Which component is faulty?

Pawnless Endgame

Pawnless Endgame

Pawnless Endgame

Soldato
Joined
10 May 2004
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Sunny Stafford
It would be much appreciative if I am contacted by a member of staff for this problem. My order number is 1563720.

The components in question are:

- Pentium 4 945
- Shuttle XPC SD31P
- 2 x 1GB GeIL PC5300

1) The kit was assembled and I quickly learnt that the PC couldn't complete the POST checks. I spoke to OcUK support and was told that it was the motherboard.

2) The Shuttle XPC was RMA'd back to Entagroup, OcUK's sister company.

3) The Shuttle -passed- the test. CPU was found to be faulty.

4) The CPU was RMA'd back to OcUK.

5) CPU -passed- tests. I was debited £23 testing fee in accordance to terms and conditions.

6) Could it be the RAM? I can't possibly be the RAM. I have 2 sticks of 1GB. The chances of having 2 sticks that are both faulty is very slim?

I really don't know what to do other than to just throw everything out of my bedroom window or to pay £££ to have the kit checked at a local shop!

Any suggestions please?

That thing that bugs me is that Entagroup and OcUK have given me conflicting information.
 
I'm still after some help please!

I spoke to a couple of people today about the ongoing problems - my tech support manager and the manager who runs our supplier:

We concluded that if the POST checks sees the CPU but struggles at finding the memory let alone the IDE/S-SATA drives, then it could well be the wrong type of memory or a fault. It was also said that if I did buy the wrong type of CPU, then there will be no output to the screen. As there was output, the CPU is right.

Can someone please confirm that GeIL DDR2 memory works with this Shuttle please?

Luckily, I work for a computer firm, so I might be able to get hold of some Kingston memory to further the testing.

P.S. I did check with the forums that my OcUK order was correct, and OcUK support confirmed that all of the parts are compatible.
 
You need to strip it down to the bair bones, i mean only use what is necassary. Run memcheck to see if it throws out any errors, does it crash out of windows? does it crash in safe mode? or it will not post at all?

Any error messages on screen? do you get power?

Try going into the bios and loading the fail safe settings. Either way i would strip it right down.
 
Yes, I have stripped it to the bare.

I did get hold of some Kingston memory, DD2, PC5300, still the same problem :-(

OcUK said that the CPU was OK
Entagroup said that the Shuttle was OK

What the hell do I try next?!

Yes, I've cleared the CMOS, had the CMOS updated by Entagroup and I've loaded the fail-safe defaults.

I'm now awaiting a response from a web-note that I sent from the OcUK site last night.
 
The PC halts on the POST checks. You can press TAB to dismiss the Pentium 4 logo and you'll see that the processor registers OK as 3400 MHz @ 2 x 17, and the memory registers as 2 GB minus 8 M shared VGA. Pressing DEL will only sometimes enter the BIOS. In the BIOS, I can see that the CPU temp is normally 42 degrees.

I haven't been able to get the computer past the POST checks with or without the drives, so I can't run a Memtest. Again, I've tried Kingston and GeIL memory to the same effect.
 
What PSU have you got running with it and do you know if they tested the barebones with the same one?
 
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Jimbo - Yes, I have tried with the drives disconnected.

Xija06 - I am using the stock 350W PSU that came with the Shuttle. The Shuttle barebones was tested on the whole and all passed with their own CPU. It failed with my CPU.
 
Clearly there is some confliction going on with all your hardware that cannot be replicated. Can you RMA the lot off, then they would be able to see there is a problem.

I've had this kind of thing happen before where the problem can only be replicated by using the exact group of hardware or a combination of parts - any hardware change will result in a sucessful POST.

Just a couple of things... try a different keyboard - i've seen where a faulty keyboard or A20 failure can halt the POST proceedure, clearly it's not a A20 faulure in your case as the board passed the testing. Failing that if you have a USB keyboard, unplug it and all other USB devices as that can also cause problems.
 
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Hi Xija06!

I have tried two PS/2 keyboards and a USB one and got the same result on all. Concerning the motherboard, I can toggle the LED's for caps/num lock.

I think that your suggestion on the hardware group is the best bet. Will OcUK allow me to RMA a hardware group like this? I give them a phone call, state that I would like to RMA the chasis, CPU and RAM, arrange a Citylink courier to them for inspection in the labs?

I haven't personally tried a different CPU yet (only Entagroup has), so I'm going to get a local technician to have a look at the hardware group first and try it with e.g. a P4 3000 MHz.

Thanks.
 
Yeah it's likely (by the process of elimination) that the motherboard isn't working very nicely with the current processor.

Just another question - do you have any sort of AC filtering system like power surge protectors or UPS's?
 
Hiya Xija06 again :-)

I don't have a UPS, but I was using the equipment on a surge-protected 6 way.

Before I left work today, my colleague had a breakthrough. He viewed the Phoenix AwardBIOS page and established that the BIOS version is 17 months old!! This were the days when LGA775 CPU's were new. It may well explain why it doesn't take a dual-core 3.4. I'm hoping that someone local will be able to source an old LGA775 to get it to POST, flash it to the current BIOS and then * fingers crossed *
 
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