hi i was gaming a bit yesterday , my pc hung so i restarted i only get a black screen and the powerlight flashing on the monitor (no bios or mobo info at all just darkness) theres a weird sound coming from either the hard drive or the mobo itself , its a strange sucking sound wich goes harder and harder till its gone after about 15 seconds , i already checked it its the cpu fan or the powersupply or the gfx card , its none of them i had this error before , it comes just out the blue last time i didnt knew what it could be either , i pulled some cables in and out again and after a few days of doing so it worked again. i tried literally everything , different monitor , different memory , different gfx card , to clean the cpu , to boot without dvd rom , dc rw rom and harddrive or floppy station attached what on earth can be the problem ? it somehow happened before , nothing appearently is damaged but i cant use my pc ( very annoying ) please help!
you tried a different motherboard Ive had a dead motherboard before now, I didnt have any funny noises, but the rest is similar to your problem.
I'm thinking Zeus hit it on the mark. If you get a different motherboard, I would do a clean install of your OS, unless you get a board with the same chipset as your current solution. Mainly because the IDE ports are different and Windows tends to throw a fit there. I personally would avoid FIC, Epox or ECS if you want a good build.
It might be the Motherboard indeed i just dont understand how its possible everything functioned after the first error
Not sure, but some blown capacitors (the cylinders on the board) can cause problems. Could be some component damage...I really can't say. A surge could've nuked the system as well. You've done a good job of eliminating possible culprits, and it does look like the board is dead. It's probably not the fix you need, but try clearing CMOS. If something was set incorrectly, especially in relation to the CPU or FSB speeds, that could cause booting problems. The sucking could be the fan on the northbridge, since mobo companies tend to go the cheap route here---this is assuming you have one however. I had a motherboard go kaput last year. Worked fine for 2 weeks, then suddenly started giving errors up the wazoo. No sign of physical damage or anything. It happens to the best of us, and sometimes the answers aren't so clear.
ok i located the sound to be coming from the VIA KT133 chip on the mobo , the thingy on it appears to be a fan , the sound is like a leak in a cycletyre , is it possible the damn thing is full with dust and therefore causing the whole shit ? im running an ms 6340 micro atx va mainboard btw
Might be for the sound. A can of air might help clear any doubt up. If the northbridge is getting too hot, that could be causing the problem. However, if it still gives you trouble after you've left it off for awhile, then I'd look at something else as the cause.
i dont know heard of systems for wich its not possible to boot up with a decent working cooling system on that chip , if this chip is somehow damaged or inactive could this cause my problem ?
Have a look at the board and see if any of the solder bits are touching the case. Sometimes they can touch the case, earth the board and the current and it will also give the exact same outcome you are getting. I know its unlikely the board moved for no reason but you never know with computers.Ive had a power lead amazingly pop off my old voodoo 5 after about 2weeks of being in place!
i tried to unscrew the mobo but i dont really understand they way they attached it to the fan.. (its my first time to do that with a mobo)
Some fans are glued onto the northbridge. I've heard of people freezing their board to get it to come off easier, but they're also trying to get the heatsink off it as well.
I'd look at replacing the motherboard at this point. I can't really think of anything else to do. It seems to be faulty---and that could be as simple as one broken trace all the way up to a dead IC or bad engineering showing through. Not my favorite thing to say, but unless you want to try and see if the BIOS chip went bad by paying for a new one (and waiting on it), I'd go out and pick up the appropriate motherboard replacement. I would suggest paying a little more for a quality brand. MSI is fairly inexpensive, as is AOpen. Both are good quality. I'd avoid ECS, FIC or Epox, since quality isn't their forte, just my personal opinion, tho.
i was already planning for renewing stuff this summer new motherboard new processor new memory and new hdd and perhaps a new gfx card cause the error my gainward gf 4 ti 4200 gives me drives me crazy money is of no importance , what would be the ideal combination if i want quality and what would be the best combination if i wanted both quality and affordibility ?
