Re: Bad Motherboard? Upgrade?

• Previous message: Peter T. Breuer: "Re: Bad Motherboard? Upgrade?"
• In reply to: Augasm: "Bad Motherboard? Upgrade?"
• Next in thread: Larry Gagnon: "Re: Bad Motherboard? Upgrade?"
• Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]

Date: 12 Oct 2005 09:50:20 -0700

Augasm wrote:
> I'm hoping somebody could shed some light on my problem, and possibly
> advise as to a solution.
>
> I have a computer I built about 3 years ago:
> Shuttle AK37GT KT400 Socket A Motherboard
> Athlon XP 2100+ (1.73GHz)
> Kingston 512MB DDR333 PC2700 RAM
>
> I ran linux exclusively, and it was never quite stable. Redhat 7.3 ran
> best, but after a while I started looking around, and found SuSE 9.0 to
> run OK. I've been running SuSE 9.2 for the last few months, and just
> tried reinstalling SuSE 9.3 Pro off of the CD iso's. The stability of
> the other distros that I tried in between were shocking, and the
> stability of these installs that I did settle on have been getting
> progressively worse. By "unstable", I mean that the installation
> processes themselves tend to freeze frequently, requiring me to start
> over 5-20 times, and the system tends to lock-up apropos of nothing.
> Sometimes the lock-up still allows me to switch to other virtual
> terminals, and lets me type a username to log in, but control
> disappears and I'm never prompted for a password, so I can't do any of
> the usual tricks to recover. But now on SuSE 9.3 Pro, it actually
> freezes in the truest sense -- nothing can be done at all but soft
> reboot.
>
> When I take my harddrive into work, however, for the online updates
> etc, it works just fine when swapped into a computer there. So the
> harddrive can't be the problem (as well, I've used several harddrives
> in the machine, all with the same problem).
>
> The machine has actually been a dual boot along side of the SuSE 9.2
> for the last several months, and while I only run the Windows 2000 when
> I absolutely have to, I haven't had any similar problems -- Windows
> 2000 installs and runs as well as Windows can on any machine.
>
> I've run memory tests exhaustively, and have it set to run one of the
> quicker tests upon every startup (which I usually bypass, of course,
> but I do let it run occasionally). I've never found a problem with the
> memory.
>
> I think it must be a hardware problem, and I'm down to the Motherboard
> or the Chip. I do heaps of computational work, so I don't think it's
> the chip. I think it's probably the motherboard. Is there a diagnostic
> that can be run on the motherboard for me to confirm this?
>
> I'm puzzled why Windows would run OK, while linux would be less
> forgiving. Windows certainly does throw it's share of totally
> uninformative and useless error messages, but they don't appear to have
> much of a consequence -- nothing actually freezes like it does under
> linux. Does anybody have any idea why Windows and linux would run so
> differentially on the same equipment?
>
> Secondly, I'm somewhat willing to spend some money finally fixing this
> problem. If I replace just the motherboard, I could do it pretty cheap,
> as Socket A seems pretty old by now. But if I can't prove that it's the
> motherboard, I should probably spend the money on a whole upgrade at
> the same time, which means board + chip + RAM. All the boards these
> days seem to be 64bit. It appears linux can run fine on 64 bit given
> the architecture directory on the SuSe install mirrors, but will
> Windows 2000 load and run on 64bit? I'm certainly not willing to buy
> another, newer Windows just because I need to occasionally run it
> against my will. If Windows will run, will just about any 64bit board
> suit for both the windows and linux, or must I seek out any particular
> chip sets? I only build a computer every three years or so, and it's a
> completely different scene each time I do.
>
> Any guidance that anyone can offer would be immensely appreciated!

Check that your CPU is cooled properly. I had similar problems with my
Celeron 2.7 ghz chip, then I realized I forgot to put on thermal paste
- I then put on Arctic Silver (worth every penny!) No more random
reboots, and I can even overclock it from 2.7 to 3.1 ghz now.

Run Prime95 as a stress-check application for at least a couple of
hours. It will tell you if your CPU is giving wrong answers to known
mathematical formuals.

• Previous message: Peter T. Breuer: "Re: Bad Motherboard? Upgrade?"
• In reply to: Augasm: "Bad Motherboard? Upgrade?"
• Next in thread: Larry Gagnon: "Re: Bad Motherboard? Upgrade?"
• Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]