[Resolved] Locking up after fresh install

[Charisi]

I am having some trouble that is getting very annoying. I brought my old 754 stuff down to my mom's house to upgrade her rig, as she was still running an old athlon xp. The new components include, asus k8v x se mobo, 3100+ sempy cpu, brand new 500 watt antec psu, my old radeon 9600 xt video card, an ide sony, (yeah I couldnt believe I had something sony in my closet either), 52x cd burner, a wd800 ide hard drive, and 2x512 sticks of kingston value ram.

 

I brought my old copy of windows xp pro service pack 2 edition, (32 bit), to install, since I'm using vista now. I got everything together, reset cmos, and booted up for a fresh install. It booted to the cd, scanned the hardware, and installed drivers. When it got to the "starting windows" screen, right after it asked to press f6 to install raid drivers, I got an error that said, something to the effect of something3_visualization_failed, (yeah I know I should have written it down but I didnt). I tried a couple times and kept getting that error atthe same spot. So, I burned a copy of the cd on my laptop and tried installing that way.

 

It installed fine, and I got to the first boot into windows. It got to the first white splash screen that says, "windows xp" and locked up. I tried several restarts and it kept locking up at the same place. So, then I tried the actual windows disk again, (this time I cleaned it off first), and it worked great. I get to the same white windows screen and it locks up. Finally after restarting a couple times, I get into windows. Now, it won't let me do anything in windows. Anytime I click on anything, it boggs down and restarts.

 

I have tried a few things, but don't really have much to work with, as all my testing hardware is two hours away at my apartment. I unplugged the optical drive from the ide cable and psu, and still the same thing. I've tried both sticks of ram by themselves in both slots, same thing. I've checked bios to make sure everything is showing up ok, which it is. I checked all the connections on the mobo, and made sure everything was seated properly, still same problem. Right now as I type, I have the battery out, and I'm going to leave it out for about 30 mins and try that. I know the mobo and cpu work fine, as they just came out of one of my rigs at home, and they worked great. They have never been overclocked. The video card has been in this rig for a while, and it has had no problems and never been overclocked either. Nor has the ram.

 

Now, I can't figure out what is going on with the damn thing, and really hope someone here can help me out with it. Thanks in advance.

[red930]

You might consider using one of the Linux variants that boots off a CD or thumb drive to ensure this isn't merely a problem of a messed up CD.

 

Other than that I really don't have much for you, you seem to have tried everything I would have. Short of throwing it off the roof of course.

[Charisi]

Heh, yeah I'm about to throw it off the roof. I left the battery out for about an hour, and its still having the same problem. I'll give Linux a go to see if that works at all. I really wish I was back at my apartment, so I could properly troubleshoot all the hardware.

 

Anyway, I'll give your suggestion a go. Thanks mate.

[red930]

If you have one of the newer versions of Tmod/Loggan's CD I believe there is a bootable version of Prime 95 (or similar) included. Might give it a shot if you have it with you already.

[Charisi]

Unfortunately I do not. All the stuff like that is at my apartment. I just ran WD data lifeguard diagnostics, and it completed with 0 errors, so that rules out the hard drive. I'm going to find and download a bootable linux and try that out.

[red930]

Unfortunately I do not. All the stuff like that is at my apartment. I just ran WD data lifeguard diagnostics, and it completed with 0 errors, so that rules out the hard drive. I'm going to find and download a bootable linux and try that out.

 

Don't forget memtest, just in case!

 

I don't remember if it was built into the BIOS on those boards...maybe that began with the nf4.

 

:angel:

[Charisi]

Damn, I can't believe I almost forgot memtest, heh. Thanks for mentioning that. It isn't built into this board. I am burning a disk as I type.

[sunnyeagle]

If you can get into the bios to loosen up the time on you memory. Try that. I ran into that problem when I install an vid card to an new system. It had old cpu and new memory that was close but not a perfect match. For some reason after I plug into the vid card it started to reboot on me. After a few attempts and a few frustrated days, I tried moving everything up one click on the timing and the problem went away. And oh by the way they past mem test with flying colors. I also went with a fresh install and it still did it. I knew it wasn't hardware and not windows. So that left BIOS settings.

[Charisi]

Yeah, I'm about at wit's end here. Memtest passed with no trouble. Hard drive diagnostics past with no trouble. I'm sure its not the hardware I brought down as I just took it out of one of my rigs last week, where it went straight onto styrofoam and into a plastic cover, where it stayed until I took it out to put it in this rig. I'm almost certain it isn't windows, as I put this same copy on 3 different computers last week with no trouble.

 

Anyway, thanks for the suggestion, I'm going to go try that out now.

[Charisi]

Got it fixed finally. Turned out to be my xp pro. I got a copy of xp home from a friend, and the rig is going along no problem now. I really dont see how the xp cd and the copy both are bad. I just installed it on my laptop and my other desktop just last week when I installed vista 64 on my main rig.

 

Oh well, Im just happy to finally know what the problem was. Thanks for all your help guys.

[Charisi]

Nevermind, it isnt fixed. I got as far as installing drivers, and started downloading sp2, when it locked up and restarted on me again. I'm about to pull out my hair as I'm out of options. The only three untested things are the mobo, cpu, and gpu. I KNOW its not the board or cpu, as they were working great a week ago, and have been in the proper environment up until the time they got put into this rig yesterday. The only thing is the video card. It has been working fine for a while, but I guess it could be that. Its the only thing that hasnt been tested in the last week. Other than that I'm out of options.

 

Any suggestions?

[Charisi]

Got it fixed...sort of. Seems the video card was on its last leg. I picked up a cheapo visiontek hd 2400 pro from circuit city. I got everything updated and installed, except the video drivers. It seems that windows does not like visiontek's drivers. I've tried the drivers on the cd and the newest ones from the site and neither work. After I install the drivers and restart the rig, it boots into windows ok, but then immediately the screen either turns solid blue or blue with lines through it and the system freezes. I've looked around and can't seem to find any known driver problems. I cant use drivers from ati's site, as they have no support for 2400 pro agp, only pcie. If I cant get the problem run down in short order tommorow morning, I'm going to just take it back and get the cheap butt 6200 they had....I just hate nvidia so I'd rather not, heh.