Yeagermeister
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Chocolate Lab;2632130 said:
BIOS updates can be tricky. You just have to be completely sure it's the correct one before you do it.
OT: To PC builders -- my PC keeps crashing -- please help?
- Thread starter Chocolate Lab
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BIOS updates can be tricky. You just have to be completely sure it's the correct one before you do it.
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I am going to ramble on some here so bear with me so to speak.
It could be a number of issues.
I, as others before, think it sounds like a video card issue. However you say it is onboard video you are using. What you might want to do is find the motherboard brand and model. Go to that brand website and look for a driver package to download. Maybe they have updated from the versions you got on your cd that came with it. Try that and see if it makes a difference.
If that does not make a difference you can borrow a standard video card from another computer. If you have an extra computer somewhere or if you work somewhere with computers you could ask the tech person to borrow one to test with or borrow a friends.
Put the video card into the pci slots, hook up your monitor to that card, do driver updates for the card and see if you still have that problem. It is probably best to try this and if you don't have any problems you can go and buy a new video card and return the one you borrowed.
If you are still having troubles you can probably rule out the video card/onboard situation and start looking elsewhere without spending any money (that is if you can find one to borrow from someone).
You said you did a memory test. I take it the machine starts up normally and you don't get any beep codes. Used to be if you had bad memory it would give you a beep code on some machines. But you can try this. How many sticks of memory do you have and how many memory slots do you have?
If you say two sticks of memory and four memory slots you can try moving them around in a different combination to see if that makes a difference. Sometimes it is not the sticks themselves that are bad but on rare occasions it can be the slots on the mobo.
You said you already tested your CPU temp so I don't know if that would be the problem and I would think you would notice your CPU fan if it was acting up. Just as a side question...did you clock your CPU to make it run faster than originally designed? I doubt it or you would have mentioned it but there can be issues of reliability and odd ball things that happen when people up clock their CPU beyond what it was initially rated for.
Could be a power supply problem but I would think that would cause your computer to turn off or reboot itself instead of just locking up in most cases.
Could also be your hard drive or software issues. If you have not already, since you said it was an older hard drive, reformat the hard drive and do a complete reinstall of all software.
Concerning BIOS. Before attempting to update your bios you might first want to read up on how to flash you bios. I don't think this will fix your problem but who knows. Now about updating your bios. It can be tricky for those that have never messed with bios but usually when you download the program to do this from your mobo site...the program will have an option for you to backup your old bios to a floppy in case the bios update does not work out well.
I would say at this point start with borrowing a video card and trying that route first. It is the easiest to do and won't cost you anything if it does not work. Who knows maybe you just had a bad area in the onboard jack or connection in the motherboard with it and it is causing you some problems. Try that first and see what happens.
If you can not find a vid card from a friend or work...let me know and I should be able to scrounge up an old video card somewhere.
It could be a number of issues.
I, as others before, think it sounds like a video card issue. However you say it is onboard video you are using. What you might want to do is find the motherboard brand and model. Go to that brand website and look for a driver package to download. Maybe they have updated from the versions you got on your cd that came with it. Try that and see if it makes a difference.
If that does not make a difference you can borrow a standard video card from another computer. If you have an extra computer somewhere or if you work somewhere with computers you could ask the tech person to borrow one to test with or borrow a friends.
Put the video card into the pci slots, hook up your monitor to that card, do driver updates for the card and see if you still have that problem. It is probably best to try this and if you don't have any problems you can go and buy a new video card and return the one you borrowed.
If you are still having troubles you can probably rule out the video card/onboard situation and start looking elsewhere without spending any money (that is if you can find one to borrow from someone).
You said you did a memory test. I take it the machine starts up normally and you don't get any beep codes. Used to be if you had bad memory it would give you a beep code on some machines. But you can try this. How many sticks of memory do you have and how many memory slots do you have?
If you say two sticks of memory and four memory slots you can try moving them around in a different combination to see if that makes a difference. Sometimes it is not the sticks themselves that are bad but on rare occasions it can be the slots on the mobo.
You said you already tested your CPU temp so I don't know if that would be the problem and I would think you would notice your CPU fan if it was acting up. Just as a side question...did you clock your CPU to make it run faster than originally designed? I doubt it or you would have mentioned it but there can be issues of reliability and odd ball things that happen when people up clock their CPU beyond what it was initially rated for.
Could be a power supply problem but I would think that would cause your computer to turn off or reboot itself instead of just locking up in most cases.
Could also be your hard drive or software issues. If you have not already, since you said it was an older hard drive, reformat the hard drive and do a complete reinstall of all software.
