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My oldie's breakin' down

D

Drinnit

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 16, 2003
Messages
166
So, I'm a little behind the times. My Athlon Thunderbird 1.1ghz seems to be having trouble. I'm running it on an Epox EP-8KTA3 mobo. In the past month or two, it's been having some stability problems. The computer to this day will randomly lock up, sometimes so often that it makes the computer unusable.

One thing I noticed was that the northbridge heatsink's fan had died. I passed this off as nothing big, it didn't make much difference in the first place.

Then I thought about the heatsink. It was a ThermalTake Mini Super Orb -- not exactly top of the line, but I didn't have much for choices. Went to radioshack and purchased an overpriced heatsink rated for 1.3ghz processors, figuring it should be enough to cool this processor off. I cleaned off the processor core, reapplied thermal grease, and applied the heatsink. It did drop the temperatures, but it did not get rid of the stability issues.

I also considered that it mayhaps be the fault of my ram, but it has never acted up before, I'm not overclocking it, and I haven't in a very long time.

Right now it's running pretty stable, dropped everything to default, said fuck overclocking, set the fail-safe options in the BIOS, and it seems to be doing okay.

Any help on this? I want to know what caused this and how to fix it. It was a good overclocking chip/board combo, and when I first purchased it (a very long time ago) I fell in love with both AMD & Epox. I'd hate to put it out to the pasture, it's done me well -- that, and I'm broke, I can't afford a new machine.

Thanks in advance.
 
Well from what you've said you've had your Thunderbird OCed for how long?

And OCing shortens the CPU lifespan...
 
I've had it over somewhere around a year. I haven't overclocked it very much, but I have. It's spent most of it's time non-overclocked because I didn't find much reason for it.

And I'll also mention that this is an escalating problem, it's been getting worse and worse for a few weeks now.
 
Hmmm a year, a lot non OCed?

Sounds to me like your fan has been going on the fritz for a while now.

Is this one of these mobo's without the "automatic shutdown if CPU gets too hot feature" in the BIOS?
 
It wouldn't matter, the BIOS always reads the temperature kinda low, and doesn't have a monitor for the northbridge.

The temps are fine according to BIOS & MBM, so I'm lost.
 
Originally posted by Drinnit
It wouldn't matter, the BIOS always reads the temperature kinda low, and doesn't have a monitor for the northbridge.

The temps are fine according to BIOS & MBM, so I'm lost.
Click to expand...

Clear CMOS, update or reflash BIOS, make sure all of your drives are okay. :) That should be a good start. Otherwise, get a new Mobo.
 
It's your fan goin AWOL that's fuxxored everything.

New system mate, that ones on it's last lap.
 
Originally posted by ’m‚³‚ñ
Clear CMOS, update or reflash BIOS, make sure all of your drives are okay. :) That should be a good start. Otherwise, get a new Mobo.
Click to expand...


Hm.. so THAT'S why I should've installed a floppy drive, or at least had one somewhere in the house. Is there ANY chance that this could be a software issue, any at all?


Originally posted by zombiebeat
It's your fan goin AWOL that's fuxxored everything.

New system mate, that ones on it's last lap.
Click to expand...

My northbridge fan? I've never really suspected that as the problem, though I suppose that it easily could be, if the KT166A northbridge has a problem with overheating.



And I really REALLY cannot afford a new system, not for 3 more months. Right now I'm on a REALLY old K6-2 system.. it's my last hope, too.
 
Originally posted by Drinnit
Hm.. so THAT'S why I should've installed a floppy drive, or at least had one somewhere in the house. Is there ANY chance that this could be a software issue, any at all?




My northbridge fan? I've never really suspected that as the problem, though I suppose that it easily could be, if the KT166A northbridge has a problem with overheating.



And I really REALLY cannot afford a new system, not for 3 more months. Right now I'm on a REALLY old K6-2 system.. it's my last hope, too.
Click to expand...

Floppy is good. You might be able to use a Win 98 CD to get into DOS, but I don't know what you would do with out a CD Burner. Floppy == $14 at Circuit City. ;)
 
Funny, in the past week my CD-burner has borked, it doesn't burn CDs anymore.

Circuit City? What circuit city? I'm out in the middle of nowhere, I have radioshack, and a mom & pop shop that'll charge me forty bucks for a floppy drive.
 
Originally posted by Drinnit
Funny, in the past week my CD-burner has borked, it doesn't burn CDs anymore.

