Unstable PC 3

[hahnsolo]

Hi all,

I have an older Compaq presario with an AMD K6-2 533 mhz processor that is just plain unstable. I bought it as an open box clearance item and it always has GPF's or goes bluescreen, or just plain freezes up all the time. I've been round and round with compaq tech support and they just always tell me to do a restore to factory settings. It will work fine for a while after doing this then back to its old tricks. Has anybody had this happening to them? Could it be a hardware or cpu problem?

Thanks

 

[ski]

Reduce the speed of the CPU by a notch or two in BIOS.
My brother has the same CPU, and doing that stabilized his system.
And he did not notice any appreciable performance hit.

 

[paparazi]

I just carried out a search and came up with some interesting information regarding poor stability and the K62 533.
This processor "according to the information" has a fsb of 97fsb with a clock multiplier of 5.5 and most motherboards don't have these settings so people go for the 100fsb setting instead. (which overclocks)
The information recommended a setting of 95fsb with multiplier of 5.5 if possible, to clock the CPU at 523.
They also mention that a lot of K6 processor heatsinks don't come with paste between CPU and heatsink base and that a thin layer should be applied for good heat transfer.
Martin Replying helps further our knowledge, without comment leaves us wondering.

 

[killowhat]

I also have a presario actually 2, there are a lot of upgrades to do including flash the bios, after doing all this, mine became very stable.
paparazi; thanks for the tip on the heatsink paste, as the k6-2 is my backup, i do need to keep it healthy.
ever heard of putting the k6-2m in, its from a laptop read somewhere it would improve performance.
hahnsolo; you might have a bit too much mhz.take ski advice crank it down a notch or two. PEARL.

 

[hahnsolo]

Thanks for all the great advice, only I have never adjusted the mhz on a pc and I don't know what "fsb" is. Can any of you tell me how to do this? Is it all through the bios? Where can I learn about this?

Thanks again

 

[Win98User]

Hi,
I have an older machine which is running a K6 2 533Mhz CPU. The mobo does have the 97Mhz bus and I have never had any problems with it, with regards to system stability - it could be as suggested that someone has "stuck" a chip in it to get rid of it.

It was cetainly an improvement over the Pentium 200 MMX chip that was previously in the board.

You should have a manual with the machine's motherboard details that has the jumper positions that you need to set for voltage, FSB and multiplier - with out the manual you are snookered.

What I would suggest is if you have directX installed, that you go run the DXDIAG programme. This will give you an accurate reading of the CPU speed. It should come out at 533 Mhz - anything more or less will show that the BUS speed isn't correct.

Don't go by the bootup screen speed that you see - that will only be an approximation.

Regards. Booting your machine seldom does it any favours.

 

[gargouille]

No, pearl, I wouldn't put a laptop CPU in it...

Regular maintenance, (cleaning up dedd stuff in the useless files category), running scandisk and defrag and disabling all the BS you don't need at startup will help you get the most out of it. Tune it.
Be real honest with yourself: how much stuff is loading (3rd party apps) that you could do away with if you just learn to do it with native Windows commands/controls?
Most of the Win98 Me machines I'm called to fix run just fine with NONE of the things in startup called up UNTIL and UNLESS they run.
These things are neat, these things are handy, these things get in the way, too often, and cause other problems.
They use overhead.
Have enough RAM to use WinXP, or is it already on the systems?

 

[Win98User]

The point about the heatsink - you should install a socket A heatsink - they are cheap, have the same fitting and are well made for the job.

Regards. Booting your machine seldom does it any favours.

 

[killowhat]

thanks gargouille; the chip i was wrong about is a k6-2+ ever heard of it, on the clean up tips; that is one thing i definately know to do. i keep the k6 running only what it has to operate, and i keep it clean, these are what i use to clean up;
spider1.16
hd valet
free surfer
spybot
yea i know but they are all free. and they work. PEARL LOL

 

[killowhat]

Tomshardware has an article on the k6-2+. check it out.
Win98user thanks for the tip on the heatsink.

