computer help needed

[Quickling]

I need some computer help cause I am seriously at the end of my rope here.

Back in January my old PC burnt out so I bought the following to make a new one. (nothing other then periphials left over.

win 98se OS

AMD 2100+ socket A chip

MSI K7N2 mobo (nforce2 chipset)

MSI G4 8xagp

2x 512 cruical 2700 DDR ram

WD 10 gig HD (it was free)

400watt pwr supply

Ok so I get it all setup and trying to do the first boot it always hangs..

what happens is booting with a disk brings me to the Start computer with CD-ROM screen

any selection (with or without CD) locks the pc

booting the computer from CD and trying to go to dos to format the drive results in an nvidia boot error:media failure.

MSI told me to return the board, and I just got it back like a week or two ago.

now I started it up, same problems.

Ok maybe its the CD, so I borrow my firends 98se cd. get all the way to dos... cool, shoulda tried this long ago, rather then doing an RMA.

so I try typing "format c:" cause the drive has no format.

I end up typing "forma" and the screen explodes in a mess of crazy characters ( I didnt even hit enter).. I mean characters that I never knew dos could have (like smilie faces).

I try and reboot. gets starts booting off the CD and I get to the NVIDIA BOOT MANAGER (where it used to give me the old media failure error)

and now its says Bad command line.

Nothing has changed...

bad CD or what? (I unfortunately dont have a third cd to try)

any help would be greatly appriciated.

[NJPaint]

Okay, first off, I would get a real OS ;) try getting Win2k or XP, you will be pissed off at 98 even when you get your computer up. Next, make sure that the bios on the MB are up to date. If not, ask MSI to send you a new MB chip. If everything there is ok, I'd think you got another busted MB. :/

[Quickling]

I was staying with 98 because I had heard that xp would be limit the number of times installed....

[NJPaint]

Only if you try to register the software. By installing multiple times with 98, its just as illegal as violating the XP multiple installs :p

[OfficerGoat]

1st thing I would do with this is reset cmos... don't ask me why but doing so fixes ALOT of problems, especialy on MSI boards.

2nd Try it without one stick of ram and then without the other. Seems that your issues begin when the computer boots past bios which typicaly means that the board etc are ok.. now its time to look at disks and ram.

3rd Take it to church and have some holey water tossed on it... err ..ok j/k ;)

Good luck. Let us know how it goes.

[devildog]

it sounds like a hardware conflict issue, do this

disconect everything from the mother board, like harddrives, cdrom, floppy, take out all the pci cards.

leave in the ram, processor, and vid card.

go into the bios and make sure everything is set right

boot and see how far it goes, you should get past bios and will say something about nothing to boot off of

then, plug in one thing at a time, starting with the floppy and boot it, if that works, plug in the next thing, like hdd, boot it, then the next thing, cdrom, boot it. keep doing it until the computer boots with everything in there.

try those for now

also, make sure that both connectors from the powersupply are plugged into the mother board, there should be the main big one, and one small 4 pronged one, you need them both with the nforce2 chipset (good choice by the way)

also, make sure that your ram is in the slot FARTHEST away from the processor, that matters as well. let us know how this came out

[Tron]

Download the diag software for your harddrive and run it, sounds like a HD problem.

-Tron

[devildog]

after reading this again, check for heating problems, it sounds like you may be overheating the system and thats why its shuting down.

[Quickling]

using the cpu heatsink and thermal paste (silver grease) and checking the bios after reset from a hang, I get ~115 degrees F. CPU temp.

[Quickling]

oh yeah. I am only using one stick of ram right now until i get it running, and I have tried swapping the ram between slots, and between chips.

[pbzmag]

I have the XP 1800+ and it's at 147 degrees F. I also had problems boot from the CD. Have you tried booting from a bootable floppy?

[Quickling]

Ok double checked the boot temp, the cpu is running 147 degrees... gave up on the cd.. trying from a bootdisk andd another HD


Ill keep yall posted

[devildog]

what is that temp in degrees C?