New hardware going titsup.com HELP MEH

[Bodhi]

Right. I have a Shuttle SB51G (the one with an i845 chipset and AGP port) which has been pretty faultless for the past year. I originally had a P4 1.7 and an original Radeon in it - useful at the time, but getting a bit crusty now, so I got meself a 9800Pro and a P4 2.8 533FSB from OCUK. Picked the stuff up on Friday morning, put the Gfx card in straight away, rebooted, benchmarked. Got a hefty increase, 3000 -> 10000 in 3dmark01 SE, not bad for the gfx cartd alone. I then tried put the CPU in, and after a day or two of faffing about with the heatsink, I've finally got it running at a respectable temperature (When I initially installed it with the Shuttle ICE heatsink the temp went straight up to 100 C. I've never shut a PC down so quickly in my entire life). Anyway, its running at about 45 C idle now, 60 under load, which is far more ideal. However, no the problems have really started.

1) Windows is crashing like a beast. I'm running XP Pro - nothing seems to be able to keep running for lone. champ Man typically crashes after about 10 minutes, 3dmark bombs out complaining of corrupt files and Windows Help itself crashes after about 10 seconds. Winamp 5 seems to work ok for a while then restart the computer, ITunes seems to vary depending on what sort of mood its in.

2) I tried to install a copy of XP Home that came with me mates Dell PC, however it kept stopping comlaining it wasn't copying files properly. It's a brand new CD.

3) I can't connect to my Wireless Network any more. This started about the same time as the crashing fest.

I'm getting to my wits end, there doesnt seem to be anything obvious causing the crashing - ntfs.sys and mshtml.dll have been mentioned in error files (the second was also one of the files that refused to copy with XP Home), however so have a lot of other random files. Basically, what is going on? Has my PC been possessed?

 

[inactionman]

Don't have much experience of Intel's, but a few things come to mind.

1) You running a revision of the bios that supports the new processor?

2) Are you running the stock 200W PSU? As it may not be up to it as both the GFX card & processor draw a fair bit of power, especially if you're using a 7200RPM drive

3) What frequency is your PCI bus running at?

 

[Doomy]

Id blame the PSU too...

Get an xbox instead

 

[Bodhi]

Don't have much experience of Intel's, but a few things come to mind.

1) You running a revision of the bios that supports the new processor?

2) Are you running the stock 200W PSU? As it may not be up to it as both the GFX card & processor draw a fair bit of power, especially if you're using a 7200RPM drive

3) What frequency is your PCI bus running at?

1) Yes. Well, it says on the box it supports HyperThreading, which starts on the processor above mine, so I assume so.

2) I am yes. I've tried unplugging my ZIP drive and CD ROM, the problem still seems to be there. I may try putting in the original Radeon to see if that is indeed causing trouble, however I've heard of many people putting Radeon 9800 Pros in the AMD Shuttle with no problem, and surely AMD processor consume more power than Intel ones, just because they run so hot no?

3) Default.

I'll investigate the power situation, not much i can do tho as I've left my spare 350W PSU at home (I doubt it will fit in the shuttle case anyway). I also want to try reinstalling XP to see if my installation has been screwed up somehow, need to locate a Product Key tho (That was not a request, I know warez is illegal. I have a Product Key, its just sitting underneath my spare 350W PSU in all probability). Past that I'm out of ideas.

 

[Shovel]

If you can get hold of one (cue recommendation from another forumite, or the manufacturer's website), try running a hard disk diagnostic. Currupt files are never good, but I'm not sure I'd ever link that to power supply first.
Probably worth a safety shot. If it fails, resit the IDE/SATA cable and power cable on the HDD, to be safe, try again. If it fails again, cry.

 

[Ch3tan]

Cant hurt updating the BIOS and chipset drivers to the latest versions

http://www.shuttle.com/hq/support/download/dwn2.asp?model=SB51G

 

[Cyfr]

I wouldn't blame the PSU judging from experience.. I have a p4 2.6 (works at 2.9), radeon 9800 pro in my shuttle with 7,200rpm HD and it runs fine for weeks on end.

Also have surround sound speakers, webcam, headset, optical mouse, joystick connected to it..

