Got my new Core 2 Duo 3ghz, Having some problems

[plainman007]

I have exchanged the ram between the systems. Still the same problem here. But the new system (Core2 Duo + DG33 + 2 x 1GB 800Mhz Ram). Its working fine. Runs a lot more quieter. But that system has only one quirk. It just wont go into standby. If i do press standby it will instantly shut down. I mean instant power off. Then ill have to press the system power button and even that doesnt work. Ill have to shut off the main power socket switch and then back on. Then the system power button pressed will cause it to turn on (i mean boot from the start, no standby). Hibernate works properly. Can i know if its some bios setting in the power section ?

[ctal]

Originally Posted by plainman007

Hi Al,

If the graphics card wasnt connected how can the system function properly. It has booted a couple of times and worked 'occasionally at least' right ? Is this possible even if the power wasnt connected to the graphics card. Actually this system is going to be on the field for video capture etc. We are in the events industry and made this system so that we could capture hd video immediately from the camera, after the event. So basically this is a mission critical operation. Now im completely unnerved at the way its performing. I invested $250 in just the server cabinet. A rugged thing thats built like a hummer. Now its a hummer with nothing on the inside. I feel like a fool. Im so awestruck that a system that performed so smoothly in another cabinet could perform so badly in this cabinet. There are 5 fans in the cabinet that are active during operation. Are they sucking too much power or something ? Also ive seen the insides and it didnt seem like the graphics card had any connections untended. Theres no available port thats visible. Its not a very high end card. An Nvidia 7300GS. I didnt plunk money on the graphics card because they dont help in video rendering or video capture. Only on games etc where onscreen performance should excel. At least this is what ive come to understand.

Video cards receive power through the main connector (PCI-E or whatever) that plugs into the mobo. However, for some cards the available power on that connector is inadequate, so they have an aux power connector in the location I described. If the card has an aux power connector and it is not connected, the card might receive marginally adequate power which would cause the intermittent behavior you've described.

Yes, you are correct that a high performance video card would not be particularly relevant to video editing.

Regards,
-- Al

[ctal]

Originally Posted by plainman007

I have exchanged the ram between the systems. Still the same problem here. But the new system (Core2 Duo + DG33 + 2 x 1GB 800Mhz Ram). Its working fine. Runs a lot more quieter. But that system has only one quirk. It just wont go into standby. If i do press standby it will instantly shut down. I mean instant power off. Then ill have to press the system power button and even that doesnt work. Ill have to shut off the main power socket switch and then back on. Then the system power button pressed will cause it to turn on (i mean boot from the start, no standby). Hibernate works properly. Can i know if its some bios setting in the power section ?

Have you checked the power options settings under the Windows Control Panel? Start/Control Panel/Performance and Maintenance/Power Options/Advanced Tab. (Ignore "Performance and Maintenance" if your Control Panel is set up to display icons instead of text on a blue background).

There may be a relevant bios setting also; check the manual.

Regards,
-- Al

[zman88]

I did some research and as far as I could tell the 7300 does not have an aux. power plug. Have you tried to reseating everything?

[plainman007]

The engineer worked on the machine for more than 4 hrs this afternoon. We tried everything from the ground up. Yes, the video card was indentified as one that does not have or require seperate power. Its a basic card that runs on the board power only. We stripped the system a part at a time to see where the boot problem would disappear. It so happened we ran dry till we were left with just the board and processor running with the PSU. No Ram, No HDD, No Graphics card, Nothing. Not even the system indicator leds. Then he replaced the PSU with a perfect test unit. Still No luck. So we were left with only the board and processor and one of those were faulty. The tech guy says it cant be the processor and must be the board. So at least some breakthrough there. He also found that a particular component on the board was heating up too quickly than normal in his experience. Its a small black square thing. It looks like a processor itself or a flat black chip but is embedded onto the board between the bios jumper and the pci graphics card slot. We also found that the system would boot successfully if we gave it a longer break or cooling time. Then as it heated up the system would freeze up and subsequent tries would not boot. Again after a long break it will start the first time alone due to having cooled off. Hmmmm. Now they want me to contact intel and ask for a warranty based replacement. I dont even know if the board is still under production.

Ctal > With regards to the new core2 duo system. Ive set everything correct in power options. The 'when i press this button do this etc' is all correctly setup. Also i noted that at anytime i switched on the power outlet feeding the system. The system would start for a short spurt and immediately switch off. Half a sec or so. You can hear the fan, leds glow etc and then its off. Then pressing the power button starts up the system as usual. But it never used to do this until we slapped in the new processor and board. Rest of its workings are satisfactory.

