Win2000 Pro Failure

[lgvelez]

About a week ago, I started having intermittant system freezes on my computer: AMD Duron 800, FIC motherboard, 512 meg PC133 memory, TEAC CDR/RW, 30 gig Maxtor & 30 gig WD harddrives. OS is Win2000 Pro, and decided to backup data and reinstall OS. At the point where Win2k looks at components after files are copied to harddrive, when the bar is about 2/3 full, just after it checks the floppy, my screen flashes off and on 3 times, I get the blue screen with "Hardware failure, contact vendor".
At a loss as to what is failing, we have swapped out one at a time each component, and are still getting the same error message. At this point, I am thinking of going to Frye's for a new motherboard & processor.
Any clue as to what is failing given the place where it fails?
TIA for your help, Laura Laura Velez, MCP
lauravelez@charter.net

 

[crisc]

lgvelez wrote: "we have swapped out one at a time each component"

Can you be more specific with exactly which components you swapped? This sounds possibly like a HD failure, maybe you could try installing W2K onto your other drive.

 

[lgvelez]

Thank you for your response.
We swapped out, one at a time, the C: drive, memory, video card, CD drive, NIC ... sound card is attached to mb. Laura Velez, MCP
lauravelez@charter.net

 

[crisc]

Hmm. Were the components you swapped in the same model/type as the originals? Since this was a fully functional PC a week ago, it seems likely that using the same stuff wouldn't present a new problem for your system.
I wonder if the lockups you were initially having aren't related to the hardware failure BSODs you are getting now. It sounds like you've eliminated all the other components as culprits, I'd try a new board/CPU and see if that's it...Good luck.

 

[lgvelez]

No, I wasn't to replace like components with like components, unfortunately. I was also trying to determine what Win2K was seeing at that point in its system investigation.

Thank you for your help. Laura Velez, MCP
lauravelez@charter.net

 

[mg188]

Does the floppy work ok?

Are your fans working? Are the plug-in cards, cables and ram well-seated? Any big dust-bunnies?
Any loose screws, jumpers, spare change, etc rolling around inside the case?

Did you run scandisk? There might be some bad sectors on one or both drives that haven't been marked bad yet - generally not a big deal as long as they're marked as bad and won't be used. If not, try that.

If doing a clean install (preferred), I'd go ahead and repartition (using fdisk) and format the os drive before the new os load.

Try os install on as bare-bones a system as you can make it - pull out soundcard, modem, nic, drive controller (connect the hd to the motherboard primary controller), the non-os hd, etc. Min reqt for win2k is only 64MB, I believe, so I'd leave only one stick of ram in during os install. The goal is to eliminate possible problem hardware to see if your base system is ok.

If the os loads this time, "exercise" it a little before installing other hardware or software. Boot a few times and open/close some windows apps. Try installing/uninstalling some windows add-ons from the windows cd.

Install/test one hardware or software application at a time. Reboot after each install and check the event log.

Before putting in a new motherboard/cpu, check output voltage on the power supply. They should be within +/-10% (ie 4.5 to 5.5Vdc for the 5Vdc line, etc). A decent (non-professional) digital volt-ohmmeter can be had for about $30-40 last time I checked - cheaper than wiping out another motherboard - very handy to have around too. While you're at it, check the AC voltage coming out of the power outlet. Is it wired properly?

Best of luck.

Mike