my profile | my password | search | faq & rules | forum home

» Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE   » Community   » Film-Yak   » Athlon XP 2000 + question for the guru's (Page 1)

This topic comprises 2 pages: 1  2

Author Topic: Athlon XP 2000 + question for the guru's Bruce McGee Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1776 From: Asheville, NC USA... Nowhere in Particular. Registered: Aug 1999 posted 01-17-2010 11:33 AM                     I recently received a used computer for my own use that has an AMD Anthlon (tm) XP2000+ 1.67 GHz, 512 MB RAM processor. It was thoroughly corrupted with viruses. I removed the hard drive and replaced it with a known good one from the junkpile. I think its a 56 gig drive master, with an 80 gig drive slave pulled from the poor old Pentium 2 Dell computer I used for over 8 years with zero problems on dial-up and got incredibly slow when I went to cable internet and a Webroot spy-sweeper virus program. I moved the 80 gig drive because I didnt want to lose all my cam pictures. It has XP Professional installed on it, too. Plenty of room for anything I might do. I dont know how to remove Windows from the 80 gig drive. It came with XP professional installed on it. I dumped it and installed a new copy of XP home. It loaded it right up, took all the updates that Microsoft sent me, and runs incredibly fast when it is running. Also, installed the spy-sweeper on it, and it doesent slow it down at all. Now, its got all updates, IE 8, Service Pack 3, and is good to go. Here's the problem. It happens only on a cold start-up. Powers up, quickly goes directly to the hard drive to boot and starts Windows. I can go directly online, and not type any passwords, as I save cookies. After almost exactly 12 minutes of running just fine, it will suddenly shut down and restart. It insists that an 80 pin connector is missing, and refuses to restart Windows. I can ctl-alt-del and restart it usually 4-5 times, then it will start Windows and run fine from then on. But, I then have to re-type my password for it to go to my home page on IE8. Everything else runs fine from here on. I went through the 'set-up' for the motherboard and set everything to default. It makes no difference on anything. Once its running, it will run all day and night. It was left running the whole time I was in hospital and I came home to find it ready to go as soon as I sat down to play. I have replaced both of the 80 pin connectors to the drives and CD/DVD drives. Nothing changes. I'll bet that either this is something incredibly simple that I am missing, or something that I should worry about for a future crash. I checked with the previous owner, and his son told me that it always shut down on him, too. The owner before him told me when she updated, she had a friend erase it for her, but it ran fine for her. Any ideas? Or should I try to clean out the Pentium 2 and go again with it? It was a workhorse until cable internet when it started grinding and getting very slow. It was still working, and still has WIN2K on one hard drive. It always asked which OS I wanted to use on cold start-up, and I just picked. Thanks to all that read this. I await your reply.  |  IP: Logged Anslem Rayburn Master Film Handler Posts: 476 From: Yuma, AZ, USA Registered: May 2002 posted 01-17-2010 02:19 PM                     quote: Bruce McGee It insists that an 80 pin connector is missing, and refuses to restart Windows. I can ctl-alt-del and restart it usually 4-5 times, then it will start Windows and run fine from then on. But, I then have to re-type my password for it to go to my home page on IE8. Everything else runs fine from here on. Is it possible you grabbed an old ide cable when installing the drive? There are 40-pin/80-conductor cables and 40-pin/40-conductor cables. The 80-conductor cables are required for higher speeds. I don't know if that has anything to do with the shutdowns, but it would explain the error message. I would go and buy a new Ultra-DMA ribbon cable for the hard drive just to be sure. They are really cheap, newegg.com has them for like $3 if you can't find one locally.  |  IP: Logged Bruce McGee Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1776 From: Asheville, NC USA... Nowhere in Particular. Registered: Aug 1999 posted 01-17-2010 02:32 PM                     I didnt count the pins on the cables, but did replace both with new ones. Thanks for your suggestion!!  |  IP: Logged Rick Raskin Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1100 From: Manassas Virginia Registered: Jan 2003 posted 01-17-2010 03:56 PM                     If I understand this correctly, you are booting from the slave drive. I would make the boot drive the master. You could then remove the slave drive if the problem reoccurs and see if somehow it is causing the problem. Also, I think it is prudent to connect the boot drive to lower numbered IDE connector. Also I would check the BIOS settings to be sure the boot order agrees with your configuration. Good luck.  |  IP: Logged Chris Slycord Film God Posts: 2986 From: 퍼항시, 경상푹도, South Korea Registered: Mar 2007 posted 01-17-2010 04:44 PM                     If it reboots (fairly consistently) after running for 12 mins, that indicates to me that you could have something wrong with the system overheating but it just takes a long time to get hot enough to require a reboot. So it might be that some of your case fans aren't working or don't have enough airspeed for the equipment (and it sounds like you had added more stuff than it originally had). Also, the power supply fan is a culprit.  |  IP: Logged Bruce McGee Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1776 From: Asheville, NC USA... Nowhere in Particular. Registered: Aug 1999 posted 01-17-2010 08:53 PM                     I waited too long to edit some things in the first post. The computer boots to the master drive and loads Home Edition. XP Professional is on the slave disc and is what ran the old Dell Pentium 2. It does this with the 80 gig drive disconnected, too. All the master/slave switching is correct. We are running the XP home edition at this time. All fans are clean. The radiator and fan on the processer were all gunked up when I got it. I cleaned it all thoroughly. I replaced 2 3" box fans pulling air in and pushing out. It looks almost new inside. The power supply fan is also cleaned and all dust blown out... had it outside doing all this. Like I said before, it only does this once. After that, and 4-5 restarts, it runs. It's been running fine since last Monday night. Also, it has a Nvidia geforce3 ti 500 video card that had a burned out motor fan on its board. I installed a replacement fan on it. I was hoping when I did this fan that this would stop, but it didn't. The only things I've added are the 80 gig drive, and the 56 gig master drive from the parts box. It had a 20 gig Western Digital drive in it when I got it. For some reason, it wouldn't let me format that disc so I pulled it out. Remember, this was doing this only after someone cleaned the data before the original owner who cleaned it, gave it to her brother, who gave it to the kid, who loaded it with viruses, and gave it to me. He complained about the restarts from day one. I think he had it a month. Reinstalling XP would have cleaned everything back to new condition, no?  