New system crashing

Patrick

This is all brand new hardware:

ECS K7S5A Motherboard w/onboard sound
1ghz duron
256mb SDRAM pc133mhz
40gb 5400rpm maxtor hdd
Hercules 3d Prophet 4000XT 64mb pci
lite-on cd-rw
midi-tower case

The OS that I have on it now is Windows98 second edition. Basically when I double click on
Internet Explorer the window comes up with "Iexplorer has cause an illegal operation..." so
when I click close I'm back at the desktop. I then rebooted. When windows come back up I get
"There's has been an error in registery, windows will automatically fix this" so I press "ok"
there and system reboots to bring me back to the desktop, ready for me to click internet explorer
again and watch the system crash once more. Somes I get Blue screens of Death also. Now this is
a new installation of windows98se.

Here's the interesting part:
I setup the pc outside the case sitting the motherboard on the spongy cover that was in it's box.
There was no crashing whatsoever. I went on the net, browsed around, posted a message to boards.ie
(this was last night). Played some mp3z also, just normal stuff to test out the pc. No probs.
Well I was happy with that test naturally and decided the motherboard isn't faulty. So I decided
I'd put it carefully back in the case not too tightly etc. Which I did but the same errors are coming
up as before. Now I'm quite fustrated
I presume it's hitting off the case? I haven't thoroughly checked that. Also when I put the motherboard
into the case on top of the spacers it doesn't line up exactly. I have to push it a bit and then put in the
screws.

Has anyone got any idea how to resolve this?

WhiteWashMan

reinstall your operating system

seamus

I doubt the positioning of the motherboard has much to do with it. If it's short-circuiting, it just wouldn't work. Seeings as you had everything outside and it worked fine, there may be overheating problems, but I doubt that also. As WWM said, reinstall Windoze. Always my first port of call when windows doesn't know what's wrong.

Something I also found unbelievably handy was a Hard Disk Diagnostic OS (based on DOS) that comes free off the the seagate website. D/l it, follow the instructions, and give that disk a scan (just to be sure).

The fact that your motherboard works fine outside the box, means just that, it's fine, I doubt that's the issue.

Patrick

Well I've tried installing windows loads of times but just to be sure I'll do it again. I mean this a clean install.

WhiteWashMan

fdisk your hard drive as well

Quigs Snr

The ECS has caused me untold grief, I have had to send several of these back to the vendor. Now I assume that you are running at 100/100 FSB. If so I won't point you in the direction of the infamous memtest86 program the results of which have forced vendors to send me new boards on more than one occasion.

Instead, it seems like you might be overheating inside the case. Can you tell me, when you put it in the case do you put the lid on ?

Even without the lid on, I have seen these things overheat, because (and this is daft, for some reason the fan on thePSU was blowing the wrong way, blowing hot air right down onto the heatsink).

Let me know if your lid is on or off when you get the crashes. As mentioned already, it's probably a good idea to reinstall the OS too if you haven't already done so.

Patrick

Well at the moment I have it outside the case
I reinstalled the OS and installed drivers, programs very carefully. So far no system crashes. I intend on putting it into it's case tonight as to avoid dust/damage. When I had it in the case, both sides were on.
If it starts crashing again tonight I'll assume overheating.

Thanks for the help all

Quigs Snr

Try to run it inside the case with the side of the case off.

Patrick

well I reinstalled windows 98 and put back in the case. All was grand. I then decided I'd install winxp since that's what I want on it and it should be more than able to handle it. There is an error copying over a file for installation though. Any idea why this would happen?

jmcc

Originally posted by Quigs Snr

Instead, it seems like you might be overheating inside the case. Can you tell me, when you put it in the case do you put the lid on ?

It is probably the case design is causing over heating. While the chip can probably cope with the heat, the video card is the most vulnerable from an overheating position. With a tower case, the motherboard is mounted vertically and the videocard is horizontal. Except the problem with the videocard is that the heatsink is pointing downwards and thus heat is not been properly radiated from it. With the system temperature increasing (because the CPU fan is radiating the heat from the CPU), the videocard will take a hell of a basting. Running the system with the side of the case off will keep the CPU temp in the 40-50 region and the system (case) temp in the 30-40 region which should be cool enough. Putting the side of the case back on will cause the CPU temp to go to about 50 within a few minutes and the case temp will climb to about 40. There may be a requirement for a good case fan.

