| Hard drive cannot be detected |
1. Make sure BIOS is set up to auto-detect the drives - ensure IDE and SATA controllers are enabled in BIOS
2. Power cable faulty or not plugged in, cable not firmly connected
3. IDE cable in wrong way around or faulty, CHECK BOTH ENDS (blue to board, grey to slave drive, black to master drive)
4. Master/Secondary conflict, disconnect all other IDE devices on chain.
5. Check jumper settings. Some drives have a "single drive" setting, and won't work properly as a "slave" or "master" if they are the only drive in the chain.
6. PCI bus speed out of specification, can cause problems - 37mhz or less recommended
7. Have you FDISKed the drive? - under XP, go to Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Computer Management, Disk Management and add a new partition if the disk is greyed out.
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| New CPU not working |
1. CPU incompatible with board or board has wrong FSB jumper setting for this CPU
2. Chipped core or burned by incorrect cooler installation (only for coppermine/athlon/durons)
3. Socket arm not down fully
4. BIOS may need reset to clear past CPU settings - also check 12v power connector is plugged if yourboard has this.
5. Fan failure protection on motherboard may force shut down if there's no power draw on the cpu fan socket, make sure fan is plugged in if this applies to your board.
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| New motherboard won't POST |
1. Check if grounded properly and there's no shorts or misplaced standoffs - try it outside of case on anti-static bag
2. Remove all unrequired hardware (soundcard, ide cables, USB peripherals, etc)
3. Make sure ATX power cable is fully plugged in and PSU is rated for this type of load
4. Make sure your ram and CPU is compatible with this board and are inserted the right way around
5. Dont forget to plug in the atx power button and the 12v power lead if the board needs this
6. Check bios reset pins are not shorted/closed
7. Check keyboard wakeup jumper or chassis intrusion jumper
8. Check for correct CPU jumper settings - try resetting BIOS by unplugging power and shorting BIOS pins with jumper.
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| Crashes in Windows without loading any applications |
1. Remove all hardware one at a time until problem disapears
2. Set CPU and RAM back to stock speeds if overclocked
3. Check the CPU temperature - should not exceed 60deg for most CPU types
4. Make sure your ram and CPU is compatible with this board
5. Correct motherboard drivers loaded? VIA 4-in1 or Intel INF
6. Try moving cards around or disabling unused motherboard resources
7. Test your RAM - see www.goldmemory.cz and www.memtest86.org
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| Resets while under load |
1. Check powersupply handling capability, look under Hardware Monitoring and consider testing rails with a multimeter
2. Not enough voltage to CPU, video card, or RAM - raise these a little at a time
3. Overclocked too far past capabilities of hardware
4. Videocard,cpu overheating - try removing case side and blow air in with a fan
5. Faulty wiring or possible shorting in loose power plugs
6. if using XP or 2K, check to see if the automatically reboot on error function is turned off. (right click on my computer-->properties-->advanced-->start up and recovery[settings]-->system failure-->untick automatically restart)
7. Test your RAM - see www.goldmemory.cz and www.memtest86.org
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| DVD/CD-writer burns failing |
1. Check power plug- possible faulty molex plug or not fully inserted
2. Use an ATA/66/100/133 IDE cable rather than an older ATA/33 cable
3. Remove burner drivers from control panel
4. Update your burner software - SP2 breaks many older apps
5. Has it happened since installing windows XP or SP2 updates? check compatibility.
6. Update firmware of writeer from maker's site
7. Make sure DMA is ENABLED IN CONTROL PANEL
8. Put device on seperate chain / on it's own IDE cable
9. Make sure PCI bus is running in spec (no more than 37mhz)
10. Buy a CD-ROM Lens cleaner, the laser maybe dirty or dusty if the drive is months old
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| CPU overheating |
1. Check the fan is functioning OK and is not full of dust
2. Have you applied thermal paste? If the cooler had a plastic protector over a thermal pad, has it been removed?
3. Apply thermal paste only VERY thinly (almost translucent) - too much insulates and retains heat
4. Heatsink seated properly? Not mounted at an angle?
4a. Socket arm down all the way?
