Saab Dastard
19th Mar 2007, 19:48
I thought I would share my pain with anyone prepared to listen!
Having had a dodgy PSU for a while, and a recent disk scare, I thought it was time to upgrade my 7 year old system.
New mobo (Asus M2-V) and CPU (AMD 64 dual-core), new graphics card (Asus / nVidia 256 MB PCI-X job) plus 2GB RAM. And a large new HD.
All arrived, all fitted fine into the case, re-using my CD-RW, DVD drives, and my sound card (I wanted to keep it for the front panel connection), netgear WG311 wifi card and DAB radio card.
Everything powers up, restore win XP (previously ghosted), "repair" said XP, install all new drivers, patches from MS.
All looks perfect - BUT! System starts randomly freezing. NOT BSOD, just total freeze (including audio - a single note, highly annoying!).
So I assume that the cloning has not worked properly, so do a clean install, knowing that I would have to re-install all applications and user settings (not too bad with the settings transfer wizard).
Process completed and it STILL crashes! Even after updating all the drivers for all devices.
Bugger - so run 4 hours of Memtest - no problems.
Run a CPU stress test - no problems. Although I notice the CPU temp going from 25 to 40 C when working hard. But this is still well within limits.
So start removing cards - DAB card out, still crashes. Remove sound blaster and use on-board sound (silver lining is that it seems better than the blaster, although without front panel connection) STILL problems.
Finally I remove the wifi card and enable the onboard RJ45, slinging a cable halfway around the house (why do you think I put a wifi card in the damn thing!).
It hasn't crashed since! Fingers crossed! I've run a burn-in test on the system, stressing all components, including disks and network, and no failures.
So I now have the decision about what the solution to the network problem should be. Spend £20 on a D-link / Buffalo / Belkin 54g network card or start drilling holes in walls!
Answers on a postcard, please!
SD
Having had a dodgy PSU for a while, and a recent disk scare, I thought it was time to upgrade my 7 year old system.
New mobo (Asus M2-V) and CPU (AMD 64 dual-core), new graphics card (Asus / nVidia 256 MB PCI-X job) plus 2GB RAM. And a large new HD.
All arrived, all fitted fine into the case, re-using my CD-RW, DVD drives, and my sound card (I wanted to keep it for the front panel connection), netgear WG311 wifi card and DAB radio card.
Everything powers up, restore win XP (previously ghosted), "repair" said XP, install all new drivers, patches from MS.
All looks perfect - BUT! System starts randomly freezing. NOT BSOD, just total freeze (including audio - a single note, highly annoying!).
So I assume that the cloning has not worked properly, so do a clean install, knowing that I would have to re-install all applications and user settings (not too bad with the settings transfer wizard).
Process completed and it STILL crashes! Even after updating all the drivers for all devices.
Bugger - so run 4 hours of Memtest - no problems.
Run a CPU stress test - no problems. Although I notice the CPU temp going from 25 to 40 C when working hard. But this is still well within limits.
So start removing cards - DAB card out, still crashes. Remove sound blaster and use on-board sound (silver lining is that it seems better than the blaster, although without front panel connection) STILL problems.
Finally I remove the wifi card and enable the onboard RJ45, slinging a cable halfway around the house (why do you think I put a wifi card in the damn thing!).
It hasn't crashed since! Fingers crossed! I've run a burn-in test on the system, stressing all components, including disks and network, and no failures.
So I now have the decision about what the solution to the network problem should be. Spend £20 on a D-link / Buffalo / Belkin 54g network card or start drilling holes in walls!
Answers on a postcard, please!
SD