friend's computer is having probs, and ideas?

Pwolf · Post by **Pwolf** » Mon May 24, 2004 4:14 am

Hey, my friend is having some probs with his computer. He just got a new harddrive a few days ago and installed it. He was moving files and he was getting read errors. Later, opening or closing folder's on his other drive was causing the system to freeze. THEN, one of his drives started to get really wierd. He tried using scandisk/checkdisk to see if something was wrong, but it just froze. also fdisk didn't work and he can't formate it. so he bought another harddrive. he decided to install XP pro on his new drive and durring install it freezes. here are the specs i can remember:

P4 2.5ghz
Gigabyte 8PE667 Ultra
2 PC2700 DDR ram sticks (don't remember what they are)
4 HDD (1 80gb, 3 120gb)
DVD-RW
CD-RW.
Radeon 9600

At first we thought it could be the power suply. it's only 320w i think. so he ordered a new one (still waiting for it). earlier today (or yesterday) he took his bro's psu and tried it, still not working. while he was installing XP pro he only had the one drive attached. so i think the PSU was rulled out. Any ideas? tomorrow he is going to take his ram and try them out using a ram checker but if that doesn't provide any results, then what else can we try?

Pwolf

madmallard · Post by **madmallard** » Wed May 26, 2004 7:59 pm

if its the ram, then a program called Memtest 86 should help you find it. Simple, neat, relatively fast and thorough.

You're pretty much doing all you can at this point; eliminating variables. If the ram's okay, and you can only get it to happen when accessing one drive, i'd start swapping drive channels to see if its the drive or the controller chipset.

Pwolf · Post by **Pwolf** » Wed May 26, 2004 8:36 pm

i think we narrowed it down the the chipset. the chipset fan wasn't running as fast as it should've so we think it fried or something. My friend is looking into a new motherboard right now.

Pwolf

klinky · Post by **klinky** » Thu May 27, 2004 3:52 am

Couldn't possibly be a hard drive going out at all? Possibly??? Maybe??

Enable SMART in the BIOS and see if it detects any errors. Try a different hard drive and see if the problem goes away...

klinky · Post by **klinky** » Thu May 27, 2004 3:53 am

whoops, you got a new hard drive... DIDN'T SEE THAT >_> <_<

Well motherboard is a possibility, he could get a ATA controller card @ the store and try that out. Might help. Other than that RMA the motherboard :\

Pwolf · Post by **Pwolf** » Thu May 27, 2004 4:00 am

yea, one of his drives died. he took that to a harddrive tester and... yea, it's scrap. so far everythign has been ruled out. so it seems the motherboard is to blame. as to how it happen, i'm not sure. I think that the powersupply couldn't power the motherboard and the fans enough and caused something to fry. He has a 350w ps btw.

Pwolf

klinky · Post by **klinky** » Fri May 28, 2004 4:27 am

What brand of PS?

Pwolf · Post by **Pwolf** » Fri May 28, 2004 4:28 am

klinky wrote:What brand of PS?

i don't know. I think it came with his case, so i would assume it's a generic brand...

Pwolf