hardware troubles :(

[philip]

I've got a problem here, and I'm not sure where to start as there are a few things I think might be bad now.

A few weeks ago I installed a wireless PCI card (+antenna). The network is working fine. Since I installed the card I get random reboots. I have above the minimum specs for the card so there's no problem there. I have found out that some programs are running when the reboots occur.

-streaming music with winamp, other programs are OK and don't do anything.
-Norton Internet Security
-Norton Antivirus autoprotect (the always on one)

Other programs are OK. I have tried to find out if it was because of system resources getting too low. However it didn't seem to be so. One time I got a log from system monitor and it never went above 70% CPU usage. Neither system or CPU are over-heating, both temperatures being around 30 degrees Celsius at most.

I tried to crash the PC myself but that wouldn't work. It only got really slow but in the end did everything OK. Think about NWN + toolset, a load of sites loading, trillian and word processing at the same moment all opened as fast as possible.

The reboots are really random. They can be either right on reboot while loading windows, after a few minutes of streaming or after hours of streaming, or after hours of being on. Could it be I have too little RAM to run these programs extra (128 MB)

Just a few minutes ago I had such a reboot again but this time in the POST there was 'primary hard disk failed' error message. After taking of the current and rebooting it worked again. I don't have really important stuff on it now or it's backed up luckily [img]smile.gif[/img]

Could the problem I have already above be caused by a failing hard disk? Should I take this error seriously? So could my hard disk be dying? I'm going to do a scandisk it right now.

I don't know if this could be important info but a format I did before installing the network card didn't went so good. I had a lot of crashes in the install and for some time windows would be only running in safe mode, because drivers were suddenly deleted. Also because the antenna of the wireless network has better signal if it's out of the way of any other cables behind my computer I decided to take the card down a few PCI slots. After one of those I got an annoying sort of sirene going of. One high beep and then a lower and repeated till I switched of the computer. After putting the card in again this was solved, though it might not be caused by the card itself.

My system is 3 years old but performed really well.

Windows ME
733 mHZ PIII
Asus AX 34 motherboard
128 MB RAM
32 MB NVidia TNT 2

Also since I haven't had trouble with ME for 3 years I'd like to keep it if possible, unless the fun starts only with internet installed. Further I could put in some more RAM but I won't be changing much as it's still good enough for me. And this isn't about new hardware but just fixed the problem but I thought I just post all the specs in case they're needed/give specific errors/were part of the problem.

[harleyquinn]

Have you checked to make sure that when you were putting in the new card you didn't knock anything else loose on the motherboard?
I had a similar problem and the solution wound up being that the connection to the motherboard from the harddrive had been knocked just a little loose. When I fixed that, I stopped having the problems.

[philip]

Then wouldn't it be continuous? The harddrive error only happened once. The reboots were when I put in the card and I definitely didn't touch anything else. Also wouldn't it do the reboots so random if there was something loose?

[harleyquinn]

I just said harddrive as an example of what I had happen to me.

The reboots could be caused by it trying to access something that is not connected very well. Things can become loose on the board without you touching them, you could have knocked it without realizing it with your hand, could have already been loose and the movement of the motherboard from you connecting the card could have shaken something loose, all sorts of things.

The other thing to try is look to see if there's a problem with the driver for your card, could just need to be re-installed.

It's also possible, as you said, that it's a hard disk problem. Scan disk may find those problems.

[philip]

Originally posted by harleyquinn: I just said harddrive as an example of what I had happen to me. The reboots could be caused by it trying to access something that is not connected very well. Things can become loose on the board without you touching them, you could have knocked it without realizing it with your hand, could have already been loose and the movement of the motherboard from you connecting the card could have shaken something loose, all sorts of things. The other thing to try is look to see if there's a problem with the driver for your card, could just need to be re-installed. It's also possible, as you said, that it's a hard disk problem. Scan disk may find those problems.

The harddisk problem seems fixed now. I haven't had any problems and scandisk hadn't found anything. I'll check the connections on my motherboard tomorrow.

Do you have any ideas of the ones I should be especially look after looking at my problem. Actually the more I look at it I find it rather strange that it's just a few programs doing this stuff so it might be the RAM anyway because I think those problems have in common that they could potentially use a large part of the memory.

Thanks for the tips! I'll let you know when I looked at those things tomorrow

[harleyquinn]

I'd check the HD connection, and also make sure your memory is attached correctly, and your power connection.

I just had another thought, if it's not just that you need to add more memory (which it could be, but I don't think that would cause reboots), is it possible that maybe one of your memory sticks are going bad?

[philip]

Originally posted by harleyquinn: I'd check the HD connection, and also make sure your memory is attached correctly, and your power connection. I just had another thought, if it's not just that you need to add more memory (which it could be, but I don't think that would cause reboots), is it possible that maybe one of your memory sticks are going bad?

I think that'd be my only memory stick LOL. Is there something I can check that with? Apart from buying new ones and check it with those?

[philip]

I opened it again and put some pressure on all contacts though it didn't solve the problem.

BTW is it normal that all those contacts are really hard to get loose. Because I knew my internet card went in one way I knew I could get it out with the exact opposite so I just kept pulling. Also I could get a good hold on it.

I fear that's not so for my other cards is there a way to make this easier or is it just pull till it shoots out?

Also the red/black/yellow line connections to HD/CD can they be taklen out as well. These seemed to be even more tightened than cards?

Anyway I've just did a format to see if it wasn't a software conflict with something I had installed. Still got to test that as getting windows to work correctly was hard again.

[philip]

Í've found a new possible error. This problem happened since I installed a network card.

My videocard happens to use the same IRQ channel as the network card. I found at some site that video card+other card using the same IRQ meant fun and since both are used all the time this might be the problem.