My PC died today

[Tormod]

On Thursday my PC refused to boot. I blamed the graphics card and replaced a Geforce 7600GS with a 8600GT for good measure.

 

No go. NTLDR not available (well, at least I got a step further). Tried to boot ERD Commander, BSOD with 0x0000007B, which implies a virus in the boot sector or faulty raid setup. Smells burnt plastic.

 

Tried to boot a Win XP CD, same problem.

 

Ripped out motherboard and all the other guts in my case, put in a replacement mobo I pillaged from my neighbor's moving away giveaway. Mounted card, slapped on an athlon FX-60. No go, just beeps from the speaker. I don't have the manual. Funny thing, still smells burnt plastic.

 

I am declaring my desktop PC for officially dead. Goodbye. Now I need to find a way to raise money for another one in no time, and my new iMac arrives in a week.

 

...so...should my new PC (for music production) be a PC or Mac? Hm.... :)

[freeztar]

Without knowing all the info, a few questions come to mind. (some or all may seem stupid, but you have to start with common understanding, right?)

 

Are you certain that your replacement mobo is compatible with the Athlon?

Have you checked the boot order to make sure it includes the optical drive? Also, have you checked BIOS to make sure that your hard drive is configured correctly?

 

In any case, burnt plastic does not smell good. :)

 

I am a PC person, so my advice on music production computers is heavily biased. Nonetheless, if your software runs on a Mac, then Mac may be a viable option for you, especially with windoze booting capabilities (not sure how drivers work with that though???). The high price tag on Macs is my main turnoff, as well as software choices (though the latter is becoming less and less an issue).

 

You could always post the question on kvr and rekindle the infinite PC vs. Mac debate. :)

[Queso]

I have a macbook and a little xp machine.

I can do WAY MORE with my windows machine (using pro tools, reason, rtas to vst converter)

but I am a pirate :)

 

Mac is a little bit more "Stable",

but I've been keeping my xp off the internet and only using it for music production and it's been tuggin' along just fine.

 

Depends on what software//plug ins you want to use, and which ones you want readily available.

 

I wish I had thousands of dollars to spend on mac plug-ins . . but I don't.

[Mercedes Benzene]

Is that little button-battery in the motherboard dead?

That ended up being the reason for one of my computers not booting up. :)

[GAHD]

burned plastic... you check the power supply? You might actually be smelling burnt dust aka skin.

 

if you have a good tester you can check to make shure the supply is giving out the right voltages, you could have blown a capacitor in the supply(usually marked by goo coming out of a rupture, or a bloated cap, but sometimes it's not even noticeable) giving the macheine a bad voltage level or two.

 

if the raid's buggin-out try a new raid cable, the old one may have exceeded temperature tolerances inside your case and fused itself.

 

make shure your cpu core voltage is right on the new motherboard (jumper settings in the mo-bo manual, voltage ratings listed on the chip's box or at worst on the net)

 

For an idea of what the "beeps" your machein is making mean, see wikipedia!

[Tormod]

Okay, lots of useful input...some replies:

 

1. My replacement mobo actually has an Athlon FX-64 which came with it. It completely failed to boot, and I haven't had a chance to troubleshoot it

 

2. When I took out my original mobo, the CPU came off when I removed the CPU fan (while the lock was still down), and at least three pins appear to be bent completely wrong.

 

3. The smell may indeed come from the PSU and I have a spare one I can try. However I need to figure out which combination of hardware I can put together... :phones:

 

4. I have already bought an iMac for "other" computing uses and I would very much like a MacBook Pro for music. But it's so *fricking* expensive!!!

 

5. I get much more bang for my buck buying a PC but I am so sick and tired of Windows.

 

6. Freezy, yes I did of course ask over at KVR but I only asked if a MacBook was an option or not for real music making (you know, our kind of music making).

[Tormod]

I just realized that my current avatar is sort of funny here...since my PC has an AMD inside and a moron outside. :phones:

[alexander]

to fix your ntldr issue, have you tried the "fixntldr" there is a small software suit that runs off of a floppy, and i think there is a boot cd and a thumb drive image on for it too...

 

Simple "ntldr is missing" fix with boot floppy, CD, or USB drive, then fix HD

 

see if you have any success :evil:

[alexander]

but I am a pirate

and that is nothing to be proud of, orb, basically it's like saying

 

"but i'm a robber"....

[Tormod]

In fact I have managed to get back into Windows. I put my "faulty" mobo in, removed the suspect hard drive, and replaced my CPU with the one from my neighbor's junkyard.

 

The PC works...but it keeps complaining that my harddrive is faulty, my graphics adapter is missing (!) and that there is no soundcard installed. :hihi:

[Theory5]

yea I was going to suggest that the CPU might have burn.

Im not a mac person, but I know macs are good for multimedia

but they cost SO much.

as for the beeps they mean somthing.

I dont know what they mean off the top of my head but, hey google it. Thats what I did.

[freeztar]

In fact I have managed to get back into Windows. I put my "faulty" mobo in, removed the suspect hard drive, and replaced my CPU with the one from my neighbor's junkyard.