Regards...jmcc

Saruman

jmcc i was thinking the same.. have a system getting a little hot. http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=53276 is the thread i have it in. When i take off side and open nearby window the cpu temp drops a fair bit. Its not the cpu though that has the heat i think its the psu... that gets very hot! Will add more fans..

Quorthon

I actually had exactly this problem before when I built my last pc. When the mobo was in the case, i couldnt get it to run reliably, but outside it would run fine with all the components "loose".

Through trial and error I discovered it was a type of "short circuit" and not overheating. There was one particular motherboard mounting hole which caused a problem. When I used a metal screw in that hole, it would give problems. When I left that hole empty and used a different one (god theres lots of potential inuendo in this post ) everything was fine.

Q

jmcc

Originally posted by Saruman
jmcc i was thinking the same.. have a system getting a little hot. http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=53276 is the thread i have it in. When i take off side and open nearby window the cpu temp drops a fair bit. Its not the cpu though that has the heat i think its the psu... that gets very hot! Will add more fans..

Yep the cooling issue is probably critical here. Most of the low end tower cases have the positions for fans but in order to keep costs down, these fans (system/case fans) are never installed. The box is then relying on the PSU fan to draw in the air through the box, cool the box and the PSU. On a low (minimal 1 HD/1CDROM/sub 1G CPU etc) end box you may get away with it. However once you start adding higher power, more current hungry CPUs and HDs and DVDs the amount of heat generated becomes too much for the CPU fan.

I've seen this with the Elite mobo - a 1G4 Athlon/HD/CDROM runs fine when the case is open but with the case closed, the system locks up after heavy use. The solution (to be tested tonight ) is a fan from a defunt PSU fitted as the case fan. It should work.

The other thing to get right when dealing with case cooling is the airflow. The PSU fan generally pushes the air out of the case. That air has to come from somewhere and that somewhere is typically (in a tower design) the heated air from the CPU fan. So you have a PSU drawing in heated air in an attempt to cool its own electronics. This is not a good thing.

There are some good sites on case cooling (though I cannot remember any URLs at the moment) which should have some ideas for good design. The standard case fan positions seem to be on the front of the case (low) and one just underneath the PSU at the back. A bit of metal bashing and drilling could allow a fan to be fitted to the side of the case over the CPU.

Overclockers.co.uk had a strange method of mounting the CPU fan so that actually blew the air into the heatsink as opposed to the standard configuration of blowing the air away from the CPU. The heatsink was one of those copper types. It worked on this type of heatsink. The theory behind heatsinks is that they rely on the area of the heatsink to radiate the heat. By having the fan blowing into the heatsink, it is effectively cooling the surface of the sink as well helping to radiate the heat. The question is which is the more efficient method? (don't have the temperature probes and the time to check)

I may test the Athlon with the fan inverted to see if it makes a difference before adding the extra case fan.

Regards...jmcc

Quorthon

Jmcc

If you go to the forums at ocuk you will find the answers to all these questions - the forums are some of the most active I have seen and they are a very helpful bunch.

Q

halfab

Just a thought..
When you took the board outof the PC was it lying flat ?

what about the CPU cooler! Could the cooler be making better contact with the CPU when the board is horizontal and when its vertical could the cooler be tilting on the core a little.. due to a weak mount clip..


One quick way is to lay the midi tower on its side (board side down) and see if it is more stable .

Just a thought..


halfab

Patrick

Thanks everyone for your replies but I think it's sorted now.
It was a RAM problem. The brand new 1 stick of 256SDRAM I got is actually faulty even though the bios detected it. As mentioned above I tried installing XP but I got errors about files being copied. I check all my hardware on another machine and narrowed it down to ram. When it crashed I felt the gfx card and cpu but they were cool so it wasn't overheat. Now everything is going grand so far.

Thanks again