Hey guys, Apologies for posting a diary of my past few days - I just dont want to leave anything out that might help. I've posted about a video pc I'm setting up. I got all the bits and put them together, and went to install xp on a raid5 array. I had some fun installing the raid drivers during the install process, as it kept saying it couldnt find the drivers on the floppy disc. I assumed this was just a dead floppy, used another and after some fun it worked. It also kept failing to recognise my DVD drive - it would just spin for about a second, 3 times and then the pc would hang rather than boot from the xp cd. I eventually got it installed - probably more by luck than it working it seems now. I installed the drivers and copied my photos and videos over. This also took a number of attempts as the pc would hang randomly. I initially thought this was a heat issue with the HDD's. I took them out of the case and placed them next to a desk fan This didn't help, and the pc was now telling me that my RAID array needed to be 'verified'. I got into xp again and let the software verify the array - it completed and then hung when I tried to click shutdown! I hard rebooted and it told me it needed to be verified again! Cue same events. By now I was thinking there was definitely something wrong! I thought it might be the xp drivers, and it might be the RAID chip, so I deleted my array and decided to install Vista instead on a single HDD, as it would have any drivers needed already. I also changed my dvd drive to the drive out of my own pc, a SATA (previous was IDE) drive. The dvd drive issues seemed to be solved, and the vista install just got into the gui bit when it hung again. and again. and again. I then took the OS drive from my personal pc and installed that into the video pc. I could boot into safe mode with all the drives (individually and together) and could format them in the disk manager. However, if I booted into normal windows, it would hang at some point soon after boot. I have now moved each drive to my own pc, reinstalled my OS drive and I'm now performing a drive scan on each drive from the video pc. So far 2 out of 3 have returned no errors. If the third does, I shall move my OS drive to the video pc and try to boot without any of the other drives in. Initially I thought this was a HDD issue, or a RAID issue, but the more I do the more I think it is something else. My hunch is the motherboard, as there are no errors on POST for the RAM, the graphics are reproduced fine and all fans are working ok. The fact that the graphics are ok and everything spins up suggests the PSU is ok, so just the mobo left (or the wifi card!). I'd be interested to see what other people thought might be the issue before I RMA the board, as I'd hate to do that and not solve the problem. This 'easy' setup has so far just taken ages and is stupidly frustrating! thanks for any replies in advance, cheers, Baz
So far I've only been able to test it in the board. The POST with quick boot enabled finds it all and theres no beeps or anything. Unfortunately I dont have another DDR3 mobo that I can try it in.
i'm inclined to agree with krikkit but wouldnt leave any stone unturned due to a recent experience with my bro's pc. Check the temp on the CPU if its hanging aswell, test with different ram if poss, maybe only using single pieces of ram rather than multiple but its just one of those things. Depending on who you bought it all from, it might be worth giving their tech support a call, incase it isnt the mobo, or is and they have had other complaints from customers with similar problems that they have already been able to resolve. note: the problem i had with my bro's pc is that it would randomly crash, and got to a point where every five seconds it would power up and then down again. We changed all the parts we could (he's am2 and i'm intel) and deduced that all the other parts of his pc were working as we combined them with mine and my pc worked just fine. we called ocuk and told them, they concurred that the mobo must be the problem as processors tend to be reliable. its rma'd, we get it back 3 days later saying its fine, he comes over on the sat. pissed that we have gotten no where. we try and boot, we get and arch in the corsair psu, so he goes and buys a psu from pc world to test and picks up a cpu seen as its the only bit we hadnt tested, we fit both, on their own and together and half an hour later and with some artic silver wasted we find we are no-where, we've also tested the new psu in my machine and it worked there. Now i'm kinda desperate for an explanation and he has lost all hope. I was determined as i had built the machine for him so felt it my responsibility. So i made a call to felixthecat as he's a hardcore geek off of bit-tech from when it wasnt commercial like it is now. He's stumped, but i'm desperate so i suggest the switches on the case, he reckons they never break and i agreed but what the hell, i've tested everything else, 2 mins later with the power and reset switched on the mobo and hey presto it feckin works. I dont have a spare switch so now my bro has no reset on his case (the sacrifices we make ) but what an ordeal, the power switch on the case had worn, what a joke!!! but i live and learn, never dismiss anything in the world of computers, afterall, who wants to be the 'ass' in assume! sorry for the rant but needed to get it out! peace fatman
