Techie
My PC shut down in the middle of a session, and won’t turn back on. It’s on a bench, and at this point won’t stay on for more than 10 seconds. Here are the specs:
n-Track
Sonar HS4
Cool Edit Pro 2
Free stuff…
AMD Athlon XP 3200+ (Socket A… 432)
Via KT600/Southbridge 8235
QDI KuDoz 7X/600 Mainboard
512 MB RAM
Terratec EWS88MT
ATI Rage 128 All-In-Wonder Vid card
The guy fixing it (he built it) says it’s the mainboard- he’s checked / eliminated every other possibility. He believes a mainboard component ‘went down’ and is now causing the mainboard to draw too much power from the supply- thereby overheating, etc… and the 90-day warranty is over. So, can any of you guys recommend another mainboard that will support AMD and run n-Track, and these other apps I listed? I’m also using some free stuff, like Glaceverb, SIR Impulse Reverb, Nyquist EQ, and some Kjaerhus Classics.
This may be a very pedestrian question, but I don’t mind saying I’m plain ignorant, and am trying to avoid a full-on self-teaching experience at New Egg… thanks for your time!
It sounds like it “could” be the motherboard. Weren’t you having overheating problems before? Could it be a bad power supply? Finding a good selection of old Socket A motherboards could prove difficult. I would try here and here .
The thing is that this might be a good time to move to a socket 939 board and a cheap 64 bit processor or if you can wait a week or two, you can get a nice dual core athlon 64 for just a few hundred bucks. But if you decide to upgrade to a 939, keep in mind that they are being phased out as a socket. The upside is that in about 6 to 8 months (or sooner) the nice, fast dual core 939 CPUs will be real cheap.
Well the guy’s eliminated the problem’s causes down to the motherboard. This is the same issue as I mentioned earlier- I’ve been without my machine all this time. No great loss yet- I don’t do this professionally.
I only know that I have this AMD 3200+, and it seems to be fine for me. I need a mobo that uses the AMD, and will support this kind of work. I can’t afford to spend a few hundred- I’m doing this on a shoestring! It seems to me I should be able to do what I’m doing on less than the newest item.
I’m basically doing small-band demos, a project of my own, and there’s a Sonar Home Studio 4 MIDI project I was working on with another Cakewalk user, which is now back to square one… not that big a deal, just inconvenient.
So the word for the day is: Budget! Thanks, Doc, for the links.
Look on E-Bay they have a lot of socket A Motherboards listed at decent prices.If you know your processor is still good and your ram is good, it would be the cheapest way to go and still have a good system.
If you want that same motherboard, you can find it on the web for around $40 US.
Dave T2
My computer gets where it will shut down. Won’t even boot to the BIOS. I blow out the processor fan with compressed air and it is fine. May want to try it.
9 times out of 10 these things are caused by thermal shutdown - usually because one of the fans has stopped working or got clogged up as brpoll has suggested. It could also be the heatsink/fan is not making a proper connection with the processor - may be an idea to take the CPU fan off, clean it and re-apply some thermal cement.
Ta
John
Those fan/cooling system suggestions are a pretty practical idea. Wouldn’ta thought of that, I’ll tell my PC guy! Thanks guys.
And thanks for the ebay/web suggestions.