2 Problems in one!

[sone4200]

Man, oh man. These problems have got me on edge...
My main machine is this: AMD Athlon XP 2000+, 784Mb DDR RAM,
ECS K7S5A Motherboard (Upgraded BIOS to run my XP 2000+)
20Gb WD IDE HDD, 40GB WD SATA HDD, SATA RAID card, Geforce FX5200 PCI, WINDOWS XP (so if you hear me talking about installing windows, I'm talking about Windows XP)

Ok the main and most important problem.
My main machine I use was acting strange... Firefox kept crashing, the system would freeze up, nothing acted normal. so I figured from years of running it without reinstalling windows, that it would be the best time to do it.
I stick in my copy of Windows and reboot. I get to setup, format my drive, and begon the copying files process. All of a sudden... "Cannot copy *file name here*. Press ENTEr to retry, blah blah blah. So I figure Darn I must have a screwed up Windows disk. So I ask my buddy who has a copy to let me use his disk, and since his is ALMOST brand new I figure it would work... Guess what? It didn't. Same thing, different file. I press enter to retry, and it finds a different file to not copy! So, I was like, Wow my hard drive must be shot. BUT to check that I hooked it up to the machine I am on now, and installed windows (With MY disk) just fine. I have tried 3 different hard drives on the main machine, 4 different ROM drives on it, and I am running out of clues to what the heck is causing this!!! Oh, When I installed windows on the drive and switched the drive over the the main machine everytime windows starts to boot, the power totally rests itself. .

Second problem is not as bad.
The machine I am forced to use now is an old Dell Optiplex GX-110 P3 800mhz POS. It has 4MB On board vid. I hate this and HAVE to be able to play a few games... So I want to install my Geforce FX5200 PCI into it.
It boots up fine, get to windows booting screen and freezes video, the SYSTEM has continued to load, and everything, but video freezes at the boot screen. I then loaded Windows into safe mode, installed the MOST RECENT drivers for the card, and tried again.... same problem.
It boots fine into safe mode but not into normal mode.
Whats that about?

 

[Freestone]

First problem sounds like bad memory. Run a diagnostic:

http://www.memtest86.com/download.html

http://www.memtest.org/

http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp

 

[christech4000]

Did this problem start after you upgraded your BIOS ? It may be that your current BIOS is not recognizing your SATA drive.
You may need to contact the motherboard manufacturer to get a more current and stable BIOS. up grading A SYSTEMS BIOS can cause stability problems, so look here for your solution.

 

[paparazi]

I would go with the first one, bad memory.
As far as the graphics issue goes, the FX5200 is a much newer card than the motherboard, it maybe just not compatible.
P3 800 socket 370? would be around the same sort of era as a Geforce 2 (FX5200 is obviously GF5) so much newer.
I can remember many of our machines struggling when the FX range was released, the machines we were building at the time (mostly socket A Via KT266A chipsets) didn't like the FX range at all but would happily run on anything earlier ie:
Geforce 4MX/4200/4400/4600
GF3 Ti200/500
Wether this was a voltage issue (with an 8X AGP card in a 4X slot) I don't know but yours is PCI so this shouldn't apply, strange!
Martin

We like members to GIVE and not just TAKE.
Participate and help others.

 

[burtsbees]

Power resets or windows reboots? Did you try installing on the main machine onto the IDE hdd and the SATA? Have you tried taking out the RAM, one stick at a time?

Burt

 

[sone4200]

I am trying the RAM thing right now, I will keep posting on progress. for burtsbees answer, the power itself keeps reseting.


And @ paparazi. If it was a comaptibilty prob with card would it not show anything at all? I mean it does get to the windows boot screen

 

[sone4200]

OMG, thank you all so much!
I pulled the 256 stick of Kingston Value Ram (which has always given me alot of problems in past machines) and windows is installing fine.

As for my second issue, I don't need to install the card onto this POs machine now, since i got mine up and running! xD

Thanks again everybody! Once again, tek-tips comes through for me!

 

[sone4200]

Okay.. Rough times on this again.

I removed the Bad stick of RAM, Windows installed fine.
I removed my SATA Controller because it was freezing the system at BIOS. Booted windows a couple times fine.
But now, its getting to where it should boot windows and My computer tottally restarts itself again. Power resets Goes back to Bios, then comes up with the whole "windows was not shut down properly blah blah blah" and gives me options to start in safe mode. I tried starting in safe mode, but it still restarts.

Ghar! I'm friggin CLUELESS! HELP!