Circuit City? What circuit city? I'm out in the middle of nowhere, I have radioshack, and a mom & pop shop that'll charge me forty bucks for a floppy drive.
Click to expand...

Hah, you should have just said '$14 for a floppy? You mean $14 for gas then another $14 for a floppy'. :p

Newegg, man. Best Buy's website. Find some online friends... :p
 
Originally posted by Drinnit
Funny, in the past week my CD-burner has borked, it doesn't burn CDs anymore.

Circuit City? What circuit city? I'm out in the middle of nowhere, I have radioshack, and a mom & pop shop that'll charge me forty bucks for a floppy drive.
Click to expand...

Then slide your hard earned $$$$ into your pop's pocket and get online with his credit card :p
 
Originally posted by zombiebeat
Then slide your hard earned $$$$ into your pop's pocket and get online with his credit card :p
Click to expand...

That's a good idea. :D I've done that a few times myself, when my credit card wasn't working. o_O
 
KT166A? I'm assuming by the age of your CPU, you meant KT133A. If so, most of the boards back then, the fan was just for looks. Lot's of boards didn't have a fan. My Iwill board just had a heatsink on it. I doubt that is the problem, but who knows.

Go download a program called Memtest86. Google for it. Run that over night or something....It will clear up or confirm any suspicion of memory problems. Your gonna need to boot with it, so get the CDRW drive fixed so you can make a boot CD or go pickup a floppy drive. Or if all esle fails, format a extra hard drive to boot to DOS and run Memtest from it.

You say you only had that 1.1G Athlon for a year or so? You buy it used? How hot did you let it get when you overclocked it? How much did you over-volt it?

OK just googled your MB, its got a Via KT133A chipset.

Good Luck.
 
Yeah, it's a 133A, sorry about the typo, I've been really tired, haven't slept much lately.

I have a spare hard drive laying around, I'll probably try the memtest tomorrow.

It was used once when I bought it, according to the motherboard sensor, it never really got much over 50c, and that was VERY VERY rare, because I almost never really kept it overclocked, I was always waiting to buy a new heatsink, which I never got around to. Only bumped up the voltage about +.025 a few times.
 
Originally posted by ’m‚³‚ñ
Clear CMOS, update or reflash BIOS, make sure all of your drives are okay. :) That should be a good start. Otherwise, get a new Mobo.
Click to expand...

Honestly man, thats terrible advise. Thats like saying to someone with transmission problems "check the oil, if that dont work, send the car the the scrap yard"




Anyways... You say the heatsink is working fine PLUS you bought a new one anyways?

It shoudlnt be the heatsink, and if ti was I would suspect dust build up making the heatsink cool like crap. But since you bought a new one it should be fine.

Also since you have barely overclocked, I would say the old athlon is probibly fine.

Your should really check out that northbridge heatsink fan.. I know back then most boards only had a heatsink but the northbridge chips still got hot. If a company used a fan on the NB heatsink, it generally means they used a small heatsink with fewer fins and put a fan on there to compensate. Touch the NB heatsink and see it its hot. You should probibly replace the fan anyways. Mabey take it off and apply new thermal greese also.

if all that doesnt work, fun memtest98 (cant remember the name of the program) I think thats the name. See if your memory is taking a crap. Its doubtful though, usually memory just doesnt screw up for no reason installed in a system.

I would then investigate your harddrive. Mabey look on the manufacturers website and see if theres a stress test program. run that and see if the drive is dieing. Also mabey find a 20 gig drive you know is working fine and see if its stable with that drive installed.

Also mabey the problem is simple, mabey you just need a format and windows reinstalled. Are you sure the stability problems are from hardware?

I hope that helps a bit, you just gotta narrow down the problem. Also try running the system barebones.. (just 1 stick of ram, vcard, cpu, and harddrive...)
 
OT: ziddy, I noticed you have an albatron 845pev pro, thats the same board I have, do you know it these albatron boards over/under volt?
 
Originally posted by Big Worm
OT: ziddy, I noticed you have an albatron 845pev pro, thats the same board I have, do you know it these albatron boards over/under volt?
Click to expand...
UNDER :(
 
first, go to www.windowsupdate.com (it'll redirect you) and see if there are any updates;

then, see if you need any driver updates (post if you need help on this one).

next, you'll need your Win CD for this step:
boot into Windows and go Start \ Run: "SFC" (w/o the "")
see if anythin suspicious pops up;

next, boot into DOS and type scanreg/fix -- this might take a while.

next, Start \ Program Files \ Accessories \ System Tools \ Scandisk
run it Standard w/ Automatic Fix Errors on (make sure nothing else is running or it won't finish...)

next, run a Virus Scan (google for AVG and download the free edition if you don't have an up-to-date virus scanner; and make sure after d/ling AVG Free Edition you use its update utiltiy located in the Control Panel of it so that it updates to its current database)

next, run a Spybot S&D Scan -- don't know what this amazing program is? google it. (make sure you update this one too, just run its update utility after d/ling it)

hopefully that'll solve your problems; if not, you might just need to kill windows and start over by reformatting; it really shouldn't be anything hardware related (unless something in the case has shifted and is shorting out your mobo randomly...)

