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Having trouble installing a piece of hardware? Want to know if that peripheral is compatible with Linux?

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Old 02-01-2006, 10:24 AM   #1
rblampain
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Registered: Aug 2004
Location: Western Australia
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New mobo worked fine couple of hours then siwtches off after adding memory stick.


I put a new Asus A7V400 MX motherboard (with Sempron CPU) in one machine some months ago and was so impressed with the stability of the board I decided to put the same brand of motherboard in another machine that had a motherboard of a different brand that was becoming more and more unstable.

I bought a second new Asus A7V400 MX which has SATA that the first didn't have and proceeded to install it in the second machine. The 2 machines have Debian Sarge 3.1 installed with kernel 2.6.8.

I booted the second machine ready to reinstall Debian but found the boot process going before I realised it and decided to let it run thinking it was probably going to crash. It didn't and I used the machine for a few hours without any problem, including a successful reboot.

Then I decided to take a 256MB ram stick from the first machine and put it in the second machine, the first machine had 512MB and became 256MB while machine number 2 had 256MB and became 512MB, then I rebooted the 2 machines, machine number 1 booted without problem while machine number 2 would not hold the power, turning itself off within seconds.

I thought if I removed the new stick, that should at least fix the problem since it was working fine before the insertion of the second stick but this made no difference and I find the second machine now unable to hold power for more than about ten seconds.

It seems to be a heat problem but I can't understand that because it worked fine in the middle of the day and started to malfunction when ambient temperature was going down. I put a Zalman all copper cooler on the cpu when it was on the faulty board thinking ambient temperature was too high in summer time (getting over 40 celsius) but the house is air conditioned and temperature is abnormally low for the season at around 25 celsius today. And yes, I have carefully cleaned the mating surfaces of the cooler and the cpu and put new heat transfer compound.

So I am expecting someone can make a few recommendations on how to proceed to isolate the problem.

A few other details:
these boards have C.O.P (CPU Overheating Protection)
machine number 2 has:
antec 480 w power supply
2 x 80G HD
1 CD drive
1 floppy
Athlon CPU (detected at 1250MHertz)
1 AGP card (with 32MB ram)
all fans were running (2 for PSU + 1 x 90mm on CPU cooler)

A couple of uncertainties:
The manual suggests to set the dip switches stating setting the CPU External frequency to 100 MHz should give an FSB of 200 and setting it at 133MHz should give a FSB of 266.
When I set it up at 100, the POST detects a memory clock of 266 and when I set it up at 133, it detects a memory clock of 333, is this normal?

The board has a 3 pin connector for a chassis fan but no connector for a power supply fan and the antec power supply has a matching 3 pin "PSU fan monitor connector", should these two be connected?

Finally, I thought when the power supply is turned on, the board is alive but shouldn't boot, this was the behavior the first time I booted machine number 2 but now, it boots up as soon as the power supply is turned on or does not boot at all even with power supply switched on and pressing the power on switch at the front of the machine and I noticed machine number 1 boots up immediately when turning the power supply on. Do I have a faulty connection on machine 1 as well? It's steady as a rock though.

I hope this doesn't seem too complex.
Thank you for your help.
 
Old 02-01-2006, 12:06 PM   #2
rylan76
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Registered: Apr 2004
Location: Potchefstroom, South Africa
Distribution: Fedora 17 - 3.3.4-5.fc17.x86_64
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I don't think the memory stick caused the problem. It sounds like you most likely have a bad board "out of the box" (it DOES happen) - see if you can get it exchanged, and maybe ask some computer shop to install it as well (that way, if it falls over, you can blame them and make THEM repair it at their cost...).

However, I think at most places the warranty will already be void because you installed it yourself, removed the CPU heatsink, etc. etc.

I always make a point of it when buying a new system to leave it as is for at least a year, and also to let the supplier put it together. This has saved me quite a bit of dosh in the past, as I have had bad HD's, bad RAM, and bad motherboards all replaced under warranty at no cost to me in the past.

More technically, were you properly grounded when you did the work? I recently had to take out my motherboard to install some new fans in my case, and afterward my PC wouldn't boot for two days. Then, for some reason it started working again - all I could think was some kind of static charge buildup or a capacitor somewhere that had taken up a charge when it shouldn't...

An easier alternative might be to see if you install Windows on it and see if it boots? The fact that you say it runs for ten seconds at least most likely means it is trying to boot, but maybe something has gone awry during the Linux bootup that triggers a shutdown. If you go to the BIOS setup functions, does it stay up for longer than 10 seconds? If it does, it most likely is not hardware... it could also be that the kernel triggers a shutdown inadvertantly when booting up. A Windows bootup should identify if it IS software or hardware.

Even easier might just be to not install Windows, just pop in the XP CD and see if it boots - it will stop at the first partitioning screen. Leave it there and see if it dies - if it does not, the conclusion is obvious. You can also try booting off a old-style floppy disk (if you have one around) and see if it stays up when at the DOS prompt.

This might help in deciding if you really do have a bad board or it is some kind of bootup bug in your Linux installation.
 
Old 02-02-2006, 01:23 AM   #3
rblampain
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Registered: Aug 2004
Location: Western Australia
Distribution: Debian 11
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Thank you for your reply, I may have found the source of the trouble. When I mounted the Zalman cooling device (about 750gr), I found following the manufacturer's recommendation gave a bow to the board and I didn't like that. So instead of applying tension on the screws until the brackets made contact (as recommended), I loosened up the screws till I thought there should be enough pressure for the mating surfaces to make good contact, I've just removed the board and found the heat transfer compound was spread evenly without too much excess but I think there may not have been enough pressure since the layer was pretty thin but covered the whole surface when it should probably have been squeezed out nearly completely in parts where the surfaces made good contact.

I'll try to mount the Zalman gadget with minimal tension on the screws and only apply full tension when the board is in the case.

As far as warranty, I am not too worried about that, what is of concern is the freight over here (country town in the Australian outback) and I have ignored the warranty a couple of times because the freight is more than the value of the part involved.

Most of the time the machine turned itself off after a few seconds, before the POST was completed and I never managed to get to the BIOS.

I'll post the results but this may take a few days.
 
Old 02-02-2006, 11:19 AM   #4
rylan76
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Registered: Apr 2004
Location: Potchefstroom, South Africa
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rblampain
Thank you for your reply, I may have found the source of the trouble. When I mounted the Zalman cooling device (about 750gr), I found following the
Yikes - don't bend the board. That is bad karma. It might crack, and you only need one trace to crack in the nanometric scale to make the whole thing as useless as the heap of sand it is constructed of...
 
Old 02-14-2006, 08:17 AM   #5
rblampain
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Registered: Aug 2004
Location: Western Australia
Distribution: Debian 11
Posts: 1,288

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I've just rebuild a computer with the same board, same CPU but with the original heat sink and fan and it works like a charm.
I've mounted the Zalman heat sink and fan on another board (Asus A7v600) and it does not give this board a bow when maximum tension is applied on the screws, as recommended by the manufacturer.
The original problem was probably due to the fact there was insufficient pressure between the mating surfaces and not enough heat was transferred to the heat sink, making the CPU overheat and shut down.
The morality seems to be extra vigilant when mounting these gadgets, otherwise they work fine.
 
  


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