Trouble after Upgrade

RichDRichD Essex, UK
edited August 2007 in Hardware
Hi There,

I have just upgraded my PC at home and I am having a bit of a problem.

Old System Spec:

ASUS A7N8X -E
AMD Athlon 2800
1GB 400mhz ddr2
ATI Radeon 9600 AGP 128mb
Maxtor SATA 120GB (not too sure of model)

New System Spec

ASUS M2V
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 6000+
2GB Crucial Ballistix PC26400C4 800Mhz
ATI Radeon X1950 PCI Express
Same Hard Disk

I am running Windows Vista Home Basic 32 bit

I decided to upgrade because the NForce2 chipset I had previously is now not supported and plus I figure it was about time for an upgrade.

I have stripped out the old components and installed the new ones. When I boot up I get the little Windows Vista Progress bar, but when it boots into windows proper the system restarts. I have tried booting from the DVD and that loads the windows files then goes to the Windows Progress bar before the main installation and just hangs with the bar ticking over.

Can anyone please suggest what could be going on? My next plan is to try installing XP then upgrading to Vista from there. The other thing I thought is the SATA Drive might not be compatible as it is only SATA 1. However it is recognised in the system bios. Any help would be much appreciated.

Comments

  • RyderRyder Kalamazoo, Mi Icrontian
    edited August 2007
    #1, did you reinstall Windows on the new system or just move the drive over?

    #2, did you check what voltage your ram is supposed to run at? Leaving the board at defaults will result in 1.8V being supplied to the ram, your ram may need up to 2.1v, but you need to check the spec's per the manuf.
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited August 2007
    If you used the same hard drive you had on the NF2 chipset for the new board, you will have to reformat or do a repair install.
  • RichDRichD Essex, UK
    edited August 2007
    Its the same install but when I try and boot from the Vista DVD it just hangs so I cant get as far as formating. Ill check the RAM voltage and see where we go from there.

    Thanks for the help guys.
  • RichDRichD Essex, UK
    edited August 2007
    Sorted?

    Ichecked in the BIOS to see if I could find the Meemory Voltage and it was all set to auto. It seems quite clever in that all the settings in there auto detect what hardware you are running and set the system accordingly.

    I changed the Mem Vol to manual so I could see what options I had and it only went as high as 1.95v and I supposed to need 2.2v. I decided to flash the BIOS to see if that would give me any more options but it didn't and I still had the problem with windows restarting on bootup; however when I boot from DVD I could get into the setup and I have now reinstalled vista and it is all working!!!!

    I have left the BIOS on auto detect for the Mem Voltage. Is it a problem if I cant get the required voltage out of my MB and if I contact ASUS can they fix the problem with a new BIOS Flash?

    Once again thanks for your help. I am starting to loose count of the number of times you guys have saved me on here!
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited August 2007
    If your memory requires 2.2v, and your BIOS only supports up to ~2, it's very unlikely that they'd update the BIOS.
  • TheLostSwedeTheLostSwede Trondheim, Norway Icrontian
    edited August 2007
    Set the memory voltage to max. There should be a page where you can set the ram timings. If they ar eset to auto, they will probably default to Cas 4. Set it manually to 5-5-5-15 instead. If it was voltage that was the issue, 2 volts at 5-5-5-15 should do the trick.
  • RichDRichD Essex, UK
    edited August 2007
    Sorry if some of my terminology is a bit off bu this is a bit new to me.

    When I have it set to auto I get a cas 5-5-5-18. If I set to manual I can set it to 6-6-6-18 and it seems happy to do this. I have been running the memtest86 v1.7 from bootable floppy and the first thing that stands out is that the clock is only set to 428MHz. This should be 800MHz and I can even manually specify 800 in the BIOS but memtest still only registers 428. The Icrontic memtest instructions said that this test should take 10min on a new fast PC and upto an hour on an PC from a few years ago. I would therefore expect this to complete in at least 20min on my PC but I left it running for over an hour and it was only half way through pass 2.

    Is this normal I should I be worried about my RAM I have tried both DIMs and it has the same result with both which suggests it is the MB.
  • RyderRyder Kalamazoo, Mi Icrontian
    edited August 2007
    Memtest never ends, it will run as long as you let it run. Pass 2 means you have run 2 complete passes (0 and 1) and are working on your third.

    Setting Auto in the bios for memory voltage will give you 1.8V, there is nothing on the ram that can tell the board what voltage to set. If your ram is recommended at 2.1 or 2.2V, then you should set 1.95V so you can be as close as possible.

    With only 1.95V, you may not reach the rated speed and timings that are on the ram.
    You are welcome to run those numbers as high as you like, but the higher the number, the slower the performance.

    428 MHz in CPU-z = DDR2-856, you double the MHz read in CPU-z because this is Dual Data Rate ram, do you follow? The ram actually runs at 1/2 the DDR speed.

    You have your ram slightly overclocked at the moment if that is your number.
  • RichDRichD Essex, UK
    edited August 2007
    Ahh I see. That makes things much clearer. Many thanks for your help everyone. If you want to close this admin then feel free.

    Thankyou
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited August 2007
    We never close threads at Icrontic. :) Always want to leave room for people in the future.
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