Concerning BIOS. Before attempting to update your bios you might first want to read up on how to flash you bios. I don't think this will fix your problem but who knows. Now about updating your bios. It can be tricky for those that have never messed with bios but usually when you download the program to do this from your mobo site...the program will have an option for you to backup your old bios to a floppy in case the bios update does not work out well.
I would say at this point start with borrowing a video card and trying that route first. It is the easiest to do and won't cost you anything if it does not work. Who knows maybe you just had a bad area in the onboard jack or connection in the motherboard with it and it is causing you some problems. Try that first and see what happens.
If you can not find a vid card from a friend or work...let me know and I should be able to scrounge up an old video card somewhere.
BlueStarEyes
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You might want to look in your Administrative Tools in the Event Viewer and see if it identifies what is causing the crashes before formatting the hard drive or trading out other pieces of hardware. Go to your Control Panel, then Administrative Tools, then Event Viewer.
Chocolate Lab
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Thanks a ton, BP.
I actually have a brand new video card I was going to put in, because I need dual monitors. I hadn't even put it in yet because of this problem. So I'll do that and then see what happens.
Good idea on downloading the latest mobo drivers. I should've done that from the start, but I just never did. I wonder if this relatively new X3 CPU (at least when I got it a few months ago) could be causing a problem.
And I'll try to move the memory to different slots like you said. I dunno, the way it acts, it just seems like it would be the memory. So maybe moving that to another slot would help just in case the slot is bad.
I actually have a brand new video card I was going to put in, because I need dual monitors. I hadn't even put it in yet because of this problem. So I'll do that and then see what happens.
Good idea on downloading the latest mobo drivers. I should've done that from the start, but I just never did. I wonder if this relatively new X3 CPU (at least when I got it a few months ago) could be causing a problem.
And I'll try to move the memory to different slots like you said. I dunno, the way it acts, it just seems like it would be the memory. So maybe moving that to another slot would help just in case the slot is bad.
Bob Sacamano
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you tried not sucking so hard? that helps too 
Bob Sacamano
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iceberg;2632827 said:
.yes.
Chocolate Lab
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Thought I'd update...
I did make sure everything was seated properly -- all power cables, connections, and memory. So far, no crash yet, but then that could be coincidence. Like I say, sometimes it's gone days and even over a week without doing it.
I did find in some searches that this motherboard is very sensitive to what memory you use -- though from what I could tell, most people wouldn't even get their system to boot up if the memory was rejected.
But there is a new bios that came out just last month that addresses the memory issue and some other things. I ran cpu-z, and it says my bios is from 2007! So maybe I should flash it. I've never done that, but I'm sure I could figure it out.
And BTW, I saw where someone suspected this board was even some kind of factory reject that got sold at Frys anyway. The suspicious thing is a message when you boot up that this says this is an "engineering release - not for production use". Uh... So maybe the board just has issues.
Anyway, thanks again for the help, guys. This was really stumping me.
I did make sure everything was seated properly -- all power cables, connections, and memory. So far, no crash yet, but then that could be coincidence. Like I say, sometimes it's gone days and even over a week without doing it.
I did find in some searches that this motherboard is very sensitive to what memory you use -- though from what I could tell, most people wouldn't even get their system to boot up if the memory was rejected.
But there is a new bios that came out just last month that addresses the memory issue and some other things. I ran cpu-z, and it says my bios is from 2007! So maybe I should flash it. I've never done that, but I'm sure I could figure it out.
And BTW, I saw where someone suspected this board was even some kind of factory reject that got sold at Frys anyway. The suspicious thing is a message when you boot up that this says this is an "engineering release - not for production use". Uh... So maybe the board just has issues.
Anyway, thanks again for the help, guys. This was really stumping me.
Yeagermeister
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Chocolate Lab;2633894 said:
On most newer pc's you just download a file to your hard drive and run it to update the bios. Or the file will create a bootable floppy. It's pretty simple.
Chocolate Lab
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Oh, really? That would be nice and simple for sure.Yeagermeister;2633902 said:
I think the ECS website said I had to do the whole floppy disk thing, though. I don't even have the floppy hooked up, though I guess I can if I have to. I'll double check to see if I have to.
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Chocolate Lab;2634079 said:
Probably will.
Chances are that the bios program will load during the boot up process, not once windows loads.
You might to get an extra floppy as most of those programs will give you a chance to back up the existing BIOS in case the upgrade screws up.
dback
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BrAinPaiNt;2634117 said:
BP is right on this one. The BIOS updates that are done within the operating system will usually give you the chance to backup the BIOS. It is simple and convenient to just backup the BIOS to the hard drive, but if the update fails it can be a hassle to restore from the hard drive. You can go to bootdisk.com and see some disk images for updating the BIOS.
Point is, if you absolutely have to update the BIOS, have a backup of it on a separate bootable piece of media.