[Lao]

Heres my story.

The computer that I own has been acting up for quite awhile. Well, about a week before this incident.

It would freeze once or twice a day, but still be useable... Fast forward to last saturday, I boot the computer,
go brush my teeth; return to find my cpu frozen. I turn it off and on, and it doesnt post.

A month prior the ethernet jack on my motherboard decided to stop working, so I immediatly thought of the MB
being the problem. I go to MSI's website and look at their "Customer support section" (If one can actually call it that). I reset the bios, still doesnt post for awhile. I sit there, dumbfounded, so I try to turn it on about an hour later. POOF it works. Good times are had by all. The cpu still freezes sometimes but its useable again.

For the rest of the night, it works ok. For ALL OF SUNDAY, it works perfectly, not even a freeze... ... ...

Then monday comes along and it starts acting up again, useable, but acting up. During the last days of behavior, it would take an assortment of tries, sometimes lasting two hours to get the computer to boot all the way.

What the computer would do exactly is show the bios screen > Then go black

OR

Show bios screen > Checking screen > Then go black

OR

Show bios screen > Checking screen > windows screen > Restart

OR

Show bios screen > Checking screen > Windows > LOG IN > Computer works for 5 minutes > Goes black

(When I say go black, I mean go black and freeze)

Power supply issue? Not quite

I go to use this computer to research things when it's power supply dies. I swap in the power suppy of my dead computer and it works fine. So I doubt it's the power supply, which leads me to one of two conclusions.

Video card is dead

MSI motherboard is dead.

My video card is an ATI Radeon x800XL

My motherboard is a K8N NEO4-f

Both still under warranty, since my system is under a year old.

Being that my ethernet jack doesnt work (been forced to use a ethernet card) is it most likely the motherboard?

Or is this no booting problem strictly a video card thing, judging by the previous symptoms? Its impossible for me to test it in another machine because of the type of slot the video card uses (and this computer being very old)

So, at this point the cpu no longer posts at all, no matter how many times I try.

Again, help would be greatly appreciated.

Edited by Lao, 10 November 2006 - 11:15 AM.

[Advertisements]

Pull the video card, see if you get a no video post error, or if it just does what it's doing now. That should narrow it down a bit.

[Kurenai]

Pull the video card, see if you get a no video post error, or if it just does what it's doing now. That should narrow it down a bit.

[Lao]

Thats a pretty good idea, however, for some reason or another, my computer's on board sound thing to indicate problems wasnt installed, and I have no idea where it is. Any other suggestions?

[Lao]

Anyone else? Any suggestions at all?

[fleamailman]

I am curious, if you start up in safemode and don't touch the computer for a hour or two, if it freezes on you then sure it is hardware but if nothing happens then perhaps hopefully it is software overload, but eitherway it sounds very much like the graphic card is going, but you could try swapping the ram because the graphic card uses it too, anyway since you say that it is under warrenty the best bet is to take it back because it will get worse I believe and if you mend it now it will just go later

[Lao]

I am curious, if you start up in safemode and don't touch the computer for a hour or two, if it freezes on you then sure it is hardware but if nothing happens then perhaps hopefully it is software overload, but eitherway it sounds very much like the graphic card is going, but you could try swapping the ram because the graphic card uses it too, anyway since you say that it is under warrenty the best bet is to take it back because it will get worse I believe and if you mend it now it will just go later

Thanks for your input, I also suspect the graphics card...

Everywhere I read on this issue, articles state that bad motherboards show obvious signs of being bad.

IE: Smell \ Visual eroding \ a short

But a short is impossible because the case is brand new... Hrm, perhaps its time to contact ATI. (The whole system is fairly new, mind you, less than a year)

[fleamailman]

good luck then, sorry I couldn't offer more

[Lao]

good luck then, sorry I couldn't offer more

I thank anyone for any kind of input, this whole thing has been very stressful...


I just found out ATI doesnt replace it if they dont have the board registered within 30 days of purchase, and Im not even sure if its the graphics card or not...

Do all messed up motherboards have the things I describe, or can they become messed up internally without any real outside or obvious signs on the motherboard itself?

[fleamailman]

lots of things can cause motherboards to go bad, but on this site the main causes are overcloaking, lightning, bad combination, poor design and never cleaning

[Lao]

lots of things can cause motherboards to go bad, but on this site the main causes are overcloaking, lightning, bad combination, poor design and never cleaning

Hm, well the motherboard was a bit dusty...

Theres no real way of knowing the problem until I get an internal speaker to put in there so I could perhaps
get a beep code.

Thanks again, but I remind you that nothing comes up on the screen at all at this point.