Computer problems - any advice?

I hate it when people ask me for help with this stuff, so I apologize in advance.

Basically, I have a machine I built a few years ago. I had 512MB of PC2700 DDR RAM. It wasn't enough, so I bought a 1GB stick of PC3200.

My machine started doing strange stuff like restarting right when it would try to load Windows. I couldn't even get it to boot in safe mode.

I took the new RAM out, put the old RAM back in, and it still acted strange. It eventually wouldn't even display anything on the screen, no beeps, nothing. I was able to resurect it by resetting CMOS, but then it would go into an endless restart loop.

I plugged the HD into another machine and, with the help of a Windows Install Repair, was able to get it to eventually boot up. I then took the HD back to my machine and tried starting it. Now I'm getting blue screens that seem to indicate I have bad RAM (according to the MS KB articles).

Any ideas? I've spent hours and hours on this.

Thanks in advance!

 

I actually ran a memtest on the 512 stick about a month ago and came back with no problems. I didn't have any problems until I tried to upgrade.

I am having problems with both sticks, but I haven't done enough tests to know if each stick is giving different errors or not.

The fans are all running like champs. I bought really high-quality silent fans a while back so they shouldn't have problems.

I suppose the CPU could be going, but it was fine until I tried to upgrade the RAM. And the power supply is a beefy 500W one or something, which is pretty new, so I'd be surprised if that is the culprit.

At this point, the bluescreen errors are seeming to indicate that the memory is bad. I might try to buy a new stick of PC2700 and see if that works. If not, it's probably safe to assume the memory isn't the problem.

This all seemed to corrupt some things on my HD as well. I used another machine to run a chkdsk and repair some errors, and had to repair the windows install, but after that it seemed to be OK.

Very odd..

 

I am planning on making a trip to buy a new stick of PC2700 RAM, a new HD, and anything else I think I might need.

I plan on trying a fresh install on the new HD (I've been looking for an excuse to reinstall windows on a new drive anyway).

I usually end up swapping all of the parts until I narrow it down, but the only way to do that is to buy every single part and return whatever isn't defective. I was hoping to get around this time, but it isn't looking good.

I did try different RAM slots. Interestingly enough, it seemed at first like slot #1 was having problems, and once I put the RAM in slot 2 it seemed fine. That was only temporary though. I've tried all three of the slots now, with both sticks, and haven't come to any grand conclusions.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the RAM is bad and it caused problems with the Windows install. We'll see.

Thanks again for the help. I'll post some updates if I ever figure this out.

 

I haven't run memtest on the new RAM - only on the old one. But in trying to eliminate variables, I went back to using only the old RAM because I figured it worked for years before I tried to swap it. If it doesn't work now, either I fried it somehow, or the windows install got corrupt.

I hesitated to plug my HD into a different machine, knowing that the drivers, etc would get screwed up - but I had to get something done and that was my only option late last night.

I get all sorts of errors. Two that I wrote down were:

1) STOP: 0x0000007B

2) BAD_SYSTEM_CONFIG_INFO, and STOP 0x00000074

The first looks like a bad RAM issue, according to the KB articles, and the second looks like a windows install problem.

I went and bought new PC2700 RAM, a new 300GB HD, and an external HD enclosure to hook my old drive up to my laptop to transfer my important data in case it all goes to hell.

 

The power supply is looking more and more suspicious. I took one out of another computer I had and I am installing a fresh copy of windows on a new HD I bought. The old power supply was causing errors when I tried to install Windows, but the new power supply seems to be doing the trick. Once Windows is done installing, I'll hook my old drive up as a slave and run chkdsk and then once that is done, I'll try booting from it using this new power supply and see what happens.

Thanks for mentioning it. I had figured since mine wasn't that old it should be OK. Stupid thing to assume

We'll see..

 

I gave up.

It wasn't the power supply. I had another one from a different computer that I swapped it with - same symptoms. It wasn't the RAM - I had three different sticks with the same problem. It wasn't the HD (or software) - I had a second drive that I tried.

So, either the motherboard or the CPU. Not worth dumping anymore money into the setup because it was already 4-5 years old.

I went and bought a new 4800+ chip and a new mobo for $129 bucks, a new SATA 400GB HD for $90, and 2GB of RAM for $80. Under $400 out the door and this machine is MUCH faster than my old setup. Nice excuse to start with a fresh install of Windows as well.

Now the problem is transfering all of my data over. I've spend the last two nights doing it, and I still have quite a bit left.