I need help!!!

[flyboy747]

Ok. I'm having a lot of trouble with this and I would appreciate any help. My friend has an Athlon 1Ghz, with SOYO mb (k7vta-b), 128 mb ram, 20 gb Western Digital hard drive, and ATI Rage 128 Pro. He's had problems with the computer ever since he got it (I built it for him from what the parts he wanted; I had a little trouble, but not too much). The first problem was the hard drive not seeming to function properly. It seemed like it would lose power then all of a sudden spin back up (that's the best way I can describe it.) Well, he had Win 98se on it and it ran fine for a while, but still every once in a while (mainly if you barely touched the case where it moved just very slightly), the hard drive would do that funky thing and he'd have to reboot to get Windows to respond again.

Well, about 2 months ago, the hard drive (which was about 2 months old at the time) decided it didn't want to live anymore, so it basically died. Western Digital replaced it because it was still under warranty.

I got back from vacation and he had put the hard drive in himself (he works with computers too), and he was trying to load 98 back on it. He was having a lot of trouble getting it to work. It would do fine until he got to the part of installation where it would search for plug and play devices, then it would just freeze. He even tried loading Linux on it, and it would still freeze at some point.

He finally gave up and gave it to me to look at. I have tried reinstalling 98 more times than I've ever wanted to. It still would always lock up on the plug and play device search thing. I even tried loading Redhat 7 on it (my friend has Mandrake) and it wouldn't install either.

Somehow, I finally figured out that when it came up with the searching for plug and play devices, that if you kept moving the little window around on the screen with the mouse, that it would work. I don't know why, but it did. Well, I finally got 98 on there, and went to install the upgrade for 98se. It still locks up when it tries to find plug and play devices.

I then had the bright idea to try installing 95. And believe it or not, 95 (B) went on without a problem on the very first try. I then tried installing the se upgrade, and it still froze.

I'm about completely out of ideas besides using it as a large paperweight. I have run Western Digital's Lifeguard drive diagnostic thing and done the tests, and they come back and say the drive is fine. The only other thing I can think of is that it's a mb problem with maybe an ide controller or something. It doesn't do the strange little power down thing anymore, but it does make some funny sounds, just for one or two seconds, sometimes when you turn it on.

I'm sorry this has been such a long description, but I'm completely frustrated at this point. I would appreciate ANY help that could possibly be given.

Thanks up front for any help or ideas or comments or anything that you might be able to give. I really appreciate it. Thanks for everything.

[Sowulo]

I've seen some of these symptoms before that turned out to be a flakey Power Supply....I'd check that RAM as well.

[mikehoats]

Dont know if this will help, b4 fresh install make a dir, copy win cab files over, run setup from cabs with /ie /is /iv switches.

[Major Kong]

Yep bad power supply. Had a gentlemen who insisted on using a 230W power supply from a K6-2 450 he just replaced into an Athlon 650. Unit did a lot of the funky things you are describing before a Tech at a local shop told him his power supply "wasn't worth used kitty litter". A new PS was put in and the system has been running well since. Of course this was my fault because I did not insist on the 300W (his words at the time "I don't see having to spend an extra $60 on a power supply when I have this new one here"). Oh well this gentleman got Qwest DSL but is still using AOL at an extra $10.00 a month because he doesn't understand the IE5.5 or Opera (my favorite) browsing.

[flyboy747]

Well, thanks for your suggestions and your help. But, I'm back to where I started at.

I put in a new 300 watt ATX power supply last night and I'm still having the same problems I was before. I checked the memory and it seems to be fine. I even tried some memory that I had around here, and it still had problems.

I did however make some progress. Last night I was able to get 98 first edition loaded on. It did mess up the first time it got to the detecting hardware thing, but I restarted the computer and it seemed to do something different and it worked. But now, everytime Windows comes up, it always gives me a message that explorer.exe has performed an illegal operation. I've tried stuff Microsoft suggested and haven't been able to get it fixed.

