The Mother Board

[Rockman01x]

Hi All,
I have a system I built using an ABIT BW7-raid it uses a Pentium4 Williamette
processor it has 1.25 gig RAM 3 hard drives 2-40 gig and 1 sata 300 gig.
I am running Windows XP Pro with SP3 and the system is acting very strange
I first had problems installing the OS I finally worked that out. Now if I add new hardware IE: I tried to install a wireless keyboard and mouse and it crashed and would not reboot until I disabled the #2 40 gig drive and the sata drive I removed the hardware and the soft ware hooked the drives back up and all was well then I tried putting a USB 2.0 card in the machine recognized it and started loading the generic drivers when it all of a sudden shut down and rebooted and I got the ole System Has Recovered From A Serious Error message. This has got me perplexed to say the least and I can't think of what the issue might be so any input will be greatly appreciated. Dave Walton

[bdub]

first of all, look for any bad capacitors on the board (bulging tops or brown fluid indicates that).
second, check the ram... www.memtest.org
did you install the OS with multiple hdd's hooked up? which drive did you install to?
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[Rockman01x]

Hi and thanks for the quick response yeah the memory did have a problem that's what I found out when I ran them through Doc Memory test. solved that
I installed the OS with only the primary drive hooked up. There are other issues that I should mention I have several games installed some play fine others don't my internet access is not up to snuff either I have cable internet and sometimes it acts like I'm on dialup. I really think it's the mobo I bought it used and have had it for several years. The caps look good I will take a closer look at them when I put the replacement mobo in. Thanks again
Dave Walton

[Karlsweldt]

More details about the system should be noted, for better diagnosis.
PSU rating..
CPU speed..
FSB speed..
Graphics type..
Number of active processes when slowing is noted..

Odd that you have "1.25" gigs of memory. Should be an even amount.. unless using on-board graphics which will have part of the main memory dedicated to its use. For Windows XP, a minimum of 2 gigs of memory are recommended.. and a fairly fast processor, 2 GHz or faster. With on-board graphics, the CPU has to double-duty to sort data and then drive the graphics rendering part of the main chipset (Northbridge). And if that chipset gets too hot, the system will become sluggish.
A PSU that is not up to the demands can cause many system problems.. including unexpected shut-down. Same too with heat issues for the CPU, it has thermal sensors that will cause slowness or shut-down of a system when too hot.
As to Internet service, the provider may be under heavy traffic when you note slowing of a connection. If the same results happen at any time of day, complain to the provider.. may be line troubles they can fix without cost to the user.
The RAID setup should have two identical drives for best performance. Otherwise, the smaller drive will dictate the pairing of drives. Ensure the RAID drives are on the 'paired' ports.
_________________
F@H.. to solve mankind's maladies.. in our lifetimes!

[bdub]

[Rockman01x]

The PSU is 400 watts
The CPU is 1.3 Ghz
The FSB I believe is 266 Mhz
He is right I am running 2-512MB sticks and in the 3rd slot I am using a 256 Mb stick.
I Have a ATI Radeon 9250 Video card with 256 Mb of ram
and the number of processes running is probably at least 20 or more.
Like I said am really thinking this board is on its way out so I am replacing it with a Compac socket 423 mobo.

[Karlsweldt]

Yes, mixing memory values on older motherboards was acceptable. But with Win XP OS type, almost all of that memory is used for paging.. storage of in-use files and programs for fast access.
From the specs page link for that Abit BW-7 model, you can have up to 3 gigs of PC-133 memory installed. While there are inexpensive 512 meg modules still plentiful, the 1 gig modules are scarce.
Having only around 20 active processes is the low end of "normal".
With my P4 2.8 Prescott and Conroe 865 setup having Win XP Pro and 2 gigs of RAM, it has more than 40 active processes.. more toward the higher end of "normal" activity. No sluggishness with intensive gaming, unless I have two F@H processes running at the same time.
Yes, that old Socket 423 board is dated. May be time to do a full upgrade to a faster system (socket 478 or 775). As long as the chipsets and features are close to original, there should be little hassle with getting your OS install to come back to life. With faster performance and more memory capacity.
Of course, family and health/hearth are priority over "fun" toys.
_________________
F@H.. to solve mankind's maladies.. in our lifetimes!

[Rockman01x]

I am going to replace the mobo this machine is my media unit and internet unit so it does not need to be blazingly fast. I am building a gaming unit which I've had the parts for years,it's an AMD Xp 3200 Barton processor on a DFI LanParty mobo running 2-120 Gig sata drives in raid0 2 Gigs of ram and it should be a screamer. When I wrote the previous comment I was not looking at the number of processes running I did look this time and I also have about 40 running. I like XP very much and hope ole Microsoft does not make it so it's not usable any more. I have not tried 7 nor do I have much interest in doing so.

[bdub]

[Karlsweldt]

"New" AGP video cards are scarce.. but there are still many 'used' offers on eBay in computers and networking ranging in price from $10.00 USD to over $100.00. Also check Amazon.com and other sites. The nVidia and ATI chipsets are dominant, and are most used by different OEM names.
_________________
F@H.. to solve mankind's maladies.. in our lifetimes!