 

The PC works...but it keeps complaining that my harddrive is faulty, my graphics adapter is missing (!) and that there is no soundcard installed. :hihi:

 

Have you installed the correct drivers for video and soundcard?

I have no idea about the harddrive other than to check the BIOS setup. :hihi:

[C1ay]

I just realized that my current avatar is sort of funny here...since my PC has an AMD inside and a moron outside. :hihi:

 

It doesn't really sound like a PEBKAC though...

[GAHD]

The PC works...but it keeps complaining that my harddrive is faulty, my graphics adapter is missing (!) and that there is no soundcard installed. :hihi:

replace the raid cable, it is 90% likely the cause of the hdd problems.

-if new cable=fixed hdd complaints, then:

--get better cooling for your case, look into boring some new intakes in the front, and supplementing the rear exaust(which is likely only your power supply if it's stock) If your internal ambient case temperature exceeds the rating listed on your raid cable(not that unlikely, especially if you havn't vacuumed your PSU in a while) it will fry.

 

soundcard and such; well I'd say it time to install the right drivers, and find out if the "missing" graphics card is actually the motherboard's onboard card being detected but not supported by windows. if so either support it and use it, or disable in bios.

[alexander]

Aaaw, this thread just reminded me of my mbp :(

 

It was having weird hard lock issues, seems like whenever i would go to play a DVD or a certain combination of some programs was running, doing something, it would hard lock on me, totally unresponsive, just bang and the only way i could get out was to do a hard shut down.

So recently i got fed up with that, and called apple support people (actually a nifty combination to know is when you are booting OS X hold Apple+Option+P+R it seems to reset some settings, like volume and some random efi stuff)

[Tormod]

Lots of good ideas GAHD. Thanks.

 

FWIW the mobo is an ASUS A8N SLI Deluxe

ASUSTeK Computer Inc.

 

replace the raid cable, it is 90% likely the cause of the hdd problems.

 

Good call but the raid controller is integrated on the mobo, and each S-ATA unit has a separate cable going from it (I can switch this cable out though, I have about 5 extras lying around). But just disabling the raid in BIOS helped, after which I was able to use Windows repair from the XP disc and then use FIXBOOT. I was then able to reboot.

 

--get better cooling for your case, look into boring some new intakes in the front, and supplementing the rear exaust(which is likely only your power supply if it's stock) If your internal ambient case temperature exceeds the rating listed on your raid cable(not that unlikely, especially if you havn't vacuumed your PSU in a while) it will fry.

 

I have an Enermax 600W Silent PSU. Heat is probably a problem though, as both the mobo and the GPU are fanless. I have a huge Zalman quiet fan sitting on top of my CPU, moving hot air to the back of the case, where another fan sucks it out. There is also a fan at the front of the case blowing cool air (or rather, room temp air) over the S-ATA hard drives.

 

soundcard and such; well I'd say it time to install the right drivers

 

I have checked that I have the correct drivers as this is an M-Audio Audiophile 24/96 semipro audio card, and I did download the latest version. The card plays the windows startup and shutdown sounds, but iTunes refuses to play any sounds. I have verified that the card is set as the default audiocard in the Windows settings.

 

and find out if the "missing" graphics card is actually the motherboard's onboard card being detected but not supported by windows. if so either support it and use it, or disable in bios.

 

My mobo doesn't have a built in GPU (which was why I had to buy a new graphics adapter when I suspected the old one had retired...).

[alexander]

Thermal would only be a problem if your system is used Hard and then it gives you these problems, if your PU fan was not working, you would not be able to operate for a few minutes in the OS, but it's not a PU problem as it is just not recognizing things.

 

Try the following:

For faulty HD error-in command line, run chkdsk /R, reboot and see if the faulty HD error still comes up, if so, make sure that you have the correct drivers installed for your raid controller, if still the issue, can you plug in another HD (as a secondary) and see if that is giving you the same problem? If so, then it could be your integraded SATA controller, if not then it could be faulty firmware on your HD, or the HD controller board malfunction (and yes they do have firmware).

 

For your graphics card. This seems to be a driver problem, have you tried the latest drivers for your graphics card? If you have the latest drivers (you may need to dl them from the nvidia site) and the card is still not recognized, this could be the chipset driver issue (which could explain both the problems with the HD and your Graphics card). First make sure you are up to date with your BIOS, second make sure you go to ASUS and DL the drivers for your MOBO, third, make sure all the hardware is propperly plugged in and, you are not missing power cables (which can be an issue with some graphics cards), make sure that if you have extra 4 power plug on your mobo, that you have the power plugged into that, or else things like this audio/video card stuff can present an issue.

 

Finally if all else fails, make sure to have the text output on in the BIOS and make sure that the bios is not spewing hardware errors, grab a live linux cd and see if you can see the same issues you are seeing in windows, if you are, chances are its definitely hardware related, if you do not see similar issues (and i would use dmesg to verify that there are no errors with hardware, and lspci -v to make sure your pci bus devices are registering right) then its software related, go back and fix windows :doh:

 

if i have recommended doing something that someone else has recommended, then sry guys, going off the top of my head here, because i dont have the time and can be pulled at any second to do something.... but those are my thoughts on you issues, T :)