 

[Clown]

I thought they were saying that the PSU might be faulty, not that it wasn't getting the right power. Loads of people run high specs in Shuttles here

 

[Ch3tan]

The 250watt shuttle psu is about £50 inc vat and delivery Bods.

 

[inactionman]

2) I am yes. I've tried unplugging my ZIP drive and CD ROM, the problem still seems to be there. I may try putting in the original Radeon to see if that is indeed causing trouble, however I've heard of many people putting Radeon 9800 Pros in the AMD Shuttle with no problem, and surely AMD processor consume more power than Intel ones, just because they run so hot no?

Drives only draw large amounts of power when they are active, so disconnecting the removable drives won't prob do too much, if you're PSU is overloaded. Can you get your hands on a multimeter to check the draw on your PSU?

Not sure about that, I've heard the intel's draw more power than the amd's these days, but I don't really keep up with that anymore, as my next purchase is a 64-bit system.

I'll investigate the power situation, not much i can do tho as I've left my spare 350W PSU at home (I doubt it will fit in the shuttle case anyway). I also want to try reinstalling XP to see if my installation has been screwed up somehow, need to locate a Product Key tho (That was not a request, I know warez is illegal. I have a Product Key, its just sitting underneath my spare 350W PSU in all probability). Past that I'm out of ideas.

Know anyone with a similar setup? If so you can try out the components in their pc.

Also try new processor with old GFX card. If that works it's almost certainly a power problem.

Standard troubleshooting techniques say blame the changes. Is the processor a low power one, i.e. from a recent die shrink/generation? As the faster they get within a line of chips, the more power hungry they tend to get.

 

[Tom]

Try reducing the clock speed on the CPU? Also, stick your old CPU back in, do the errors continue?

 

[Bodhi]

Right. I've put my Radeon 64 DDr back in, no change. Oh except Microsoft Help doesn't crash any more. Result!

I tried reinstalling C&C Generals, which crashed and took the computer out with it. Champ Man 03/04 same story. Complained about not being able to compile som library of some sort. Do you think my Win XP installation is just crocked?

I'm going to try the old processor tomorrow night after my exam which I really should be studying for instead of fixing this PC. Ah well never mind. Will report back when I have any progress.

 

[SawTooTH]

From your original post its unlikely to be the gfx card as you benchmarked and saw no stability problems. Does the Bios see the new cpu correctly at startup (uncheck fast post in bios)?
Id personally check for a Bios upgrade as although they say they support one feacture on the box you can sometimes find that you have an older board repackaged. What type of memory do you have and what are you running it at?

After that Id suspect either PSU or cpu temp giving you that instability (though you say its running 40-60oC)

 

[JBP|]

this may well be a stupid post but have you checked to see if your HD is fooked?

other than that it could possibly be a memory problem

from my experience of building computers if something stops working its either related to one of those two things or the psu is shagged but as your getting power its obviously not that

 

[Bodhi]

Well folks, it must have been the PSU. I put my 1.7Ghz P4 back in and it works fine, albeit really slowly. I'm assuming the 2.8Ghz CPU is fine otherwise i wouldn't have made it to Windows in the first place - i'll stick it back in when i can get my hands on a more powerful PSU. Cheers for the help tho folks. It's good to be playing Champ Manager again

 

[SawTooTH]

Its why I have a 500 watt PSU in my puter

 

[Ch3tan]

The 250watt psu really is enough for anything you can shove into your shuttle.

 

[Bodhi]

I still can't connect to my Wireless Network which is strange. One or two other things arent working properly and to be honest my PC is running like a dog. Any ideas or is a full reinstall in order?

 

[Shovel]

My advice at this point would indeed be "Reinstall". Maybe do a hard disk error-check before you do, just to be safe. Though, if swapping the CPU has fixed the problem enough to convince you that's what it was, then maybe just stash the pennies for a new PSU.

 

[Bodhi]

I've run CHKDSK (as has Windows on my behalf. which was nice of it) several times, doesn;t seem to come up with anything bad. I will reinstall after my exams as the last two episodes of 24 will be out by then and I'm buggered if I'm waiting having seen this far.