[Patrick]

Okay, So what happens is every couple of days I have to reinstall windows, My computer will freeze, then when i do a restart It goes to a check disc. does it's check and say's it repairs it Then when it restarts the power just turns on and nothing loads most of the time I have to unplug it, and plug it back in to get it to load. Then after that I just have too format my hard drive and reinstall windows, which works for a couple days then i have to do it all over again. A friend of mine said it might have been the new/old cd-rom I put into it so I got a brand new dvd burner and removed the 2 cd-roms I had attached and, I just put in the one. I also tried A new hard drive but it does the exact same thing with the new hard drive. I have also tried windows xp/vista, and windows 7 with all of them doing the same thing. My computer is an hpPavilion a1600n with a amd 64 athlonx2

[Match]

Hi Patrick

Now thats an interesting problem.

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Then when it restarts the power just turns on and nothing loads most of the time I have to unplug it, and plug it back in to get it to load.

Do you get any error messages, or does it just give you a black screen with a flashing cursor.

when it freezes have you tried Ctrl-Alt-Delete to get out of it. Is it a random freeze or is it specific to a particular game or software that your using at the time?

after you re-install does windows update all right, and work properly at least for a little time?

also I could look it up but you seem to have changed the specs quite a bit, so I'll ask to be sure.

RAM type and quantity
HD Sata or IDE
DVD burner SATA or IDE
GPU onboard or card if so which make?
CPU AMD Athlon duel core, what's the clock speed?

I'll assume you have a standard power supply, but it would help also if you could tell us about any other mod's you've made from the standard spec.

and how long ago this problem started, and what you were doing or if you had changed anything just prior to the first freeze, if you can remember.

[Patrick]

RAM type and quantity- I have the 1g that came with it not sure what kind then i have 2 extra gigs of corsair ddr2
HD Sata or IDE the HD I have in there now is a Hitachi deskstar 320 gig sata
DVD burner SATA or IDE the dvd burner is a new hp dvd 1140i lightscribe which is e-ide
GPU onboard or card if so which make? I had a Nividia 7600gt installed on it but it died a few months ago so i have just been using on board
CPU AMD Athlon duel core, what's the clock speed? The chip is a 2ghz


the only things that i can think of that changed on the computer in the last year would be the video card going out and me going back to the onboard video. and my orignal dvd burner stopped reading anything but dvd's so i had installed a old cd-rom I had from another computer. shortly after that it started doing what it's doing now. but that was also around the time my video card went out. when It does it's screwing up and I try to load it It will load up fine until it is about to load windows then it will just sit at "prepairing desktop" for hours on end if it does happen to make it past that though it tells me my version of windows is fake and I need to reinstall. this normally happens after the check disc though.

when it does the not powering up thing the computer light comes on but that is it the fans and nothing else come on until I unplug it, for a few minutes and plug it back it in.


windows does work right for a few days after i re-install. I quit updating it seemed like it was just speeding up the process of the computer freezing. And the power supply is the original


When it freeze's most of the time I am on internet explorer. but I have tried multiple browers with all of them doing the same thing. I have tried the ctrl+alt+del that never works.

[Match]

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it tells me my version of windows is fake

you did say that you have tried XP, Vista and RC7, same on all three? not saying your using fake OS,s could go into detail as to how I know your not, but having to re-install every two days is not right even Microsoft give you 30 days to activate before it stops working.

Quote

when it does the not powering up thing the computer light comes on but that is it the fans and nothing else come on until I unplug it, for a few minutes and plug it back it in.

Makes me think that it could be the PSU.

Quote

the only things that i can think of that changed on the computer in the last year would be the video card going out and me going back to the onboard video. and my original dvd burner stopped reading anything but DVD's so i had installed a old cd-rom I had from another computer. shortly after that it started doing what it's doing now. but that was also around the time my video card went out

Makes me think its a Motherboard problem?

now here is the catch, the power supply unit powers the motherboard, which controls the PSU, (when you press the front power button the Motherboard tells the PSU to power everything up).

I would say its Motherboard related. BUT before you go out buying a new one, I would like Dalo's input on this, BUT he won't be around till Monday, so if you don't mind waiting till then for his opinion he will probably give you a definitive answer, however if you don't mind wasting money and time you could always just get another Motherboard, or PSU, or Both!!

[BeeCeeBee]

Dalo may be around before Monday (said he would be checking in over the weekend.) so keep checking in. We have others who are likely to weigh in as well.

[Patrick]

I have no problem waiting, pay-day is not until next friday anyways. So would you guys have any good recomendations on a new mother board and psu for my computer?

[Match]

If Dalo agrees with my Diagnosis he will advise you what to get for the best value, for your use, ;)

[Patrick]

Thats cool no Problems with waiting but I would like a mother board that I could do some upgrading on maybe a quad core but I am not picky and would really just like to be able to play my wow with no problem, maybe somthing that could support a good video card

[Dalo Harkin]

Hi Patrick -

First of all, do you know how to get into the BIOS?
I would like you to check that the MOBO is saying that the PSU is ok - there will be a tab on the MOBO BIOS screen for showing you all the rails that the PSU has and what power is being supplied by them. (you are looking for a rail for eg 12V if any of the rails show significantly higher/lower then that will be the issue, please list them here for us.

I would hold off on the purchase of new hardware until you know the EXACT cause of the problem.

Next thing I would like you to do is remove the piece of RAM that came in your system and leave the 2 Corsair sticks in (I suspect your old RAM will be of a lesser speed of your new RAM and not helping your issue)

*You say that you are trying XP most of the time - have you installed the SATA driver using F6 and the floppy when it asks* Vista will support SATA as will Windows 7 - I would not be confident that you meet the minimum requirement of either Vista or Windows 7 no matter what anyone says

This post has been edited by Dalo Harkin: 29 Jun 2009 - 05:33 AM

[Patrick]

i went through the bios and there is nothing there that tells me about how much power things are using. the only thing in the power tab is. WOL in s4 which is disabled. I removed the old memory sticks that came with the computer. I have reset the bios by pulling out the battery before but that did not help. I have been using the rc7 the most it seems like it lasts the longest before I have to reformat and reinstall

[BeeCeeBee]

More and more it is becoming likely that it is a mobo problem but I would wait again until Dalo takes a look at what you have posted.

By the way, the rails are on a psu show divisions of the total output of the psu so that any one area will be getting its power from just the rail "assigned"to it. You should be able to find that in your bios? We should be able to determine the bios from your model number.

In the meantime, you seem to have a number of OS choices available to you and I am wondering if there is a problem in there somewhere. Only one of them could have come with your machine. Which? And is it an OEM disck (for that manufacturer only) or a retail version?

[Patrick]

XP came with my computer, I had to burn my own discs for that one. I have vista from microsoft. it's the first version that came out without SP1. then I have RC7 from the microsoft website. I only ever have one installed. Since I have to format my harddrive to reinstall any OS.