skonopa Posted May 13, 2004 Share Posted May 13, 2004 Just the other day, I went and added some upgrades to my old Athlon 1.33ghz machine (w/ 512 megs of RAM!). I put in an Athlon XP 2400+ (the fastest thing that Asus A7A266 MoBo can take. Nobody had any of the older "Thoroghbred" XP 2600+, only the newer "Barton" ones, which requires a 333mhz FSB.). I also added an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro, to replace an NVidia GeForce III card. The local Best Buy was selling these things for $200 (after a $50 mail-in rebate). May not be the most awesome thing, plus I was tempted to pre-order the X800, but for this particular machine, I did not think it was worth it. The Radeon 9800 Pro is a good two generations upgrade from what I had before and is more than capable to run anything I have or willing to get at the resolutions that I need (1280x1024 - my 19inch Samsung, which I also had for a few years (and at the time, was considered to be a nice monitor), can display 1600x1200, but only at 60hz refresh). I got all this installed and working and this machine is rocking now! Not the most cutting edge, but since I am jonesing for a full MoBo upgrade, I'll wait to get the cutting edge tech in when that time comes (Fastest available Athlon 64-FX, latest-and-greatest video, 2 gigs RAM, 1/2 terabyte HD, etc). Now, were this all royally sucks is this. I started into playing Knights of the Old Rebublic. I am getting into the game when suddenly "poof" - the machine shutsdown! I tried restarting it, and nothing. The thing is deader than a doornail. We are talking full "casters-up" mode here. Of course, after a few choice words of the four-letter variety, I start checking things out. Did I bump a plug loose? Did a fan get stuck and cause an overheat? Worse yet, did I install the processor wrong and it decided to quite? I checked all the plugs and they are all firmly seated. I reseated all the cards, including the memory sticks, and still nothing. I tried swaping back the old 1.33ghz processor, and still nothing (which leads me to believe the processor is not at fault). The only thing that I have not tried, and I'll do this later at night, is perhaps the power supply finally went "t1ts-up" (this thing is four years old, actually older than that, since I resued the case and PSU from when I had a 650mhz Athlon in there some six years ago!). I got a spare machine from which I am going to cannibalize a PSU from, that I know works, to try out. If that is the case, time to get a newer, beefer PSU (the one currently in there is a 300watt power supply). Anybody else have any other suggestions for me to try out? If it turns out to be the power supply, I'll get one from local resources, since I don't feel like hassling with internet and mail-order. There is a local shop that has some pretty nice, high-end, stuff for reasonable prices. If it turns out the MoBo crapped out (I hope not, because I really want to wait until PCIExpress comes out before upgrading), than I am returning the processor and getting an Athlon-64 and returning the video card and pre-order the X800, but use my GeForce III in the mean-time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darkpark Posted May 13, 2004 Share Posted May 13, 2004 when you've got a dead system, the fault usually lies either with the psu or the mobo. to be on the safe size, remove all peripherals (ie: hard drives, floppy drives, cdrom, video card, and any other cards). it should only be your mobo, cpu, memory, and psu. if still nothing, then try the psu. if that doesn't help, than you've got a dead mobo. should the system spring back to life after you've disconnected all of your peripherals than reconnect them back one by one until the system dies again and you'll have found your culprit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skonopa Posted May 13, 2004 Author Share Posted May 13, 2004 ---------------- On 5/13/2004 6:32:37 PM darkpark wrote: when you've got a dead system, the fault usually lies either with the psu or the mobo. to be on the safe size, remove all peripherals (ie: hard drives, floppy drives, cdrom, video card, and any other cards). it should only be your mobo, cpu, memory, and psu. if still nothing, then try the psu. if that doesn't help, than you've got a dead mobo. should the system spring back to life after you've disconnected all of your peripherals than reconnect them back one by one until the system dies again and you'll have found your culprit. ---------------- I got it fixed! . It was indeed the PSU. The old 300 Watt Deer just did not seem it could take the additional load of the new vid card and ended up giving up the ghost. Ah well, the thing was over 6 years old (according to the inspection sticker, it was made in 1997). I replaced it with a brand spanking new Antec SmartPower 400 watt power supply and it it running like a champ. . This is the third system this particular case has seen (plus the case has been modded heavily to accomidate additional fans and such). This old machine is rocking now, sporting that new ATI Radeon 9800 Pro and Athlon XP 2400+ processor! Woo-Hoo! But wait until next spring.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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