EDIT: Good Luck.
 
Alright, here's the deal.

I had a strange suspicion about the processor, so my girlfriend's dad let me borrow an Athlon XP to try out -- and it's running in it right now. When I removed my old processor, I looked at the bottom, and a memory shot me right in the head. A while back, when I first got it, it was multiplier locked -- so I did the pencil trick on the bridge to unlock it. On my first attempt, I failed, processor smoked, left some browning on the underside. Cleaned it off, tried again, and it worked flawlessly. I'm guessing that this has shortened my CPU's lifespam tremendously.

So now I've installed an old Volcano 5, another Athlon, and I'm running Prime 95, wishing myself the best of luck.

Thanks for all the advice, and if this doesn't work out, I'll try what was given.
 
Alright, not the processor, still locking up.

The computer fails Prime 95 blend tests -- I'm suspicious of the ram now. I have 2x 256 sticks, and they're not matching brands. One's a generic stick, the other is a stick of Crucial memory.

Testing the Crucial stick right now, seeing if it'll pass Prime.
 
The stick of Cruicial couldn't make it through a blend test, but the generic stick did.

It's stable.. so far. I'm hoping that solved my problem.
 
at least the crucials have a lifetime warantee..


if that doesn't solve your stability issues i'd take a look at the power supply..
 
Originally posted by Drinnit
Alright, here's the deal.

I had a strange suspicion about the processor, so my girlfriend's dad let me borrow an Athlon XP to try out -- and it's running in it right now. When I removed my old processor, I looked at the bottom, and a memory shot me right in the head. A while back, when I first got it, it was multiplier locked -- so I did the pencil trick on the bridge to unlock it. On my first attempt, I failed, processor smoked, left some browning on the underside. Cleaned it off, tried again, and it worked flawlessly. I'm guessing that this has shortened my CPU's lifespam tremendously.

So now I've installed an old Volcano 5, another Athlon, and I'm running Prime 95, wishing myself the best of luck.

Thanks for all the advice, and if this doesn't work out, I'll try what was given.
Click to expand...
wow super luck

smoke and still chugging
 
Removal of bad memory and fresh Windows install seems to have fixed it.

Lost a lot of customized stuff, but.. I got a free processor, heatsink, and a friend even gave me another stick of 256 Crucial.
 
Thats good to hear. Did you ever get a chance to run Memtest? Just wondering out of curiosity what it would have pulled up with that bad stick of Crucial. Get a hold of Crucial and let them know about it, they will replace that stick of memory with their lifetime warranty.

PS: It always nice to see someone come back and post when they solve the problem that they were seeking advice on. Thanks.
 
Originally posted by Drinnit
Removal of bad memory and fresh Windows install seems to have fixed it.

Lost a lot of customized stuff, but.. I got a free processor, heatsink, and a friend even gave me another stick of 256 Crucial.
Click to expand...

wow, so it was the memory after all...well, glad you got it fixed! :D
 
Yeah, I even got a replacement stick. Back at full.

Perhaps I really can avoid upgrades forever.
 
Originally posted by Drinnit
Yeah, I even got a replacement stick. Back at full.

Perhaps I really can avoid upgrades forever.
Click to expand...

Of course you can... at least in theory. But they're just so tempting once your salary starts getting high enough.
About the only way to really avoid upgrades short of getting yourself sent to prison is to move to some 3rd world country. Getting married will slow down the cycle but not stop it, and even if you're dirt poor sooner or later someone's going to give you some faster hardware.
 
Originally posted by zandor
Of course you can... at least in theory. But they're just so tempting once your salary starts getting high enough.
About the only way to really avoid upgrades short of getting yourself sent to prison is to move to some 3rd world country. Getting married will slow down the cycle but not stop it, and even if you're dirt poor sooner or later someone's going to give you some faster hardware.
Click to expand...

LOL...great theory! Gettin married definetly slows it down...LOL
 
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