 

[bleeper4]

Hi,
I also have an unstable pc and I thought I would just put it on this thread.
I have an old 60mhz Pentium with a regular Acer BIOS. All I've added to it was a 3GB hard drive, and upgraded the RAM to 24MB (EDO! ). I currently have windows NT4 and Linux installed. It could be just an "old computer" problem but could anyone help?
Josh

 

[CrookedHouse]

Hi guys,
I think the previous poster is Saddam's tech support guru. He's obviously trying to get tips on upgrading their missile systems.

But on the off-chance it is a genuine antique dealer - Can you outline the Hardware and Software you were using when the system was stable and what was the primary function of the machine. My best guess would be to use it as a print server.

 

[Win98User]

Hi CrookedHouse,
It appears that bleeper4 has already posted this - you find these things out by looking at their profiles ;-)

see thread751-436003

bleeper4, I think you are entering a world of aggravation trying to anything with that machine, that it wasn't designed to do. NT4 with 24MB RAM (I think you are tinkering).

What version of linux have you got (to get the best out of it on 3.5Gig or less)?

Did you get your disk problems solved?

I suggest that you leave this thread alone and do a kindness to the people who have helped you before by posting an update on that thread.

All the best.

 

[bleeper4]

ok ok see the other thread for whatnot. I admit I am tinkering, but it's not like that's the computer I depend on for my work. NT4 works fine FYI. I had Linux 6, and I tried to upgrade to 8, ubt I couldn't get a driver that worked with the boot disk etc. So I installed the packages through Linux 6 (I know, but it was just for the heck of it).
P.S. Back in the day when it did run smoothly, it came with windows 95 (chinese version lol) and 8MB of RAM.
Josh

 

[fasttoon]

Hey hahnsolo,

Never ever buy an open box item again, you don't know what the people have done to it while its been opened/on display, kinda like buying a rental car, sure its cheaper but it may have been abused. And you won't find that out right away.

Ok, here's what I would do if I did buy it.

First I would open case and make sure its clean, buy a can of compressed air and blow out any dust bunny, do not wipe or brush anything as that could create static. Next make sure that you are grounded first, unplug computer, push on power button to discharge any electrical charge and/or short out power with a insulated screwdriver touching the middle prong with one of the end prong. Pull out cards and reinstall one by one, same with ram and cables. Turn on computer and see if all fans are running, put hand in front and back of fan to see how much air is blowing, replace any that doesn't turn consistantly or blows enough air, make sure airflow is from front of case and exhausts out the rear of the case, heatsink fan should be running fast and pulling lots of air as well. You might want to buy some good heatsink paste like arctic silver and a better heatsink fan, should run you about $12 total and read the instructions on how to install, or get someone who knows how to do it for you.

Next, check the website for updated bios, if there is one, download it and make sure you know how to flash it or at least get someone that knows how. Search their online faq/forums if there is on for this problem and how other people have resolve/workaround it. Also set the bios to default, you can always adjust later if you want.

Next I would find the restore cd and see if there is a windows install cabs (last compaq I looked at didn't have this). If it's there you are lucky, copy this somewhere and and save or burn to cd. Use this windows cab files to clean install windows without all extra nonessential compaq junk.

If you can clean install you should wipe the hard drive or at least the main partition and start fresh, keep in mind that some if not most compaq have a hidden partition that keeps some installation programs on it. If you do wipe the disk, you might not be able to use the restore disk again, no big deal in my opinion if you saved the windows cab, but it might be important to you.

Unless you have a defective part somewhere all should run fine from this point on. If not the first place to check would be the ram, you can download programs to test your ram or just buy some as they are really cheap now, I saw some pc100/133 128mb on sale for $9.99, next would be to check your psu, then after that each individual component, however by this time I would just give up and buy another or build on.



To the others on the amd lap top cpu or better known as the plus series, yes you can use it on your motherboards, provided that it is supported by voltage and bios, it will run at lower voltage, run cooler and is approx 15-25% faster then the desktop variety. Same with the K6-3, I've used k6-2, k6-3, k6-2+, and k6-3+ in my fic, gigabyte, amptron motherboards with no problems, however you may not have all the settings if your bios doesn't support it, the main reason its faster and preferred is that it runs cooler, has extra on board cache, and is highly overclockable.

Good Luck to you, hahnsolo.