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Final Fantasy Online Forums  >  Community Discussion  >  The Dork Squad

Well, what had happened was (motherboard question)





0
 01.02.2013 3:35am
Thread Creator

hanzo
Harry Ballsagna

The back story (OK to skip, I was bored):

I built a computer back in 2006 to see what all this "make your own PC" fuss was all about.  It ran great, updated the CPU and GPU a few years later and lastly installed an unregistered copy of Windows 7 Pro 64 on it.

Then I moved to nyc and left it for my 60 year-old, tech-illiterate  mother to "check her email" and watch Gerald Butler youtube clips on it.  And so the inevitable happened (this was 3 years ago); she opened up every single application at once, downloaded 9000 viruses or windows 7 finally shut itself down after never inputing a serial number.


The issue:

After turning the computer on

Windows suffered a critical error and was not shut down properly:
Start Windows Normally (may be unstable or something)
Start Windows in Safe Mode

Whichever option I choose it starts a few seconds then my motherboard reboots itself.
If this process is repeated the motherboard continues to shut itself off and on again but each time sooner and sooner until it barely gets passed my motherboard's ASUS OMG WE ROCK" graphic that appears shortly for you to press (Del) and enter BIOS.

So it actually shuts itself off before any windows process has been run, this leads me to believe I need a new motherboard... Either that or I have a very strange PSU problem which I highly doubt.  I guess my question is:  do I need a new motherboard or is there something I should try before buying one.

I'm never home for very long so trial and error hasn't happened much, I'll have to buy a new processor too since I don't think they make AMD 939 anymore.  Probably a new GPU and PSU, hell a new fucking computer!  ... I'm kind of nostalgic and don't want to just throw away something that took me weeks to build even though I can buy a better computer for less than $400.

If I can get it working I plan to install a freeware OS like freespire.  Does anyone have experience with this?




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0
 01.02.2013 1:59pm


TheheirofGondor
Registered Member

If you are installing a free OS just go with a Unix system, Ubuntu is the most stable.  I wouldn't trust any freeware OS.

As for your motherboard problem the easiest way to tell is to try and reinstall the OS.  If you can't get that to even start then its a hardware problem.  It could be the motherboard or it could be a PSU or it could be RAM.  The only way to really tell is to swap out parts until you find the issue.  I'd try seeing if the PSU is at fault first then the RAM, if both those are fine then its probably the motherboard and you just need a new one.




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0
 01.04.2013 5:58am


Southern Comfort
silently judging all of you



I'm actually betting it's the PSU, failing to maintain good power under any kind of load.  The PSU will start, signal PWR_OK, but as soon as a load hits it something fails slow (dry capacitor maybe?), stop PWR_OK, and fail gracefully (better than failing non-gracefully - that tends to involve small fires and loud banging noises).

You might check your power and reset button as well.  If the power button is sticking, it would cause an issue similar to that.  just unplug it and bridge the pins it plugs into with a key, see if it starts up.  If yes, plug the reset button into those pins as a quick fix.

Also, check the wall plug, make sure it's getting clean power.  Move it to another wall socket and see if that helps.  Bad power can do strange things.

Check the motherboard and see if there are any leaking capacitors.  If there are, resign yourself towards getting a new computer.

If all that fails, the only suggestion I can think of is stick a POST card in and see what it comes up with (or add a PC speaker and translate the beep code, but that shit sucks and POST cards are cheap these days).




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0
 01.04.2013 6:14am
Thread Creator (Edited on 01.04.2013 at 6:26am)

hanzo
Harry Ballsagna

Thanks guys! good to have some other knowledge going into the problem before I make my next visit.  I've got a spare PSU a friend will loan me with a larger wattage than the current one installed and he's less inclined to go for cheap than I am.  I think the exisiting is 450 but I've done some slight overclocking without much knowledge and I usually buy parts on a budget. 




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0
 01.04.2013 7:12am


Arckanghel
Pirate.



How much lower is the wattage? You might be go below your needed threshold. A good calculator for your need can be found here https://images10.newegg.com/BizIntell/tool/psucalc/index.html or a more extensive one here https://www.extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp




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0
 01.04.2013 6:08pm


Crux
A mental Dentist's office



That actually sounds like when my step brother's girlfriend's computer would not work.

Dad went in with a PSU to replace the old one, but it turned out that the PSU was clogged with "dog hair dust bunnies".




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