Help!!! I recently acquired a new (to me) motherboard and CPU from a friend who was upgrading. I moved my old system over to the new board (in a new case), and everything SEEMS to work... except that whole booting up thing! There are actually a few problems, but I'll keep it to the big one fore now. Here are the full specs: (* = not connected during boot attempts, so they shouldn't factor in) ASUS A7V266-E motherboard Athlon XP 1900+ running at standard 1600mhz 1GB PC2100 266 RAM Quantum Fireball 20GB HDD (the last vestige of my old Dell!) *Seagram 120GB HDD Geforce4 Ti 4600 Soundblaster Audigy 1 *Samsung CD-ROM *Sony CD-RW The case is a CompUSA-branded one with a 400W power supply. Here's the sequence of events: Turn on the computer. The BIOS screen loads and successfully checks the CPU and memory (at this point, I can press DEL and go into the BIOS if I want, no problems). The computer checks for attached DDs, finds the 20GB as Primary Master. Doesn't find any other DDs, and then checks for RAID DDs. Finding none, it starts to load Windows 2k (white bar along the bottom, "press F8 for boot options"). At this point, the computer hangs. The first time I turned it on, this screen completed and it hung on the graphical "Loading Windows 2000" screen. After that, I couldn't get past the white bar. When I originally set up the system, I discovered that the small fan on the mobo (the northbridge) wasn't spinning. The case came with a temperature sensor, and placing it near the NB while the computer made the thermometer quickly climb to 50C. I replaced the fan in the hopes that it was the culprit, but no dice. I don't think I mucked up the fan mounting (though it was my first time using thermal compound... I spread a thin film across the surface of the chip, then pressed the heatsink down until it locked). Any ideas why the system hangs? I'm really hurting here. /:
if you are using winxp and put in a new mobo or cpu u need to reinstall windows, u dont have to format the drive or nething like that just insert the cd and install it like u would if the drive was already blank, ur also gonna need a need serial number for ur xp in this case, just case microsofts 24 hour toll free number and tell them what happened and they will give u a new one.
I *was* hoping I'd just be able to start it up in the new system; my friend who helped me put it together was pretty confident it would work without having to reinstall. So I guess now the question is: do I need to reformat (please no) or can I just reinstall? I'm using Win2k, not XP. My roommate didn't want me using his computer to try and get help with this (nice guy), so I attempted to set up a bare-bones in my old case: mobo/proc/RAM, videocard, LAN card, and the 20GB with my Windows install on it. I couldn't get that to boot at *all*, though... monitor wouldn't even come out of standby mode, and the HDD didn't give a "I'm ok!" beep. In short, I can't easily reassemble the pieces if I have to back up too far.
There is an alternative to a reinstall... http://www.tweakxp.com/display.aspx?id=2068 Worked for me. I'll be reinstalling eventually, but this is a very good alternative if only for the short term...
Update: I've successfully connected everything, so the system is running with all parts. The Geforce4 has been replaced by a Geforce FX 5200 (long story, no point in explaining). I set the bios up to boot from CD and started up with the Win2k CD in the drive. I successfully reach "Press any key to boot from CD" and on some occasions even see the "Setup is checking your existing system" or whatever the text is. However, the system then hangs, and usually hangs on a black screen before the Setup program even shows up. No activity LED on the CD drive, either. I've tried booting from both drives to the same result. Second bit: I opened the BIOS and fiddled around for a bit; after about 10 minutes, the system stopped responding. Help!
My mistake; I'm not terribly familiar with this board, and have really only posted in the modding sub-forums. I figured case-construction might qualify. Anyway, good news: it works!!! Final story: 1) The CPU needed to be re-seated. Obvious when I think about it; it'd just been shipped halfway across the country, actually attached to the mobo (my friend figured that was doing me a favor. Ah well!), and had jostled loose. Re-seating it fixed the random stalls, which as I had guessed were over-heating-related. 2) I did have to reinstall Windows. Luckily, my system files were on a separate partition, so reformatting was no problem. I only lost a few files I had on my desktop, and even then nothing serious. 3) Damn this thing's fast! And pretty, too. I'm super happy with it. Hooray! Mods, feel free to close/move this or whichever... problem finally solved.
just a note, iv had this same problem before, you didnt need to do a full reinstall. like i said i had this same problem but i wasnt lucky enough to have the system files on a different partition. what you could have done was an emergancy recover rutine. should come out just fine