4b. Heatsink mounted correct way around? Check step cut into bottom matches socket (AMD/Socket370 only)
4c. Heatsink full of dust - clean it out
5. CPU voltage and speed correct - set to defaults
6. System cooling insufficient - try removing a case side and blowing air in with a fan?
7. CPU thermal pad been reused? Scrape it off and use paste instead, as pads are not meant for multiple use
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| Network unavailable |
1. Are all computers on same subnet (eg. 192.168.0.X)
2. Are you using straight-through cables between PCs and switch/hub??
3. Are you using cross-over cable for PC -> PC networking without a switch/hub?
4. Cable broken - check for link light or try another cable
5. Network hardware malfunctioning (hub, switch, NIC) - swap it out
6. Can you ping each PC from another PC?
6a. Ping works but you don't see PC in Network Neightbourhood - are drives shared yet / do you have access permissions?
7. Are you are using a non-internet IP address (192.168.0.x, 10.x.x.x)
8. Plug and play operating systems set to yes in the bios can cause sometimes cause LAN failures
9. Check for multiple instances of the one network card device in Network Properties
10. Disable onboard ACR LAN in BIOS if you have a PCI network card
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| Skipping Audio/MP3 playback |
1. Switch to Waveout in winamp
2. Increase buffer length
3. Increase priority of mp3 playback
4. Increase block size
5. Try moving sound card to another PCI slot - avoid IRQ sharing
6. Latest patches for motherboard chipset and sound card?
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| ERROR MESSAGE: "...The data is invalid" |
Problem: Blue Screen When Trying To Install Hardware And/Or Drivers - error message is "There was a problem installing this hardware :Hardware Name.
An error occurred during the installation of this device. The data is invalid." This problem is occurs because the registry will not allow writes to the driver information keys.
FIX:
To fix this problem, go to Start, Run... and type "regedit" without the quotes, to run the Registry Editor. Navigate your way down to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\ENUM\PCI
and you will see a number of keys in the form of "VEN_xxxx", where xxxx are strings like "1102&DEV_0004&SUBSYS_00011103&REV_04". Under each of these folders will be another folder with a long numerical name. Open each folder and look for the "DeviceDesc" which matches the hardware you are trying to install.
Right Click on the "VEN_xxxx" for that device and select 'Permissions' and then tick "Allow" for "Full Control". Close Regedit and then continue with the installation of your device. You should not need to reboot after you close regedit but some people have found that they do.
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| New pre-assembled PC won't boot |
Problem: A pre-assembled system just unpacked will not boot up.
FIX:
These problems with a system are often due to loose cables and connections. Cable connections inside a system could become loose during transportation. Please open the system cover, and do a visual checking to ensure all cables are properly connected. Pay special attention to IDE cables, floppy cables, power cables, and all the other cables that are connected to the motherboard.
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| CPU speed reported slower than expected |
Problem: Your 2.4Ghz Pentium4 CPU shows up as 1.8Ghz in the POST screen, or your AMD CPU reports a speed about 70% of correct speed.
FIX:
The CPU speed is the result of multiplying the FSB (Front Side Bus - changeable in BIOS) and the CPU internal multiplier (factory set, not changeable without modification).
You need to set the correct FSB speed for the CPU in the BIOS under Frequency - it's box should say if it is 100, 133, 166 etc. Some boards will need you to use a jumper to set the FSB - see the manual.
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| Power supply seems dead |
| External Hard Drive not useable |
Problem: External USB or Firewire hard drive in a case wil not appear in My Computer, or appears, but will not let you use it
FIX:
All drives need to be partitioned and formatted before they can be used. How this is done varies according to your operating system. In DOS/Win9x, you use FDISK at the command line. In Win2K or XP, use the Disk Management. Once partitioned, you need to format the disk.
Some operating systems may not be able to access the unformatted/unpartitioned disk via the external case - try connecting it inside your PC to partition & format first.
If you are using an external 2.5inch disk powered only by the USB output from a laptop, and it will not show up after you have loaded drivers/fdisked/formatted, your laptop's USB voltage may be too low to run the drive - a common problem especially when the battery in the laptop is more than 6 months old, as the output voltage tends to sag.
Try the external disk with a desktop PC, as they have higher USB voltage outputs. If it works fine with the desktop, you'll need to power the external disk with a power adapter when using it with the laptop.
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Hard drive cannot be detected
