Legit Reviews

I love it when I try and replace something benign and end up creating new problems.

My problem was an overheating CPU. I think stock came running at 40C-45C load, last year or so has been running 52C-59C load, and around 66C it will cause the computer to reboot itself.

Well I was getting alot of reboots. So I just said hell, I'll replace the heatsink/fan and see if that resolves the issue. Installation was tricky since one of the pieces that lock the heatsink in an AMD was broken and stuck, so I had to lodge the piece of plastic off with a screwdriver to lock in the heatsink. That was the only "rough" part.

Now when I start my computer it does one of many things:

Error 1: It will just reboot itself during any point of the load process.
Error 2 (most common error): During Windows 2000 load, about midway gives me a KMODE EXCEPTION NOT HANDLED blue screen of death.
Error 3: I sometimes get other bluescreens. I even get them with boot discs, with Windows 2K boot disc I get KMODE. With a Win XP boot disc I get a different error "BAD_POOL_CALLER." Doesn't seem to be related to my hard drive.

I tried resetting my BIOS, replacing the lithium battery, and using the default setting + changing the settings randomly many times. Still won't boot.

I tried running MemTest and different Knoppix cds, it just crashes while it is loading any of them- no error given, just a total freeze.

I figure faulty memory might be to blame, but I swapped in and out many sticks of memory to no difference in the error types. Occasionally my computer doesn't even recognize the memory and gives me the three beeps of doom. So I really can't see any other issue than that I have to replace my mobo.

--

So here we go. Old computer hardware (3-4 years old), a seemingly simple replacement ended up totally blowing up my computer to a problem I can't seem to diagnose. I'm at the point of just retiring it and buying a new computer, but I really didn't think replacing the heatsink/fan would have killed my computer.

Maybe you guys have some ideas of something I haven't tried. I can't load any boot discs without getting the errors, and the floppy drive stopped working two years ago. I doubt it is a hard drive issue or virus since I had virtually no problems with it, except the overheating, before I replaced the heatsink. Plus, if the hard drive were culprit a bootable CD like Knoppix should work.

My next idea might be to upgrade the BIOS, though I'm not sure how I'm going to do that when nothing seems to load or work.

I probably can get a decent tower for around $300 so I probably will just ignore this headache and go for that. I'm just mad that I've finally found a computer I can't repair of the thousands I have repaired through college, my own POS.

EDIT:
Ah and it does the same thing when booting safe mode or any of the other booting options. But the at least the CPU temperature seems stable and much better than it was before, so I don't think I messed up there.

you should be able to update the bios off a bootable floppy disk, might be worth a try

Yeah too bad the floppy doesn't work. I'm sure I can find a floppy drive off a dead computer somewhere and put that in though.

But first I need to get ahold of the BIOS. I submitted something to AMI and gotta wait for a confirmation of some sort.

You sure that the new heatsink is cooling it properly? Decent thermal grease spread around with good contact by the heatsink?

Does your BIOS have a CPU temp page to check on?

If something is causing the computer to hang that's not bad code related (i.e. a hardware fault) I wouldn't recommend flashing the BIOS in that state as it might write the BIOS wrong and mess it up even more!

Dan

Yes, the temperature settings in the BIOS seem fine. I don't think the heatsink is the issue, it came with thermal grease preapplied on the pad. It smeared a little bit when I put the heatsink on but that was the only issue. I can try removing the heatsink and reattaching it.

Plus at this point it can't really mess up more. It's either scrap or find a way to fix it heh.

Did you O/C you CPU? If so, perhaps you have may have gone too far for too long and shortened the life of you CPU...

Nope, it's running stock everything. However, what is the life of a CPU anyway? This PC is a few months from 4 years old.

I've seen really old PCs live longer, but I think the higher temperature and speeds of newer computers reduces its lifespan.

The problem seems to be in the RAM sockets. Any idea on how to fix that?

Well I was getting alot of reboots. So I just said hell, I'll replace the heatsink/fan and see if that resolves the issue. Installation was tricky since one of the pieces that lock the heatsink in an AMD was broken and stuck, so I had to lodge the piece of plastic off with a screwdriver to lock in the heatsink. That was the only "rough" part.

you sure you didn't scratch any part of the motherboard to where you're shorting a circuit?

I figured out what is is

And unfortunately it is nothing I can fix without a BIOS upgrade, which will cost me like 50 bucks from the manufacturer unless someone has a flashed AMI BIOS or know where I can get one.

Apparently with Service Pack 4 on Windows 2000, the plug and play driver system is updated to ACPI, but ACPI was new and the support was limited for the BIOS I had currently. ACPI was working before on my motherboard somehow but is no longer working even when enabled (loading Knoppix even recognized this error).

I wanted a free upgrade but the guy wanted to charge me 50 bucks, might as well get a new mobo so I declined lol.

EDIT: Found a BIOS but I can't create a boot disc currently cause the computer I'm on doesn't have a floppy drive, and the cd rewriter is busted. Plus, even if I did have a boot disc my own floppy drive is busted. I hate OLD hardware.