How Can I get my pc working?

Question

Specs: AMD SOCKET AM2 4400+ with AMD ATHLON 64 X2 DUAL-CORE PROCESSOR

MODEL K9VGM-V WITH VIA K8M890+VT8237A CHIPSET BASED. AM2, K8M890, 8237A, 8CH HD AUDIO , ON-BOARD LAN, SLOTS 1 PCI-E X16 SLOT, 1PCI-EX1 SLOT, 2 PCI SLOTS.

EVGA 8800 GT 512mb super clocked

2 1GB DDR2 667 mhz ram sticks

500 Watt Power Supply

OS: Windows XP (32 bit OS)

System actually loads and gives me the option of going into bios or loading my default setting and launch windows. However, if I attempt to load it up and go to desktop, my system freezes. When I go into bios and do exit, it freezes. It simply goes to a black screen and does nothing else. First time I loaded it, it Asked me to activate windows. The screen for the activation partly loaded then froze for an hour, I restarted the system and each time I attempt to load it, I get the black screen again. It may be because I now have a 64 bit system, whereas my OS is only 32 bit. But I don't know. Could someone please help
At one point I was able to get to desktop, but it seemed very slow, no sound, and the instant I tried to open a very basic program (NES Emulator) it froze. I've not done a new install, I'm attempting to boot off an old install (which is 32 bit os).

Answer 1

Two strong possibilities come to mind for me, but there are others.



Power. 500watt power supply, OK, but does it have 2 12V rails??? The overall wattage is actually a very poor way to compare PS. How many amps it has per rail (and it should have 2 rails) is the critical factor usually.



Heat. (The GFX card being overclocked *might* be an issue) but if BIOS locks up, I would check the CPU heatsink for sure. Is it on right? Did you use a good thermal interface and is that done right? That CPU is a cooker, it's gonna need very effective cooling.

Answer 2

You said your video card is "superclocked" ... meaning overclocked, I presume?



Perhaps that is the problem?



If you can get into the BIOS again, don't just exit ...go to the page where you can set it all back to default and do that.



You also might try a video card that is not overclocked ..



The fact that you're running 32 bit OS on a 64 bit system is not the problem.



I don't know where you overclocked your video card .. in BIOS or in some other place, but you should set it back to see if that's the problem.

Answer 3

well getting stuck at the bios level is almost certainly a hardware issue, might want to flash your bios you might have to download the utilities on a different computer and copy them on a floppy disk to use on this computer.



Just so you know, booting off an old install like this, that was installed on different hardware, doesn't usually work too well.



One thing to make sure of is that the PCI-E 6 pin power is connected to your graphics card. (graphics card should come with an adapter if your power supply doesn't have one)



If that isn't the problem then you will just have to start trouble shooting by removing 1 piece of hardware at a time until the problem goes away. Try onboard video (you'll have to remove the 8800GT) if you have it, then try taking out 1 memory stick and then swapping it, trying to find the piece of hardware that has the problem.



If you have another power supply laying around (at least 400w) then you might want to try swapping that out first, it is my primary suspect here but most people don't have an extra one to swap out.

Answer 4

my quick answer would be that you have to check your bios settings and i hate to say it try a complete reformat and reinstall of your os if you didn't do a clean install there may be some conflicting data on your hard drive that is conflicting with your current configuration