orev_saara

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Aug 23, 2005
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Well, I finally got a new mobo/cpu, but something's wrong. I upgraded to a venice core 3000+ on the Asrock dual board and put in a FSP 300W ATX 2.0 PSU. Original components include 2 Crucial 266MHz 256MB Dimms, a Radeon 8500 AGP card, a Soundblaster Audigy 2 card, a Linksys NIC (don't ask why, but it has to be there), 2 PATA hard drives (Samsung 80GB, Maxtor 40GB), a lite-on CD-RW/DVD-ROM, and a BenQ DVD+-RW. It's in a Lian-Li PC-66 case. Oh, and I'm using the retail HSF. The BIOS works alright, but windows won't boot. I'm typing this at work, and I'll probably start by formatting the system HDD and re-installing windows, but I'm nervous. How can I reliably determine if any of the new components are faulty? I've built computers before, but I've been lucky. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
 

orev_saara

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Aug 23, 2005
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Forget I asked! I just read an EXTREMELY helpful article at pcstats.com that told me what was going on and what to do about it. I just discovered pcstats a few days ago, and have been really pleased so far, so if anyone reads this and wants to know what to do, check them out.
 

Crashman

Polypheme
Former Staff
Whatever you do, don't read their reviews, they aren't honest.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>
 

P4Man

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Feb 6, 2004
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You have to reinstall windows when you switch motherboard/chipset.

Sometimes you get lucky and it will boot (possibly only in safe mode); my nForce2/AXP windows partition booted more or less okay on a nForce4/A64 system but even then its *highly* recommended you reinstall. If you really really really MUST avoid reinstalling, you can try booting in safe mode, removing all the devices in device manager, and try rebooting, but odds are firmly against you.

The only time you could even consider not reinstalling is when you are switching same type of motherboard (same chipset). If you went from athlon xp (or worse, Pentium 3/4) to a socket 754or 939 board: reinstall.

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =