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Need help troubleshooting issue

M

mrmagoo_83

2[H]4U
Joined
Aug 8, 2002
Messages
3,068
I am trying to troubleshoot an issue I cannot seem to narrow down, and I dont have a ton of cash to throw at a solution, so I need some brain power assistance.

2.4GHz Xeon Dual Core CPU (its a socket 775)
2GB of DDR2 Corsair
4970 or something PCIE GFX card (no outside power required)
Asrock Dual-VSTA motherboard
PATA DVD ROM
Ultra 500W Modular Power Supply

Long story:
Computer has ran fine for years, late last year I had a HDD fail, to date I have had 4 go bad, both SATA and PATA. I contribute this to a failing power supply, I assume. So I down to 4 HDDs at the moment, and one of them is dying. I was trying to save the data on the drive, as I can boot into windows, it just locks up after a few minutes. CHKDSK hangs during error checking on the drive.

So I throw in a 400W Cooler Master I had laying around, hoping a different power supply would give me a little better chance. It did not. I can only have two drives hooked up to the thing, or the machine wont even post. So I hooked up my OS drive, and the one I was going to copy everything to, booted up, locked up during copying.

So after a reboot, I tried to plug in a USB drive I had, computer shut down completely. Got me off guard, so I powered it back up and did it again, same result. So thats something new, that I dont quite understand what it means. Maybe its the MB thats toast...

So, now I'm stuck on how to proceed. I know I need a new HDD, as I even booted up with Norton Ghost 15 and used its CHKDSK which locks up. So thats $60 at least for a 1TB drive. But now, do I simply look at a total rebuild, or try to piece mill it together? I new power supply is another $40-$50. Microcenter has a decent deal on a Biostar MB & AMD X4 640 CPU for $99; but again, this is all money I'm having to scrape together, so I would rather not go all out unless I just have to.

Any thoughts? I am so swamped and brain dead from the chaos that has been the last two months. Mother-in-law passed away, had been living with us, father is in the hospital, wife is due any time now with our second kson, work is going nuts cause its time to release our next software version; so its like juggling 90 balls in the air with a sadistic clown throwing bowling pins at my nuts. And now my computer goes stupid.
 
well statistically your mobo has the bigger chance to malfunction, due to the bigger part count that the motherboard has, a lot more things can go wrong.

I reckon it's a mobo problem. If your PSU is old, I'd suggest you get a new one too
 
Sorry to hear about your troubles. Hope everything works itself for you!

Now the issue with the HDDs is definitely PSU related. The USB thing however is related to both the mobo and PSU. Both the Ultra and Coolermaster PSUs aren't good PSUs in the first place.

At this point, see if any of the hard drives you've had die still have a warranty on them. That should save you some money. I say you're basically looking at a total rebuild. Luckily for you (in a way), you live near a microcenter which means that you can take advantage of the deal you mentioned. In addition, DDR3 RAM prices have dropped quite a bit in the past few months. So i recommend the following:

$31 - G.Skill NS F3-10666CL9S-2GBNS 2GB DDR3 1333 RAM
$50 - Antec NEO ECO 400C 400W PSU
---
Total: $81 plus tax and shipping.

$100 for the CPU + mobo and another $60 for the HDD and you're looking at $241 give or take for a newer, better quality, and significantly faster PC.
 
Thanks for the replies. The combo I mentioned actually uses DDR2, which means I can use what I have. Only question I have about it is that its an AMD Athlon 640 quad core cpu not a phenom, are those descent processors, because I think for $40 more I can get the 1055 or 1066 x6 processor.
 
mrmagoo_83 said:
Thanks for the replies. The combo I mentioned actually uses DDR2, which means I can use what I have. Only question I have about it is that its an AMD Athlon 640 quad core cpu not a phenom, are those descent processors, because I think for $40 more I can get the 1055 or 1066 x6 processor.
Click to expand...

Link to this combo? If the price difference is only $40, than definitely get the 1055.
 
I will have to post that tomorrow, having a hard time viewing the microcenter ad on my fascinate. I could have read it wrong, hope not.
 
Ok, I was way off, the 1055T is $195.99, so just under $100 more...definitely out of the question at that price.
 
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