On Monday 18 March 2002 07:28 am, Roger Sherman wrote:
> Sorry to address this to the list, but I'm at my wits end, and it's
> either this, or find a service center or something to fix this
> problem for me, and after building this PC, I really don't have the
> money.
First try re-seating everything, ram, cable connections,
peripheal cards, etc, even the cpu. Clean the connectors on ram and
other cards with a clean pencil eraser. If you have more'n one stick
of ram, try reversing the order they're installed. Make sure your
harddrive cables aren't wadded up, don't have any kinks in 'em. Make
sure that Compaq CD drive is properly set to either master or slave,
and not CS (cable select).
Abit's are fussy about what card is in what slot. Look for a
KG-7 FAQ, there's often recommends for which card to put where, eg,
SB Live! in slot 3. There are many reports of Abit/SB Live! problems,
sometimes solved by moving them to suggested slots. I believe you'll
have the best chance of getting further help from an AMD newsgroup.
As always make sure you're grounded to the case to avoid static
elec shocks to the electronics. Working barefoot on a tile floor is
a good idea. Give the PS a few minutes to loose any residual charge
after unplugging before working on the system.
I'm no big fan of Abit's period. Might as well admit that up
front. Many users experience just the symptoms you describe, but with
any board they're indicative of motherboard and/or power supply
problems. You need at least a 300w PS and it should be one one AMD's
recommended list. Go by model numbers, many PS's are sold under
different brand names. BUT with Abit's it's more often the
motherboard. I believe that's why AMD does not recommend them.
http://www.amd.com/us-en/ (look for AMD Athlon Configuration Info)
It could also be many other varied things (eg, drive cables, bad
ram, etc) causing your problems, but you'll have to eliminate the
mobo/PS first. They're the most important part of any system. The
very foundation.
--
Tom Brinkman Corpus Christi, Texas
>
> I built a PC about two 1/2 months ago (my first attempt at building
> a PC), and I'm having a booting problem, and a problem with it
> freezing up, and I'm hoping someone could help point me in the
> right direction, troubleshooting wise.
>
> First of all, the system configuration:
>
> Abit KG-7 motherboard
> AMD 1800XP
> 512 Meg DDR RAM
> ATI Radeon All-In-Wonder 32mg vid card
> SoundBlaster Live! 5.1 Platinum w/Live Drive
> 60 gig Maxtor HD
> generic DVD/CDROM from my old PC, a Compaq presario (which is
> happily gurgling along as a dedicated FTP server now)
>
> Now, it's got a boot problem that is baffling to me - to turn this
> PC on, I have to press the start button, at which point it sounds
> like it's starting up, the HD and all the fans start spinning, but
> I don't get the beep that I get with a successful boot, and there's
> no video output. So, I then have to turn the PC off, unplug it, and
> plug it back in - at which point it will usually start up again.
>
> Now, I do mean it will start up again just from plugging it in - I
> don't have to press the start button. But, sometimes I'll plug it
> in, and it wont start, at which point I'll have to unplug it, then
> press start, and it seems to discharge a little power. Then I plug
> it in again, and it will start. Then I get the beep that it's
> booting correctly, and I get video output and away we go.
>
> Now, I'd live with this problem, if it weren't for the system
> freezes. The first time I turn the PC on each day, there is always
> a complete freeze of the system - and I totally can't get it
> unfrozen, either by Control-Alt-Backspace, or Alt-SysRq-r. My only
> recourse is to press and hold the start button til it shuts down
> (with this box, you have to hold the start button in for 5 seconds
> to shut it down, for some reason). Using the reset button doesn't
> seem to work.
>
> This system freeze can happen anywhere, too. Sometimes it'll happen
> when Mandrake is actually starting up, once it even happened at a
> command line login (it's set up to start at runlevel 3), but
> usually it happens about 2 - 3 minutes after the system is up and
> running...usually after I've started X, and am checking my email.
>
> And I can't let it run all day - the PC actually works great once
> it gets past the booting and system freeze problems (usually the
> system freeze problem happens one or two times, and then the PC
> will run properly), but if I get up and walk away for several
> hours, then come back, of course the monitor will have gone into
> power save mode, and I jiggle the mouse to wake it up, but at that
> point for some reason the PC will have stopped giving video output,
> and I have to start the whole process over again.
>
> My ideal situation would be to just leave this PC running 24/7, but
> that makes it impossible, obviously.
>
> Now, I've tried several things to fix the problem - a friend told
> me the symptoms are indicative of a hardware incompatability, so I
> changed the HD, the CD-ROM (which is why I have the DVD player in
> there - I originally had a Plextor CD-RW), the power supply, and I
> took out the SoundBlaster and nic card (a linksys nic), although I
> put those two back in, since it didn't seem to make a difference. I
> also tried disconnecting the floppy drive.
>
> Before I replaced the HD and CD-RW, they effectively stopped
> working with this PC, and I'm worried what's currently in there
> will stop working as well, as every time I make a change, things
> seem to get a little better, but never really work right, and then
> things degenerate. I don't have anything else I can swap into this
> box, so if it continues to degenerate with the current config, I'll
> have to stop using it until I can afford to take it to a PC doctor.
>
> Again, sorry for the OT post, but any help anyone can offer would
> be hugely appreciated.
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