Aces High Bulletin Board
Help and Support Forums => Technical Support => Topic started by: Urchin on July 13, 2005, 12:55:10 AM
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Ok, this isn't related to AH, and it wasn't caused by AH, but I'm hoping someone can help me out anyway.
I started playing a game called World of Warcraft, by Blizzard. They came out with a new patch today. After downloading the patch, I was playing the game and the computer spontaneously rebooted 3 times (while playing). After the last, the computer will not boot up anymore. The HDD light stays solid, and the monitor stays in sleep mode.
I took the side off, everything is plugged in, no loose connections or anything.
I had a AMD Athlon 2000+ (1666 mhz), ATI 9000Pro 128Mb video card, Soundblaster Audigy soundcard, and 512 mb RAM. I have cable, if that matters. OS was XP SP2.
The monitor is perfectly fine, if I unplug the video cable, I get the little bouncy box that says "No connection" on the monitor. As soon as I plug it back in, the monitor goes to sleep.
I know it has to be some strange coincidence that something major decides to die on my computer the very same day these morons put out a patch for their game, but I'm wondering what could be wrong with this computer, and how did the game break it. Hell, even if it did break it, I'd never be able to get them to admit it, so I'm SOL either way.
Any kind of help is appreciated.. I know a little about computers but not that much.
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Spontaneous reboots are usually a heat issue. Make sure the fan is running on the CPU heatsink when you try to turn the computer on. Could also have been the power supply dying. If you have a meter you can check for voltage easy enough at one of the power outputs. You also (though not likely) could have done something to screw up your CMOS settings? See if the motherboard has a "Reset CMOS" jumper and try that. Other than those things, dont know what to suggest.
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Fan is running on the CPU and on the power supply. I'll have to look for that jumper thing. Better advice than I've gotten anywhere else. Thanks.
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Urchin,
this is merely hearsay and you'll find no confirmation on the WoW boards.......
But loads of people have had issues with overheat when installing / playing WoW. See.......Wow's install (and certain files used to play) are compressed to an extreme degree and when decompressing the memory usage is.....well, it overheats.
I lost a 512Mb DiMM to WoW.
So have other people but Blizzard will never admit it.
Check / change your DiMMs.
Also try completely disconnecting your PC from the power until the LED on the board goes out, to reset the emergency shut down procedure, then reconnect and try again.
(http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/209_1081438631_swoop.gif)
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The day any software company admits that its software can do irrepairable damage to hardware will be the day that hell freezes over. It simply isn't ever going to happen, no matter how widespread the problem is.
I've got 2 256 MB of RAM.. I tried taking them out one at a time and restarting, it didn't work.
I tried unplugging the tower and then restarting it... it didn't do anything differently.
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Well, I found the mobo manual and moved the pin to reset the cmos, then tried it. Didn't fix it.
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Well, switched monitors. My monitor works fine on my parents computer. Their monitor shows "self test: check tower and cable, the monitor is working" whether or not my computer is on or not.
I assume that means that something Blizzard didn't do with this new patch fried something on my computer.
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It actually looks like you don't have that monitor all the way on. When a monitor plugs into a VGA, good or dead, it usually doesn't show that message. At least not in my experience.
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Its some part of your computer.
If it doesnt go into the bios i would say it cant be the hard disc. Still i would try to unplug the hd and see if that helps.
Check if you have a pc speaker connected to the motherboard. I mean the little beepers, not the speaker on the sound output or soundcard. If you dont have one find one and connect it to the mobo. Thats essential to find the error.
Usually if the computer starts teh bios does a self test and somehow reports errors, most times in beeps, sometimes on a display on the motherboard where you get a number that you can look up in the manual.
When you turn on the comp do the fans start spinning?
If you have a voltmeter check the output of a unplugged hd or floppy power connector.
The WoW update usually takes verry long... how long did you update and run wow before the reboots started?
I suppose some component in your computer overheated and got fried... can be powersource, cpu, motherboard, ram graphics board.
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Power supply could have been marginal and if the line voltage has dropped (this time of year it is not uncommon due to loads on the electrical grid) it could have overstressed the power supply to the point of near failure.
If you have a voltmeter, check the AC line levels and see if they are low. Also check the output of the 5V rail. The 5V rail could have been damaged.
HD spinups and most fans use the 12V rail.
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If you have spare memory you can swap with that computer, try swapping a pair of memory that is known to work. I had a problem like that, couldnt get the computer to work for the best of me. I finally tried different set of memory and it booted and worked from there.
If you have the time, parts, and spare case, I would take each item from the computer and swap it with the same part from a known working computer until you come across the part that dont work. It will take a while and a lot of cussing, but you will eventually find the part that dont work.
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yeah, that sounds exactly like what happened when my powersupply failed.
mine overheated though, one of the fans had quit.
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Meat... I actually took out the memory completely and tried to start the computer up, under the assumption that it would beep or something to let me know that it knew there wasn't any memory. It doesn't.
If I disconnect the IDE cable from the DVD or CD drive, the lights flash on the front of them, but that is all that happens.
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id guess power supply or something popped in he mainboard ..
that no beep with the ram removed sort of points in those 2 directions.
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Originally posted by Skuzzy
Power supply could have been marginal and if the line voltage has dropped (this time of year it is not uncommon due to loads on the electrical grid) it could have overstressed the power supply to the point of near failure.
If you have a voltmeter, check the AC line levels and see if they are low. Also check the output of the 5V rail. The 5V rail could have been damaged.
HD spinups and most fans use the 12V rail.
Ok skuzzy, I took the power supply out and took a volt meter to it. Here are the results. In color (supposed output) : tested output.
Red (+5V) : 2.6V
Yellow (+12V) : 0.0V
Orange (+3.3V) : 0.0V
White (-5V) : 0.0V
Blue (-12V) : 1.9V
Purple (+5VSB): 4.96 (VSB?)
Grey (Power Good) : 0.1V
I take it that means the power supply failed? I plugged the power supply into the wall, then used a voltmeter to check the little individual plugs where the big collective plug goes into the mainboard.
Two questions...
1. How is it possible for a output to be negative volts?
2. What is VSB?
and
3. Is this something that could have been caused by WoW?
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Well, I went out and bought a new power supply and hooked it up. Computer still won't boot up.
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Not sure exactly how you tested with the meter, but test the new one the same way and see if your results vary from the old PS test. If so, you had to replace it anyway. If the PS failed you could still have fried the motherboard (depends on how it happened). In which case I wouldnt blame the game, it was probably a power spike or the PS went kablooie on its own and spiked the motherboard. Now if the new PS tests the same as the old one (which I doubt from the figures you supplied), it was probably an overheat problem. You could still have popped parts on the motherboard, or fried the CPU. I'd say you've done everything you can to eliminate simple problems. Now its down to replacement. A decent shop would usually charge you 40 or 50 bucks to test the motherboard and CPU to see if they are damaged.
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I actually messed up... I didn't realize the power supply had to be hooked up to the motherboard while you tested it. It works fine.
I talked to Skuzzy on the phone and he thinks it is probably the mtoherboard.
Thanks for your help everyone, it is much appreciated.
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When you take the mainboard out, get a close look at the capacitors and see if any are swollen or burst.
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Urchin, it still could be the CPU or RAM, but mommaboard is my suspect.