course, actually modifying the partition on your HDD, and do this
for a while, e.g., check the partition information, etc. See if
you run into the same problem you've been having re the
rebooting/shutting down cycles. I assume the same problem will
occur. If it does, this would tend to indicate that the problem is
definitely hardware-based. It's always wise to determine this at
the outset. But, of course, you'll still have the problem of
determining which
of the PC's components is the one causing the problem. Again, I
really don't know of any practical way for the end-user to
determine this except by substituting components on a one-by-one
basis. Anna


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