Is it a bad power supply or not enough power for his AMD Athlon?

[Skywalker93]

***MODERATORS!!! Please do not close this thread just because I mentioned that at one time he used illegal software. I have since alleviated that issue!***

I'm troubleshooting my buddy's PC.

He's got an AMD Athlon 1.3 Ghz CPU.
256MB RAM (DDR 2100 I think...)
20GB HD
32x CDROM

I'm debating if it's RAM or Power supply. Here's some background information.....

He originally had Windows ME on it, for a year or two with supposedly no problems. About 2 months ago, Windows ME *crashed*. Another friend backed up his data and did a clean install of Win2k, using his CDs. At the same time, they installed a new ASUS CD-burner (in addition to the CDROM) At random, the PC would shut down and reboot. Didn't matter if he was in Outlook, Media Player, Internet, or whatever - it would just reboot. Sometimes just sitting at the desktop. There would never be any errors in the Event Viewer. Might happen every 5 minutes to every 30 minutes, sometimes every 5 days.

Thinking that the *copy* of Windows 2000 that his other friend loaded could be bad, not just illegal, I persuaded him to purchase Windows XP Pro SP1. I did a clean install of this the other night with no problems. I was in the process of installing Windows updates, and the PC rebooted. When it came back up, I checked Event Viewer for errors - again nothing. It lasted about 10 minutes before it rebooted by itself again.

I'm debating on if it's the RAM or the Power Supply. It's got a 300W ATX power supply. If the power supply is the issue, I'm debating if its because it's BAD or if it's just not powerful enough for the system now that it has the CD burner.

Ideas???

[gazzak]

You'll get different views on this question but here's mine....

Could be memory, try memtester downloadable here. Run it overnight and see if it throws up any errors.

Could be power supply, only way to find out is to try another. I'd suggest 300W minimum for the test, (as he has now).

I'd also seriously consider overheating as a possibility. Is there good airflow through the computer? Are any fans not working? Can you check the processor and motherboard temperature from bios or possibly by using an application that will work with your mobo?

What make and model of motherboard might help too.

[Skywalker93]

The motherboard is an FIC AD11.

I ran the memory tester for about 24 hours, with no errors. I then put a loaner 300W power supply in to try with the system. (Turns out the original power supply is only 250W - is that too small?) I've used the 300W PS in the machine for about 36 hrs, and got it to reboot twice on me (had Word, IE6 sp1, and Media Player 10 open)

After doing some looking, I realized that I overlooked a couple errors in the Event Log:

Event ID 4 - ACPI BIOS is attempting to read from an illegal IO port address (0x71), which lies in the 0x70 - 0x71 protected address range. This could lead to system instability. Please contact your system vendor for technical assistance.

Event ID 5 - AMLI: ACPI BIOS is attempting to write to an illegal IO port address (0xcf8), which lies in the 0xcf8 - 0xcff protected address range. This could lead to system instability.

Anyway, I got the latest BIOS downloaded from FICs website and flashed it successfully. Hopefully that will help. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Any other ideas??

[Atodini]

The motherboard is an FIC AD11.

I ran the memory tester for about 24 hours, with no errors. I then put a loaner 300W power supply in to try with the system. (Turns out the original power supply is only 250W - is that too small?) I've used the 300W PS in the machine for about 36 hrs, and got it to reboot twice on me (had Word, IE6 sp1, and Media Player 10 open)

After doing some looking, I realized that I overlooked a couple errors in the Event Log:

Event ID 4 - ACPI BIOS is attempting to read from an illegal IO port address (0x71), which lies in the 0x70 - 0x71 protected address range. This could lead to system instability. Please contact your system vendor for technical assistance.

Event ID 5 - AMLI: ACPI BIOS is attempting to write to an illegal IO port address (0xcf8), which lies in the 0xcf8 - 0xcff protected address range. This could lead to system instability.

Anyway, I got the latest BIOS downloaded from FICs website and flashed it
successfully. Hopefully that will help. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Any other ideas??

Had a spate of these this year, always the same FIC board. It was widely used in HP & Compaq machines a couple or three years ago....

Always exactly the same symptoms, regardless of operating system, random reboots, no record in event logs.

In every case (8 so far this year) it's been the board at fault. Got a pile of them in a box under the bench!!

John

[Skywalker93]

Had a spate of these this year, always the same FIC board. It was widely used in HP & Compaq machines a couple or three years ago....

Always exactly the same symptoms, regardless of operating system, random reboots, no record in event logs.

In every case (8 so far this year) it's been the board at fault. Got a pile of them in a box under the bench!!

John

I played with it for about an hour last night - thought I was home free, then it rebooted on me again. I'm starting to agree with Atodini - it seems to be motherboard related. This time when it rebooted it would complete POST but not boot to the hard drive - nothing but black screen. Then I realized that this was the first time I'd rebooted with my external USB hard drive connected to it. Once I turned that off and rebooted, it came up normally.

[Atodini]

Keep us posted on how you get on.

We use the PC266 810LMR board for the replacement - not the worlds greatest by any means but an easy conversion in this case, and light years better than the FIC one...... (and we've a load of old stock!!)

The only hiccup we've had is with certain presario models with front usb ports, the case lead is too short to reach the block on the new board. (The connector layout is different also).

We just made up a longer cable...

Otherwise the Asus A7 series boards might fit,,,,

John

[Platypus]

Do any of the capacitors around the CPU socket appear bulged or have crusty deposits around their bases? This was certainly one of the boards that suffered from capacitor faults.

[Skywalker93]

Do any of the capacitors around the CPU socket appear bulged or have crusty deposits around their bases? This was certainly one of the boards that suffered from capacitor faults.

I'll check that out when I get home. I guess I haven't spent a lot of time visually looking at the motherboard, just troubleshooting it.

The PC is a clone, so about any motherboard would work for the case - so long as it will handle his CPU and DDR 2100 RAM.

I was thinking of suggesting a Gigabyte 7VM266 to him. I think that would work for him, plus I can get one fairly cheap.

[Platypus]

The PC is a clone, so about any motherboard would work for the case - so long as it will handle his CPU and DDR 2100 RAM.

I was thinking of suggesting a Gigabyte 7VM266 to him. I think that would work for him, plus I can get one fairly cheap.

The 7VM266 would be happy with a 1.3GHz Thunderbird and PC2100 RAM:

http://65.68.55.12/inetpub/ftproot/c...t_gigabyte.htm

I've found Gigabytes a very satisfactory board.

[Skywalker93]

Well we put new RAM in it on Friday, and it's been rock-solid ever since! I hope that cures the problems, I was really leaning towards a new motherboard. I burned a few CDs, listened to some music, a little Internet surfing, and some MS Office stuff - no issues whatsoever. Normally I could get it to crash just when listening to music and doing something else at the time. So far so good!

I'll let you guys know if that for sure fixes it!

Thanks for your help everyone!