I have a Gateway Model ATXSTF OXN SELECT 950 PC with a Mfg date of 3/5/01 that I am working on. When I first got it when you would turn on the PC it would freeze up at different places in the startup function. I did everything to eliminate startup driver problems etc. etc. I finally decided to take it down to an FDisk and Format and reload the ME Operating system. I did the FDisk and did the Format without any problem. When I start the ME reloading process the system still freezes in different spots and I cannot get the entire install completed. I have been emailing with gateway for weeks trying to get there help, in fact the email is now 110 pages long with our back and forth questions and answers. This PC is out of warrantee and Gateway said that they would take a look at it with an estimate of $375 to just start the process. I know enough about electronics that I would like to tackle the hardware analysis to see what component might be bad and causing the freezing, but I need help to tell me what to start looking at first, second etc. etc. I have no schematic to work with. Can anyone help ? Thank you, Paul
Sounds very much like a CPU problem, symptoms such as you describe are usually caused by overheating (cpu), damaged cpu, or a bad powersupply. First check that your CPU is not overheating, you might be able to do this via the bios, although with an old computer this is unlikely, so just use a simple test by touching the heatsink, if its scolding hot then yes its overheating and you should turn it off. Ideal working temperatures range from: 30.0C -> 60.0C Max If you don't think its overheating, i suggest you try and use a different powersupply, one you know is working and use that to run your computer.. if it works the powersupply is faulty or damaged.. Make sure your heat sink and fan is seated properly on the CPU, this can cause substantial overheating. If none of this works i would try your memory as a last resort, remove it and replace temporarily for testing purposes with the same memory which is needed to run, if the pc works you know its the memory thats the problem and you can replace it. If none of this works, i'd be pretty sure that the CPU is shot, however to me it sounds like either an Overclock gone wrong, cpu overheating problem or bad voltages to the Vcore (voltage rail to CPU)
I agree with the above post. The other thing that I'd also check after the above would be to download and run [google]Memtest 86[/google].