Well, what error are you getting with that Gainward card? Might be easy to fix by just changing the driver. The fastest motherboards on the Pentium 4 side are those based on the 875, or Canterwood chipset. Springdale (i865) should be released soon and is apparently just as fast as Canterwood and much cheaper. I really wouldn't get anything but an Intel chipset. Both these chipsets support dual-channel PC3200 DDR (400MHz) and the new 800MHz FSB P4's. This would mean buying 2 sticks of RAM of equal size, speed, and (preferrably) brand. On the AMD front, the king is the nForce 2, although the Via KT400A puts up a pretty good fight. The nF2 is dual-channel DDR, but it's not required for the system to work. You do want to have dual-channel DDR used if you want to make the most out of the chipset. Featurewise, you've got USB 2.0, Firewire (IEEE1394), 5.1-channel sound, and dual-NICs (optional). And the sound is one of the best solutions available. For the KT400A, it's a single channel DDR setup. While it's not able to top the nF2, it does come pretty close. I can't really tell you what's the best motherboard, but I can recommend certain brands. MSI, AOpen, and Abit are some of the less expensive brands. MSI tends to offer anywhere from 2-4 variations of the same motherboard, so you can get one with just the features you want. AOpen usually isn't too exciting, but they've got solid, stable motherboards. Abit used to not be one of my favorites, but they've cleaned up their act. If you'd like to do overclocking, Abit would be your best bet. SuperMicro and Tyan are the best you can buy, but typically don't include a lot of stuff. Additionally, SuperMicro currently only does Intel-based products (this should change with the AMD Megatron...err, Opteron). Both are known for server products, and thus overclocking isn't going to be there. However, if you want something that's nearly unkillable, these are the way to go. Asus and Gigabyte are probably the most expensive of what you'll be looking at. Gigabyte is like MSI in offering multiple variations of the same motherboard. Asus is a company that's good, but you do pay extra for the name. I can't really speak on: DFI, Soltek, Albatron (headed by former Gigabyte official), Shuttle, or Soyo. I'd keep far away from Epox, FIC and ECS. ECS is cheap, but for anything beyond a basic system for basic tasks, stay away. Epox quality control isn't all that impressive...and don't even ask about FIC---simply horrible support and even worse products. CPU: The 3GHz P4's are the king right now. The HyperThreading on them acts like an extra CPU (well, more like 1/3 extra of a CPU). For AMD, the Athlon XP 3000+ is a wee bit expensive price/performance wise, so look at something a little slower like the 2500+ or 2700+. These are based on the latest Barton core and use a 333MHz FSB unlike the those based on the older Thorougbred and Palamino cores. They also have a sweet 512kB L2 cache as opposed to a 256kB L2 cache on the T-breds and Palamino cores. Memory: If you want the best you can get, buy Corsair. Otherwise Samsung and Crucial. Don't get anything slower than PC2700 (333MHz). PC3200 (400MHz) is nice, but not necessary usually. If you plan on overclocking or getting the 800MHz FSB P4's with a Canterwood/Springdale setup, that'd be a good thing to go for. HDD. Western Digital has some 36GB SATA drives that spin at 10,000RPM and come with an 8MB cache. This is the fastest thing you can buy outside of SCSI. WD doesn't have a SCSI division anymore, so they're not endangering that market. Maxtor is also good. IBM has had problems, and after having 2 out of 3 IBM drives die on me (2 were of the 60GXP line), I find it hard to recommend them. Graphix wise, look at the ATi Radeon 9800Pro for the top performance. It's a bit faster than the 9700Pro. If you want something a little cheaper, but with at least the power of a GF4 Ti4600, get a Radeon 9500 Pro or 9600 Pro. The GeForce FX isn't something I'd even consider based on all the reviews I've seen.
Well I put this together for a friend not long ago. Hes bringing it back sometime so I can give it a hammering! but I personally think its a good setup! CPU: Intel 200mhz 3ghz HT Board: Gigabyte GA-8KNXP "Canterwood RAM: Corsair xms3200 512mbs HDD: WD 40gb se 8mb cache Graphics: a 9700pro All that without the graphics card is about £740 Id keep the card you've got. AMD are miles behind now the P4 has the 200mhz fsb, making max use of the dual ddr400, intel have gone up another level. You could probaly knock that price down by getting a cheaper motherboard. This one is about £185, thats a lot for a board, you dont need to spend that much on one to get a good setup.
While the KNXP board does make me drool (especially the Ultra version) MSI has an 865 board available now (although the chipset hasn't been officially released by Intel). Same performance as Canterwood, but a helluva lot cheaper.
you could try to flash your mobo. it sounds like i have just had the same type of error you have, as far as the black screen goes. i wouldnt see any boot bs, ANYTHING at all but when windows booted up and was already in the GUI(graphical user interface(the pretty pictures on the screen)) and i didnt know wtf so i flashed my mobo and it has been workign fine. Just a thought.... Spoon...
I've been reading around and have found that the Gainward Ti4200 cards are known to have some problems. It seems like there were a number with some problems. I'd get in touch with Gainward and see if they can do anything for you.
Though there a batch of bad caps flying around out there, even in good boards. Tc over at "kabalsrealm.com" has an article and forum on that. Also offers repair for the faint of heart like me lol. I suggest maybe lookin over there. He is a genius A+ cert. and all kinds of stuff
