Wrong CPU speed, not booting

[Humboldt]

Old system I built years ago and gave to a friend, come back to haunt me.

Abit BE-6 with a HighPoint controller (HPT366)
P3 800MHz running XP Pro w/ SP2.

Has been fine for the past year or so but stopped booting a few days ago. Now when it is trying to boot the splash screen identifies the cpu as 566E MHz instead of 800 MHz.

It then proceeds to "cpu is unworkable or has changed. F1 to continue or Del to go to soft BIOS"

If I F1 it goes to "verifying DMI data pool" then throws up some weird characters that looks like Y00Y00 only the 0's are about 1/2 size and interlocking, like greek characters or something. Never seen them before.

If I go into the BIOS I can change the clock speed manually but it doesn't seem to help anything.

Pulled the hdd and hooked it up to another system. Found and fixed some errors with scandisk but hasn't changed anything when I try it back in the original machine.

Any ideas appreciated, thanks

[Joe]

try using the clear cmos jumper

[Humboldt]

Thanks Joe,
Should I pull the battery also or would that make any difference?

[YARDofSTUF]

Dn't need to pull the batt if you use the jumper. Maybe try making a memtest boot cd or floppy and check the memory.

[Humboldt]

Cleared the CMOS using the 2-3 pins.

Still pulling up as a P3 MMX at 566E MHz, then getting those weird characters Y8Y8 (with the 8's on their sides)

Would replacing the battery have any potential?

[Humboldt]

burning a memtest disk now.

How would that influence the cpu type or speed though YOS?

thanks

[Humboldt]

huh.

Not working either.
The memtest txt says:
Memtest86+ is located on the bootsector of this CD.

Just boot from this CD and Memtest86+ will launch.

Well, have memtest burned onto blank cd, boot sequence set to CDROM, still just getting the normal boot sequence though.

When I go into BIOS at least it's remembering the new settings but I'm not seeing memtest run at all.

[YARDofSTUF]

burning a memtest disk now.

How would that influence the cpu type or speed though YOS?

thanks

Memory errors can do mysterious things. I had one that had a bad stick of RAM and I could boot fine but wouldnt connect to the net, pull teh stick out and the net was flawless. LOL


huh.

Not working either.
The memtest txt says:
Memtest86+ is located on the bootsector of this CD.

Just boot from this CD and Memtest86+ will launch.

Well, have memtest burned onto blank cd, boot sequence set to CDROM, still just getting the normal boot sequence though.

When I go into BIOS at least it's remembering the new settings but I'm not seeing memtest run at all.

This could be a dumb question but you unzipped/unrared the file, or if it was a img file you didnt jsut burn that file but went into your app and chose to burn an image file to CD?

Some older systems were flakey with the CD option, if you have a floppy try that.

[YARDofSTUF]

Cleared the CMOS using the 2-3 pins.

Still pulling up as a P3 MMX at 566E MHz, then getting those weird characters Y8Y8 (with the 8's on their sides)

Would replacing the battery have any potential?

Maybe, but not likely.

[Humboldt]

Cleared CMOS with jumpers for about 5 minutes and it finally let me reboot and recognized the cpu correctly (found the box, turns out it's an 850 MHz, not an 800 MHz).

Still goes from:
Updating ESCD...Success
Updating DMI Pool Data..............Update Success
Y8Y8 (with the 8's sideways)
then nothing, just a flashing cursor.

At the top of the screen it IDs the HDD fine but only as a 135 GB, not a 200 GB. Wondering if the BIOS went south and I need to flash it?





trying to find a working floppy somewhere, the 10 I found so far are dead.

[Humboldt]

Got memtest to run from cd finally, running it now.

Question about the HighPoint controller.

IDE 3 and 4 are on the HPT, should I have the HDD on one of those?

arrgghh.
I thought I was rid of this computer years ago.

I know pre-SP2 and some older BIOS have won't recognize HDD over about 135 GB or so, could that be an issue? Can BIOS go bad and need to be reflashed? I'd guess that if that was the issue it would still boot ok though, and this bitch just isn't booting.

Another site mentioned the following as causes for stopping at the DMI Pool data update:
1. Corrupt boot files on the computer.
2. Settings for hard disk drive are not correct.
3. Floppy diskette or CD in computer causing issue.
4. Boot devices not set properly.
5. BIOS corrupt or misc. setting not set properly.
6. Connections loose or disconnected.
7. Bad Hard disk drive or other bad hardware.

Already pulled the hdd and hooked it up to another system and scanned it. Found a bunch of corrupt files but fixed them.
No floppy or cd in the computer.
Checked all the cables and memory banks, running memtest now.
Checked the boot priority.
What hdd settings could the above refer to?

