Win XP will be the death of me!

I don't really expect anyone to have an answer for me, but just wanted to let off some steam.

Decided in my wisdom to upgrade my aging 1ghz P3 machine to one of these new fangled AMD64bit machines.

So got an Asus A8V Motherboard, AMD 3Ghz cpu (yap I'm a cheapskate!) 1Gb Ram.

Stuff it all together, first it wouldn't boot, after a bit of googling, found that they shiped my m/board with an old Bios which wouldn't boot my cpu/ram, so after a bit of fiddling, got a new bios on there and it works.

Installed XP SP2 on it, got blue screen left right and center with stop 0x00000050 errors. Couldn't install anything, did several fresh installs, still the same.

Installed XP with No service packs, shaky but no blue screens, insall SP1, and the blue screen was back with stop 0x0000004E this time. Done a windows update, which seems to have made it a little more stable. Still can't get ZoneAlarm to install, saying it has no digital certificates, it used to install fine before I upgraded.

Reading around it apears to be that Windows is shipped with a dody usb device driver that can cause these problems.

Upshot of this is, my computer has been unusable for a week, and poeple wonder why I don't bother to upgrade, its for too much hassle!

What with dodgy hardware suppliers and dodgy software its a battle just to get the thing to work.

I've had enough of XP problems. I will be moved to Linux very soon.

Arr, thanks that's better, needed to off load this somewhere!

 

don't you just love computers...

 

It sounds like potentially a memory or PSU problem... these often show up during installation processes particularly and are fairly random. They're especially prevalent with dual-channel memory architectures with cheap generic RAM. I went through three sets of ram recently before finding a set that would run dual-channel 400MHz stably with my XP3200.

I also found that my 18 month old 350W psu didn't really cut it anymore, and so that went for a 460W...

 

Just a thought but as unstable as your new system sounds you are sure your PSU is up to the job (may not be able to supply enough juice) and that the heatsink for your CPU is mounted perfectly flat with enough heatsink compound on it to prevent overheating?

Both of these can cause a VERY unstable system, probably neither but worth checking before going any further, especially with the spec of your previous machine (which is the same as mine BTW )

 

ubuntu linux - free and it works.

When you move from XP will you consider using ubuntu linux? A few chaps I know have made the move and are rather happy. You can even look through the wiki and see if your hardware may have problems swallowing the new OS.

 

The thing with PSUs is make you sure you also buy a good quality one, the cheapo ones are really cheap and nasty and cause spikes. The voltage can also be unstable causing system crashes and will shorten the life of the machine.

I have a £40 PSP 350W unit in my Sempron 2800, it may be overkill but my computer never ever crashes in fact its basicaly impossible to crash my machine.

 

Hi Issac

Now I thought RAM as well, so I downloaded a burn-in memory test program, set it running for 12 hours on a loop, not one error, so I thought it would have safe to assume the memory is ok, not not expensive ram its GEIL which does have lifetime warranty (apparently).

Now it could be the PSU though, hum, its a 350w one, it is 3 years old, might be worth replacing it, but don't want a noisy one.

 

Lhatkins - Then I recommend the one I have... Akasa Paxpower 460. It's quieter than my previous FSP 350W (which was also a quiet model... quieter than my previous 340W chieftec) despite it's additional headroom. It's also reasonably priced compared to many of similar power.

 

Hi RDD

The cpu and heatsink came retail boxed, it al clips in, it all clamps in to a special bracket thing it sits in, and its locked down hard.

Its temps under load are 45'c which is much better than my P3-1Ghz at 60C !

Yep I think the PSU might be at fault, is there any REAL way to test it? All seems like guess work to me.

 

Hi Auric

Funny you should say that, but yes, I downloaded the 64bit Live cd of 5.04 and it ran perfectly, I did this to test that the hardware was fine, because I knew that if there was a hardware fault, Linux would pick it up, that is why I'm 99.99% sure its buggy Win XP what is bulling up my system.

I'm not sure with distro to go to yet, Ubuntu is good, but lacking in software, we use Suse 9.3 at work, so I might use that, I've moved my wifes machine over to Fedora Core last year, we had a few teething problems, but nothing out of the ordinary, the only real problem with Linux is its lack of wireless hardware support, thanks to compaines not releasing thier driver source code.

