sata drive or motherboard defect

[isabeau]

I recently reformatted my comp coz my system is getting unstable (frequent shutdown or restart). Im using an ecs pt800ce motherboard with pentium 2.8c HT ,1 G sdram (2x 513 mb apacer module). nvidia fx 5500 256 mb ,seagate 80 G sata drive,LG dvd writer, asus cd writer. Before i reformatted my comp i checked the seagate website for a possible defects in my hd and the website reported a bad sectors in my hd, i also ran memtest on my memory and the result is ok. I also checked the event viewer to see the error and it says that i have i/o errors and something about paging file. and another indicates an atapi error. thats the reason why i reformatted my comp. Actually i didn't reformat my drive but erase all the data using the seagate disk wizard started edition and zero fill my drive to erase the mbr for a possible virus infection , i did the quick option for zero fill tho. Then i start to install a fresh copy of windows. The installation went smoothly until i started installing drivers and softwares. My comp suddenly stops responding or sometimes it just shuts down or restart. I dont know what to do now. Can anyone help me?

 

[wahnula]

I recently reformatted my comp coz my system is getting unstable (frequent shutdown or restart)

Why should it surprise you that a fresh install has the same result? The problem(s) are evidently not with the OS.

Spontaneous reboots are almost always power or heat related. You do not mention your PSU, is it up top the task? Is the CPU HSF clean and properly attached? Are there enough case fans and are they pointed in the right direction?

i checked the seagate website for a possible defects in my hd and the website reported a bad sectors in my hd

Then I hope you replaced the hard drive. Bad sectors are...well...bad.

The best way to start troubleshooting is strip the machine down to CPU, 1 stick RAM and 1 IDE drive. Try to load the drivers again, starting with the chipset, then LAN, audio, and last video card. Reboot between each driver add.

Tony

 

[xit]

Welcome isabeau, Not long ago, had somewhat the same situation, after eliminating the hard drive as the problem ended up being a motherboard. Looks like you have eliminated most other areas also. My problem ended up as bad capacitors.

xit

 

[isabeau]

Thanks, ill check on it. how do i know if its bad capacitor?

 

[wahnula]

http://www.badcaps.net

 

[isabeau]

ok thanks ill check on it

 

[isabeau]

I checked my motherboard and its clean i mean no bad capacitors. I haven't changed my old sata drive yet. I tried to boot my computer with just the cpu memory and optical drive and i can hear an alarming sound from the hardisk and then my comp shutd down again. So i tried to disconnect my sata drive and use an old ide drive and the noise was eliminated i cab just hear the fans. My old ide drive has disk errors so i have to buy a new one tommorow. Am i right? is it just the hardisks thats giving me problems?

 

[xit]

If your hard drive is infact making a loud noise, yes it sure could be the problem. Let us know the outcome, I am curious.

xit

 

[isabeau]

i just want to know what type should i use? sata or the ide or ata disk? whats the difference?

 

[isabeau]

i bought a new sata hardisk and my system got worse so i decided to take it to a prefessional technician. When he checked it my comp turns out fine and no errors so i let him install windows. The weird thing happened coz when i brought my comp home the computer hangs and i cant even install my drivers. when i checked my event viewer theres an atapi and disk errors. i cant even use my mouse properly. so took it back to my technician and he didn't find anything wrong. my comp boots up quickly. i toldhim what happened and he told me to plug my comp on another outlet. it worked but still dont know what happened to my comp. my only problem now is that it took a long time (more than 5 minutes)for my comp to boot. Any suggestion to fix my booting problem?

 

[rockers25]

Hi there

1)These is the link for ur motherboard (pt800ce) driver so u can download and installe it

http://www.ecsusa.com/downloads/pt800ce-a.html

2)download and installe the latest driver for ur chipset nvidia in the following link:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_2k_93.71.html

 

[isabeau]

i already have the latest drivers for my board. i downloaded it from ecs website too

 

[rockers25]

i hope that these link can help u

http://www.ecs.com.tw/ECSWeb/Produc...uID=16&LanID=9&DetailID=423&DetailName=Driver

 

[rockers25]

it would be good to update ur modem connection

 

[isabeau]

Thanks for your comments, i have the latest drivers and bios. My problem is that my comp is slow to bootup. when the windows xp ogo appears it takes about 3 minutes until i can see the log on screen. Considering i have a 1 G memory this is strange. I checked all my hardware memory (using memtest-dos mode), hardisk (seagate tools) video (checkit-norton) cpu (checkit-norton) and everything is ok. How can i fix this? Its very slow.

 

[rockers25]

hi again,

in this case u must reinstalle ur windows .

 

[isabeau]

I reinstalled my windows xp pro and sp2 and evrything is ok now. I can boot my pc in less than a minute. I created the users accounts and installed all the latest drivers. My only problem is that when the pc boots is goes directly to the administrator account (password protected) without asking for the password. how can i fix this?