[zman88]

Did you look to see if the back of the MB was touching?

Unless you try the cpu in another MB you can't say it's good! And that black thing you are talking about is the Intel chipset controller. It will get hot,especially without a heat sync or if you are overclocking. Or have the settings in the bios wrong.

[zman88]

I don't think the HS is installed properly on the cpu.

[plainman007]

But all this started after i updated the bios. Will that have something to do with this ? No we checked and theres nothing touching from the back. Whats the heatsink on the CPU ? The silvery round vent like thing that has blades like forming a cyllinder and the fan sits on top of it ? Is that the heat sink ? How do i restore the bios, even the jumper to reset bios isnt working. Is it possible that the bios got corrupted ? Thanks.

[zman88]

Originally Posted by plainman007

But all this started after i updated the bios. Will that have something to do with this ? No we checked and theres nothing touching from the back. Whats the heatsink on the CPU ? The silvery round vent like thing that has blades like forming a cyllinder and the fan sits on top of it ? Is that the heat sink ? How do i restore the bios, even the jumper to reset bios isnt working. Is it possible that the bios got corrupted ? Thanks.

Usually after updating the bios it will set it to default.Actually you should set it to default before you update the bios. If the cpu or mem needs to have diff values then yes it can effect the way it runs. But, when you say "the longer you let it cool the longer it runs" leads me to believe the HS on the cpu is not on right. And yes the silver thing with the fan on top is the heat sync for the cpu. I don't suppose you could take a picture of it and post it here ?

[plainman007]

But im not allowed to post pics here. I havent collected enough posts for that i guess. I dont have any hosting abilities and have tried photobucket and it never worked for me. But i got what you mean by CPU fan. Shall i try to undo this myself or is it too tough and requires a service engineer ?

[ctal]

Originally Posted by plainman007

But all this started after i updated the bios. Will that have something to do with this ? No we checked and theres nothing touching from the back. Whats the heatsink on the CPU ? The silvery round vent like thing that has blades like forming a cyllinder and the fan sits on top of it ? Is that the heat sink ? How do i restore the bios, even the jumper to reset bios isnt working. Is it possible that the bios got corrupted ? Thanks.

Are you saying that at one point this system worked ok in the case you moved it into? And then it started having the problem after the bios update? If so, that is obviously very significant, and we weren't aware that it ever worked consistently in that case with that power supply. If that is so, then it would sound like you should flash the bios back to the version it had when it worked, doing that only after letting the system cool down so that it doesn't crash during the update process.

It sounds like the chip you referred to is the Southbridge, also known on that board as the ICH7 I/O Controller Hub. I have no experience with how warm it should normally get.

Zman's suggestions also sound like they should be pursued. Has the heat sink/fan and/or the cpu ever been removed from the mobo during this whole process? Re your last post, DO NOT remove the heat sink/fan unless you are prepared and equipped to clean off the residual thermal pad, and apply thermal grease before reattaching it to the cpu.

There are several cpu temperature monitoring programs that can be downloaded free, and used to monitor cpu temperature if there is the possibility that it is what is getting too hot. Speedfan, Realtemp, Coretemp, others; you can find them via Google.

On the other board, look in the bios settings if you haven't already, at any settings that may be relevant to the standby issue. The manual doesn't describe the available settings.

When you turn on the ac power and fan(s) spin for a second or two, is it just the fan(s) that are plugged into the mobo that spin, or do the other fan(s), such as possibly the case fan(s), spin as well?

-- Al

[zman88]

At this point I would suggest you do not do it yourself.

Did you look at the manual ctal posted for you? I was wondering which jumper you moved to set the bios to default and whether or not you put it back in the right position after.

[zman88]

Did you remove the silver round thing after installing MB in new case?

[plainman007]

Ctal > Yes initially the system worked ok. But then after i was setting the Nvidia profiles something went awry. Then performance was erratic. Screen half out etc. So i decided to update bios. Since i updated bios it hasnt booted properly. I said the system is quirky from start because ive seen it working without problems for only a day. I thought that qualifies as troublesome from start. Ive only had this rig up for 3 to 4 days now. How do i flash back to the original bios. The original bios was 2006. I upgraded to vers 2007 which is given as the latest on the intel site. The problem now is there is only one more update listed below and thats way back to 2004. Where can i see the entire list of updates ever released for a board ?


Zman > No im sure i did the jumper thing correctly. If i did it wrong im sure the tech guy would have found out. In fact he tried the same pattern of recovery that i did and failed too.

[zman88]

I don't think 2004 or 2007 is the bios revision. It is the date! And you can find the latest bios at the Intel website.