Elite k7s5a M/board (american megatrends bios)
AMD 1700xp chip
Msi G4 Ti4200 Graphics
1/2 Gig DDR Ram
80 + 40 Gig H/drives
Dual booting Redhat 8 and 98SE

The system freezes after about 2 mins from switching it on, the screen doesn't go black it continues to display whatever it was displaying when it froze, sometimes it manages to boot linux/windows before it freezes, it accepts no mouse or keyboard input and stops reading the hard drives. I thought this was a bios problem so I flashed a bios update but i've still got the problem and I have to force kill it. If I turn the machine back on within the next 10 mins i get no display at all and it doesn't seem to do anything except check the cd drives then reboot, then check the cd drives and reboot etc etc etc. I dont think the CPU is overheating, all the fans are working normally, Please help if you can i've run out of ideas so any suggestions would be very much appreciated.

If this happens in both redhat and win98 then you have a hardware problem, I'd be checking the ram and video card first.

Well, it sounds like something hardware, probably board, drive or memory stick. To rule out the drive, disconnect it and boot it into any OS you can get on CD or floppy: knoppix, tomsrtbt, those will make good tests... let the kid run for a while and if it sketches out, then the drive is probably fine.

To check the RAM, try out www.memtest86.com 's utility, boots from floppy, checks memory and moves itself around in resident memory and then checks where it used to be... good toy.

If it still sketches out, see if you can get a diagnostic set of utilities for the board in win98 and see what you can sort out from the board before it sketches out.

If you have other parts on hand, you might want to swap in a different PSU, even if its underpowered, 200watts or so would be the bottom end, as long as you don't hand the board a good solid load, if it holds it up past the crash threshhold, then you're good.

Also, if you have an old PCI vid card, its rare, but the graphics card may have sketched, although that tends to mess with the display when it leads to a crash.

Cheers,

Finegan

The bios finds the right amount of ram initially so I presumed (presumption being the mother of all f*** ups!) that its ok. How can i check the graphics card? Will the system boot without a graphics card to test or will i have to try and find one that works and put that in?

Sorry Finegan, you must have posted that reply while i was typing the last one i'm not that ignorant honest!!

Thanks alot gentlemen big big help, i'll let you know how I get on.

Happens more often then you would think, simul-posting that is, no worries.

Cheers,

Finegan

The first obvious thing relates to the time taken for the system to freeze. This symptom indicates a cooling problem on the processor. You need to get the system to POST and enter the BIOS and monitor the health status of the system with particular reference to the cpu temp. If the temp rises rapidly and is going into the 60C region then this certainly indicates inadequate cooling. The processor is put under max load while loading any os and any inadequacy of the cooling of the processor quickly becomes evident. (i.e. in the first few minutes of operation)

My Elite K7S5A motherboard has disappeared up it's own arse at a whopping 13 months from new, just so I can't take it back to the shop I think, I'm not chuffed and customer services are gunna get an ear-full on Monday. It no longer boots the bios, finds nothing, no display, no chance of a beep code, powers up the disks then re-boots, I'm a newbie but I'm pretty sure you cant fix that. Tried a new graphics card, unplugged all disks except floppy nothing helps so it's in bits and i'm annoyed.

Thanks to all for help and consider your options when buying motherboards!

Danny.

If you have or can borrow another power supply I would try that first. The other possible is a cpu failure and I would test that in another machine.