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 01-17-2010 10:25 PM                     PS supply is getting to twig out on you, or the PS needs to be of more wattage if you got a lot attached to the PS. That Nvidia card really draws a bit. Atlon XP2000 needs at least a 450w PS. -Monte  |  IP: Logged Bruce McGee Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1776 From: Asheville, NC USA... Nowhere in Particular. Registered: Aug 1999 posted 01-17-2010 10:41 PM                     I'll look tomorrow for a larger power supply. The one in the computer now is not the original, but IS larger than the one that it came with. It's a 350 watt supply right now. But why does it only do this on the boot from a cold start? Wouldn't it do this all the time? Thx Monte! PS: It's running great tonight. I'm looking at videos allover the place, and without dial-up, the pictures move!!!  |  IP: Logged Paul J. Neuhaus Expert Film Handler Posts: 126 From: Iraq.. Again! Registered: Jun 2005 posted 01-18-2010 11:21 AM                     this could be much much simpler then we are all making it!!! I have seen stuff like this happen and it sounds crazy so just save all the "it can't be that... it doesn't work like that" bullshit. Hear me out. while most cases is that your bios info is kept biased while powered on by your power supply some require at all times to have a bias by the battery. If this is shot and the bios resets itself even while in operation to an earlier drive setup it will think that cables are missing. NO BULLSHIT.....I have seen this. test and possibly replace your cmos battery and this may all go away. Good luck! ***by the way*** quote: Monte L Fullmer Atlon XP2000 needs at least a 450w PS. This info is just NOT correct check the facts.  |  IP: Logged Bruce McGee Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1776 From: Asheville, NC USA... Nowhere in Particular. Registered: Aug 1999 posted 01-18-2010 05:13 PM                     Thanks guys. I bought a different video card to try in this unit to bypass chances that the Nvidia card that I have could be bad. Its a bit older Nvidia 400 series card. Pulled the power supply and wrote down info about the Athlon processor and went bouncing off to a recommended local computer geek. I bought a new-in-box 350 watt supply from him, came home, installed PS, card, and turned it on. 12 minutes later, it died and restarted... like clockwork. As to this battery... I know where it is. Whats going to happen when I remove it? Should I let the geek install it? Where do I get it? I've seen batteries cause wild problems in my travels too. The geek wants $50/hr. to do work for me. THATS why I dont want to have him do it. Thank you...  |  IP: Logged Chris Slycord Film God Posts: 2986 From: 퍼항시, 경상푹도, South Korea Registered: Mar 2007 posted 01-18-2010 05:17 PM                     What do you mean by keeping the info biased?  |  IP: Logged Jeremy Weigel Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1062 From: Edmond, OK, USA Registered: Mar 2007 posted 01-18-2010 06:00 PM                     You can leave the PSU plugged in with the computer powered down and replace the CMOS battery without losing the BIOS settings. If you unplug the PSU and replace the battery, the worst that's going to happen (and may already be happening) is the that the BIOS will reset and perform an IDE configuration and any custom changes made at start up will be reverted back to the factory defaults.  |  IP: Logged Andy Muirhead Master Film Handler Posts: 323 From: Galashiels, Scotland Registered: Dec 2000 posted 01-18-2010 08:45 PM                     Bruce, To be honest I wouldn't be throwing good money after bad. quote: Bruce McGee I checked with the previous owner, and his son told me that it always shut down on him, too. The owner before him told me when she updated, she had a friend erase it for her, but it ran fine for her. If the problem was there already, It wasn't anything you have done. Definitely ignore the advice about the PSU needing to draw more power!!! What you have is ample enough.  |  IP: Logged Bruce McGee Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1776 From: Asheville, NC USA... Nowhere in Particular. Registered: Aug 1999 posted 01-18-2010 09:11 PM                     The biggest expense has been the new power supply, and It wasn't too bad. The CMOS battery, does some battery shop carry these? I promise, this will be the last straw for this tower. It's just that this machine runs like a scalded dog once it boots after the initial shutdown restart. Also, if I do destroy this tower, I will save every part of it in the spare parts cabinet. I know all these parts are in good shape. I cant afford a new computer. I got plenty of time to mess with this, as I won't be going back to work again for 4-6 weeks anyway. Bruce  |  IP: Logged Jeremy Weigel Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1062 From: Edmond, OK, USA Registered: Mar 2007 posted 01-19-2010 12:37 AM                     Most CMOS batteries are a coin cell 2032 and can found at most any retailer or electronics store.  |  IP: Logged

All times are Central (GMT -6:00)

This topic comprises 2 pages: 1  2

Printer-friendly view of this topic

Hop To: Select a Forum: Category: Operations -------------------- Digital Cinema Forum Film Handlers' Forum Large Format Forum Ground Level Feature Info, Trailer Attachments & REAL Credit Offsets Category: Community -------------------- Film-Yak Film Handlers' Movie Reviews The Afterlife Bob Maar's Joke-A-Thon Category: Classified -------------------- Equipment and Supplies Wanted/For Sale Help Wanted/Seeking Employment Category: System -------------------- Software Beta Testing Forum

The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.