 

I want to try going down the Linux route again. I tried it in the RH 7.1 days with my laptop - it worked....eventually, but drivers were a problem then (particularly for my Graphics card). Are there any recommendations for a decent distro to try that uses the latest kernel/Xfree86, but isn't too bloated to use on a generic (Advent) 400 Mhz laptop ? Must be able to use X Windows and most importantly....to be able to dump windows (ie. happily use all office software etc.)

Am I asking too much or are there still distros that will work without slowing down my laptop too much ? I've tried Mandrake, but find it very bloated. I would like to give Suse a go, but fear it will have the same issues as Mandrake. Any other suggestions ?

Cheers.

 

Unfortunately not, although there are a few psu symptoms... When you load something or scroll down in a window or whatever do you hear the fan pitch increase slightly, then back off again when the load is taken off the processor? This indicates a psu which is poorly regulating its 12V supply when larger currents are demanded of the 5 and 3.3V supplies. Poor regulation tends to happen when you're pushing toward the limits of the psu... also, the nominal figure given for a power supply's power (eg 350W, 460W, etc) is pretty bogus and nonsensical in the way it is worked out. What you need to look at is the "combined load", particularly of the 3.3V and 5V supplies... for a machine with a powerful processor like the A64, you want about 200W combined from these supplies in order to keep the regulation steady. The "460W" supply I have can give 210W on these supplies, but the "400W" version is barely 120W.

 

Download the Ubuntu Live cd and give it a try, that way you don't have to install anything, it runs completely from the CD and you can get a feel for how it will run, ok it'll be a bit slower than it would be by installing it, but you will ge the feel for how it will handle your hardware, I have heard good reports from people using it on their notebooks because it isn't bloated out, just has simple applications like Firefox, OpenOffice and Evolution, give it a try.

 

Interesting I have an Enermax 350w PSU in my machine, brought because i didn't want a cheap PSU, thought it was a good one at the time, it does have a varible fan speed, which I think is based on load, but can't here it go up and down at all.

Is this the one you recommend?
Akasa Ultra Quiet 460W Paxpower Active PFC ATX2.0 PSU - Black Nickel (CA-003-AK) at £60 inc?
Impressive specs

- Full range 460 watts PSU
- Designed for AMD Athlon XP, Athlon 64, Intel P4 & EPS 12V for AMD Opteron & Intel Xeon
- Includes ATX 20-pin to EPS 24-pin Cable Adapter
- Energy saving Active PFC
- Ultra quiet 12cm black 2 ball bearing fan
- 18 dB(A) at normal load
- Auto thermal fan control
- Dual 12 Volt rails
- Short circuit protection on each channel
- Hi-efficiency- 75% at full load
- 3.3V and 5V combned load 210W
- Quick release 4-pin power connectors
- Two SATA PSU connectors
- Anti corrosive nickel black coating
- Black mesh cable wrap
- Auto switching voltage
- Dim: 150 x 140 x 86mm

 

CPU sounds fine then, symptoms of that should be quite obvious with quite frequent reboots - so it's looking like PSU or RAM then. Unfortunately as Issac said testing for a PSU fault is tricky, school of the "suck it and see" method I'm afraid

 

That's the one. It's very nicely finished (although the leads are far too long in my machine, which is as small as a full ATX machine can possibly be (Coolermaster ATC500)) and cleared up the random crashes I was getting with the FSP.

I got it for £53 inc vat from planetmicro, but they're rather dodgy in some of their trading practices, so I don't recommend them.

 

I've bought a few things from their Altrincham shop, what dodgy trading practises do they do?

 

Leon - tell me one thing; HOW DO YOU RUN GTA VICE CITY ON LINUX???

That's one thing (amongst me loathing and detesting Unix) that keeps me using Mickysuck products...

He knows what he's doing re PC building though - he's been doing this since 1993 and my home PC hasn't blown up yet, and he built that last November - cheers Leon

 

Windows XP is actually a very good operating system, at least for desktop use anyway. I wouldn't personaly recomend linux for home use unless you're very geeky. I have Linux on my laptop however.

 

You have to install a windows emulator, there is on dedicated to games and I KNOW that GTA VC will run under Linux. I can't remember the name of it at the moment.

I've used WINE on the one at work to get some Windows Application to run.