Hi!

I have a very very strange problem with my PC.
I had a P3 500MHz, 128RAM, VooDoo3 3000, 10Gb HDD and a bad motherboard [can't remember it's name].
The computer started to boot very hard. Then I upgraded some components, K6 motherboard, AMD 1600+, and a new 80Gb HDD. I still have the 128MB RAM, the VooDoo card and my IDE cables. The problem still persisted. I don't think it's an OS problem, tryed Mandrake 8, RedHat9, Fedora Core 1, Fedora Core 2, Windows 98, 2000, XP and 2003 - it's the same.
So to explain it...let's say my PC is shut down, then I turn it off, it's working a little bit hard but it's OK. Then I have to logon into KDE, Gnome or in Windows... only now it's starting to work very hard. I have to wait 5 to 10 minutes to have for example KDE loaded or in Windows it's WM. I can hardly click something, to shut it down I have to wait very very long to open everything till the shut down screen appears. Tryed to start Fluxbox because it's loading faster, ok, to open a terminal in Fluxbox I had to wait about 2 minutes.
If I reboot the PC when it's at the login screen and log in normally after this, everything is working perfect. I don't have to wait for nothing to load very long.

Can somebody help me with an ideea? Why is my PC working normal just after a reboot? I thing it's not from the new motherboard, CPU and HDD because the problem was before upgrading them.

Thank you!

Boby

Maybe bad RAM? or cooling gone bad..

cooling is ok, have new coolers. I will try some other RAM to check if this will help.

ThanX!
Boby

have you done a memtest86 test yet ?
memtest86.com

i know a similar problem when my friend changed his motherboard for a PII 300 Mhz processor to a newer motherboard...with the older combination the PC was quite fast but when he changed to a newer motherboard the Pc was choking...i think it was because the processor and MB were not completely compatible

Run memtest86 to start. If that doesn't work check the compatibility of your old parts with your new parts. If that checks out you may need a different power supply. Bigger hard drives, newer motherboards and faster processors use more power.

Sometimes if you power requirements are just a few watts over what your supply is producing you'll get slow down or random reboots. But after the reboot the residual power leftover in the components will provide just that little extra oomph to start up and run normally. Then the reason it works perfectly after the residual power is gone is because your computer isn't using all the parts at once or isn't using them to their full power.

I knew a guy who had the same problem and it turned out to be his power supply, but don't assume it is. Run the free tests before you invest more money into your system.

edit: I need not to skim so fast, sorry

Check those IDE cables.
For one thing, they're probably so old they won't support the faster modes of your new hard drive anyway.

There's also a chance that the cables have gotten old and unreliable, which means corrupted data transfer, which can surface as exactly the sorts of oddities you're experiencing.

Plus, they're one of the most inexpensive parts to replace

--Shade

Sorry for not replying for so much time, but I had to move out from the aprtment where I was living and did not have time to work on my pc. And next week I'll move out again
I tryed Memtest86, but I had to stop it. It worked for 7 hours and was not finished I got about 2200 errors This night I hope I can run it again until it will finish the test. How long does it take to test my RAM?
I ordered a pair of new IDE cables, hope they're here next week. IDE cables will be something like this

So I will be soon back with the results of Memtest86. But can someone tell me how long does Memtest86 work? And will it save then the results somewhere or give me an exact answer about it?

Thank you!
Boby

umm - if the memtest is taking that long and reporting errors, shouldn't that clue you in? I'd go for a RAM replacement myself...

OK, because it's not long till Christmas, maybe Santa Claus will bring me some new RAM

I will be back with more info when I have replaced my RAM and IDE cables.

Thank you all!

Boby

PS: Last night Memtest worked about 13 hours and was not over