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I have just put together a new system with a gigabyte mobo athlon xp 3200+ 512 ram and i am using a 64MB AGP nvidia GeForce2 card by mad dog.......every time i am trying to install windows2000 it gets to the point where it is formating the hard drive the screen gets all blocky and strange colors.....i have tried a different video card (a much older 16MB IBM AGP card) and i have tried different monitors....i have tried a different hard drive but keep getting the same problem.....is this mobo a dud?? or am i missing something?
Make sure it is grounded by having all the risers needed. Is this an older PSU? Make sure the memory is in tight.
<===Lefty===
AMD 64 3200+
200 GB WD
Geforce 5500FX 256 MB
512 MB Ram Needs more.
Windows XP
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Make sure any virus protection is disabled in cmos/bios setup. If it's enabled that can interfere with OS installation. I've never known it to be a problem during formatting however.
Are you booting from the 2000 cd or from a bootdisk? Does the system freeze when the problem starts or does it continue formatting?
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it is a brand new PSU ultra 400 watts
I am booting from the win2k cd....i can't tell if the sytem freezes or not the screen is totally unreadable
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It sounds like a video card or video memory problem. But since you've swapped cards that doesn't seem likely. If your bios allows shared video memory, disable it in cmos/bios setup. Make sure any virus protection is off there.
What size hard drives have you tried?
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I tried it with a brand new western digital 160 gig drive........i got the problem the first time through thought i just didn't have something hooked up right.......started again it actually loaded up windows....then the bios got all funny it would take forever to get through the ide detection of the drives then i couldn't get it to boot from the HD without a bootable disc in the CD rom (i know it sounds weird) ..... i checked the bios it doesn't have the shared video memory thing you mentioned..... i am at a loss.....
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Check the motherboard manual to make sure it'll see a 160 gig drive OK. Drives larger than about 137 gig drive have to be addressed differently. Also I'm not sure about partition size and windows 2000.
If you could try installing it on a much smaller drive first just to see if it'll work then you'd know if the drive size was a factor.
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okay now i have gotten windows to install (used the formating program that came with the hard drive and windows went right in) started working perfectly......now every so often the screen just dies and goes blank.....it is not just the video dying out (caps lock and num lock no longer work) but the machine freezes.....any suggestions?
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Sometimes heat can cause it to lock up. Make sure the cpu heatsink and fan are properly installed.
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i put in a slot pc fan (right under the video card) a 120 mm fan blowing out the back and an 80mm fan intaking from the front......cpu fan is working correctly still getting the same problem
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You might look in cmos and check the power saving options.
Maybe it is the video card. If possible, swap out the card and see if that makes any difference.
There's just no exact reason for it doing that.
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okay, now i'm frustrated beyond all belief..... i have been doing some research about my problem and thought i had it figured out....the mobo i have has a VIA KT600 chipset and after extensive looking i found out that it has problems with the AGP slot and nVidia cards.... there were posted fixes/patches on the AMD and VIA websites...... tried these, it worked for a few hours then BAM! video dies again...... borrowed another video card from work and tried it, same problem, tried different monitor (just for the hell of it) and same problem, tried yet another video card ....same problem.......went and bought an inexpensive ATI (to get away from nvidia) Raedeon card PCI (to get away from AGP slot) ......booted through safe mode (which usually works for about 10 minutes before it dies) to uninstall nvidia drivers....okay it worked....installed ATI card in the PCI slot installed drivers...... everything seemed to be working fine....... working very well actually, installed all my software no problem....... installed winamp..... no problem.... i was watching a streaming video through winamp no problem watched another no problem.........listened to some cd's no problem....turned on the winamp visualizers no problem (actually looked pretty good and fast/responsive) then i went back and watched another video......BAM! video dies and my heart drops.........thought okay, the agp patches that i put in are prob causing me some issues (the problem is supposedly the video card and the processor trying to use the same register in the memory at the same time) so i figured i will format my HD and reinstall windows (was going to do that anyway cause i forgot to partition so it can recognize 160gig) so i format and then go to install and bam! it won't even install windows anymore the graphics just die and the screen changes all sorts of colors (once all white, once red, once blue) i don't know what else to do..... i don't know if it's the mobo or the processor or the ram or the psu) any help would be greatly appreciated
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With all the swapping of parts the only thing left would seem to be one of those. And I wouldn't want to guess on which is the most likely. It really seemed like a video card/memory or heat problem.
I you can swap out any of the remaining parts I'd suggest doing that. Remove as much hardware as you can and still have it running in case it's something else.
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This may help:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;305098
It explains problems with win 2000 and drives larger than 137 gig. Your problem seems to be hardware-related only so that may not be it. And the resulting problems don't seem to match yours, but take a look at it and see what you think.
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well i called tech support for my motherboard today (gigabyte, will never buy them again) and they seem to think that it is a cpu overheating problem.......although i don't think so..... they had me play with some settings in the bios which seemed to actually help the problem (the cpu AMD 3200+) was running at a rather warm 53 dec Celcius, so i went and got a real good heatsink for it.......this is going to be my last attempt at fixing this thing, if this doesn't solve problems i am going to call tigerdirect and start yelling, i am going to have them replace mobo, cpu, ram and psu because i can't eliminate any of them as being the problem.
oh another thing that happened today, this is after gigabyte played with my settings, i called my father from work and had him turn on the computer to see if it booted up....i was finally able to load windows after they helped me and had no problems for a few hours while i was playing with it.....he turned it on and it powered up but no display and no post beep, had him turn off in back and try again same thing, then told him pull power plug and put back in and sure enough booted right up...... i hate lemons and i allways seem to get them
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The power supply is probably providing a trickle charge to the motherboard. A lot of the newer boards do that. That may be why pulling the plug helped. Maybe the problem is with the PS. Just a guess. Hope you get it figured out.
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just wanted to give an update.....i have exchanged the mobo, cpu, ram and psu....got them back put it together and it is now running perfectly, no problems at all....so it was def a hardware issue....thank you for your help
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