If anyone has ANY ideas as to what I could do to get this working, I would really appreciate it.

Thanks in advance.

[Wildman6971]

Try it on a different Hard drive.

We seen alot weird stuff like this on WD drives and just switching out the drive made all the difference.

[diehrd]

DO THIS FIRST GO TO BIOS AND IF YOU HAVE A PC HELTH MONITER LOOK AT TEMPS OF THE PROCESSOR IF IT GETS INTO THE 50c OR HIGHER RANGE YOU HAVE A HEAT PROBLEM.IF ALL IS OK BELOW 50C read on.

Go to westerns site down load the low level format utility and do the low level format.Remove all add on cards clear cmos,install only vid card,Hd,floppy,and cdrom.Format and install O/S.

If now you have an Os on drive install the latest Via 4in1 drivers,and video card drivers.BE SURE TO NOT INSTALL A CARD UNDER AGP SLOT,If you have a card there now that may be the problem !!

Install sound card and latest drivers and then install modem and drivers.
<IMG SRC="smilies/confused.gif" border="0">

[pcdave]

Had the same problem a few times.

One fix was to remove all cards except the video card. After Win 98 was installed I just added the other cards one at a time and Windows had no problem detecting them.

Another time I had to disable the "Display.drv=pnp.drv" line in the System.ini file.

Hope this helps.

[flyboy747]

Well, my problem has somewhat been resolved in a way. I tried an old hard drive I had laying around (it's like a 400 mb or something). It's the only one I could find that I knew worked. I installed 98se on it without a problem. It didn't lock up, it didn't freeze, it didn't do anything but work perfectly (if Windows can work perfectly that is).

I've tried the other things that ya'll mentioned. I've checked the health status, and it's not a heat problem, I've tried to install with no add on cards (the only addon is a network card) and that didn't work; I tried disabling Display.drv=pnp.drv in system.ini, and that didn't really help any (well, it did work but that was when I started getting the explorer error messages after it Windows installed).

I really appreciate your help. I'm going to try installing it again on the drive it's supposed to be on, and if it doesn't work, I don't know what to do. Would you recommend trying to get WD to replace it (again) or what? I'm not sure that they'll replace it because it passes the WD diagnostic thing and all, but it does make noises that I consider to be predicting failure of some sort. I guess it wouldn't hurt to call and check on it.

Thanks again to everyone for all of your comments and suggestions. I am amazed at the response I have received. I really appreciate it. Thanks again.

[Wildman6971]

Glad to help.

Try running that extended test from the Data lifeguard disk several times. It should finally fail on you after the third or fourth time. Keep pushing it and it will give you code fianlly.
Tell them you don't want an RMA drive you want new to replace this one.

They'll do it eventually. <IMG SRC="smilies/smile.gif" border="0">

[Sly]

If the drive is a Western Digital, have it replaced. I've had a rash of bad one from them in the last 2 months, but they have been very good about RMA their drives..

You Still can't beat them, or the IBMs drives. <IMG SRC="smilies/biggrin.gif" border="0"> <IMG SRC="smilies/biggrin.gif" border="0"> <IMG SRC="smilies/biggrin.gif" border="0">

[flyboy747]

Ok. I guess that this problem has now been resolved. Thanks everyone for your help. I really appreciated it.

The guy that owns the computer went out and bought a new hard drive (Maxtor 15gb). I installed the drive, and installation worked perfectly the very first time. I'm still going to try to get the WD drive replaced (haven't had time to do anything about it yet). One more question, the Maxtor drive is kind of making the same noise as the WD drive did, but not to the same extent. It always does it when you first turn the computer on, and then when it comes up with the 98 splashscreen. Those are the only times that it's done it. I was just kind of wondering what it was. Other than that, the drive is working perfectly.

Again, thanks everyone for your help. I really do appreciate it.

[kewos2]

If it works with new Hard drive, then fine otherwise try to replace memery (RAM). I have encountered the same problem so many time, changing the ram normally works. Good lucky