[YARDofSTUF]

If the ide are set to auto in bios dont worry about the settings.

the HPT controller may need drivers for windows to see it.

[Humboldt]

If the ide are set to auto in bios dont worry about the settings.

the HPT controller may need drivers for windows to see it.

All set to auto.
The HPT has its own splash screen, seems fine, only odd part about it is that it says to hit ctrl H to enter the HPT settings but ctrl H doesn't do anything:D

I'm just using IDE 1 and IDE 2 at the moment.

[YARDofSTUF]

Ya Ctrl + H should be the raid/HPT controller bios.


Bios could be corrupt I guess, could flash it again. What did memtest+ turn up?

[Humboldt]

Ya Ctrl + H should be the raid/HPT controller bios.


Bios could be corrupt I guess, could flash it again. What did memtest+ turn up?

Is it supposed to take so ****ing long?

1 hour 48 minutes in, so far 1 pass 0 errors.

[Humboldt]

Ya Ctrl + H should be the raid/HPT controller bios.


Bios could be corrupt I guess, could flash it again. What did memtest+ turn up?

The mobo bios or the HPT bios?

[YARDofSTUF]

Memtest will keep going forever if its saying pass1 then it might have done a full pass, first might be 0, theres 8 tests, should be done by now I would think.


Flash mobo bios.

[Humboldt]

roger that.

[Humboldt]

nope.
Flashed, still hanging on Verifying DMI Pool Data.

Going to pull the hdd and rescan it from another system again.

Any other ideas?

Killed memtest after 2+ hours and at least 1 pass, no errors.

thanks :)

[Humboldt]

think an XP repair would help if there are corrupt boot files?

[YARDofSTUF]

think an XP repair would help if there are corrupt boot files?

Yeah its worth a shot.

http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/483/xp_repair_fix_master_boot_record_recovery_console

[Humboldt]

hell.

No repair option at first, just recovery console.

Tried bootcfg rebuild, copied over new files manually from the XP disk, finally got it to recognize the prior installation and give me a repair option, repaired the old XP installation, am getting invalid system disk error.

[Humboldt]

Yesterday found 2 boot sector viruses.

In recovery console, will using "fixboot" to write a new boot sector destroy any data on the hdd?
I've backed up everything I can off the hdd, just curious.

[YARDofSTUF]

No it will only change the boot sector info.

[Humboldt]

update 1 week later...

Tried the repair option, tried recovery console, tried automated recovery.

Nothing.

Still worked fine as a data drive in my system.
Copied everything worth copying, put it back in the original machine.

Boot from Disk, delete old partition, reformat, install XP clean...system reboots and I get a system disk error.
3 times now.

Have done quick reformat and regular reformat. Tried all 4 IDE slots. Nada.

Seems to copy all the needed files just fine, then on reboot I take the cd out and set BIOS back to boot from hdd...system disk error.

Any ideas? Might a boot sector virus have done something more permanent?
I figure maybe the hdd is dead, but it could still be read and accessed fine as a data drive.

Scan disk found lots of corrupt files and fixed them but whenever I run a scandisk to completion it ends with something like "Windows unable to complete scan"

I have a brand new 200 GB drive I can use but am trying to save my friend the $100 and use the old hdd if I can...never encountered this problem before.

CPU is recognized fine now, at least that problem went away:D

Any advice appreciated, thanks

[Mark]

make sure the power connector from the power supply is not loose on the hard drive, sometimes those little metal pins can get loose, maybe take a small pair of needle nose pliers and slightly close them down.

i have had that happen a few times and had random hard drive problems in the past.

just a wild guess here.........

[Humboldt]

make sure the power connector from the power supply is not loose on the hard drive, sometimes those little metal pins can get loose, maybe take a small pair of needle nose pliers and slightly close them down.

i have had that happen a few times and had random hard drive problems in the past.

just a wild guess here.........

Hi Mark, I'll double check that, thanks for the tip.

[Random_Guy]

Did you ever get that problem to worked out? If so, how did you do it?

[terrancelam]

Hey Humbolt,

My guess is that your Ram or/ Powersupply is bad. The CMOS battery probably needs to be replaced (when it goes, all your BIOS setting get flushed / corrupted and you'll see the CPU settings revert to default). BTW did your friend have a brown/black out recently?

If the answer is no, then I would guess that there is something wrong with:

1.) Ram (can cause the system to post irregularly/ bsod / corrupt the HD data).
2.) IDE cable (it happens on time to time that they go bad, but not often).

If the answer is yes;

Forget the system. Multiple components maybe fried and is mostly likely not worth the repair cost (even if you are just buying parts). Sorry if this is the case ; - ;