Is it the Motherboard?

Hi, I was having a bit of trouble with my new Asrock motherboard, so I decided to do a format and reinstall the whole system. I now find halfway through, it freezes the mouse and the keyboard. then when I even try to boot up from the windows cd, it just goes past it. It come back to the part where it froze before. It will not allow me to install another system. I contacted Asrock and was told to reset the bios, which I did. That did not work. I changed the , Graphics card, the hard drives, and checked the Ram. But still no good. I would appreciate any advise please, before I decide it actually is the motherboard which is the culprit, and send it back. Thank you. Lucky Asrock 4CoreDuel-Sata2 R2 Motherboard Intel Pentium ® DCPU 3.00 GHZ 64 Bit Processor ATI Radium HD 4670 PCI Graphics card 2 Gig DDR2 667 RAM 500 GIG Sata HD 558 Hyper PSU

Assuming you have nothing to save on the hard drive try wiping it first.

This tool will do so:

http://www.killdisk.com/

Thanks Jephree. I will try that. Lucky

Hi Jephree, they are having the Motherboard back to take a look at it. So I will leave it until I hear from them. Thanks again for your help. All the best. Lucky

Hi Lucky, Thanks for the updates. Let us know how it goes.

Hi Jephree, got the MB back and they did not find anything wrong with it. I went on a site the othe day and I found out that ATI graphics cards were causing a big lot of trouble with some sort of virus in the card?. Dont understand that. This is what it said : If you ever experienced your computer freezing/crashing without warning all of a sudden, with a blue screen on your monitor saying your computer was “caught in an infinite loop”, plus there is a mention of the word - “ati2dvag”, it means your computer has caught the ati2dvag bug. This bug seems to affect ATI video cards. I was having this problem on and off since last year, but it got really bad a few days ago. If you have not yet experienced this problem, then keep your fingers crossed and consider yourself fortunate, because this is a REALLY annoying problem that does not have a sure solution or cure, and can give you enough fits to trash your old faithful PC. The usual symptoms of the ati2dvag problem are: PC crashes without warning, sometimes the display shows weird patterns before the crash. Resolution may revert to the lowest resolution settings upon restarting your PC. The CPU temperature may shoot up prior to crashing. PC may not be able to reboot back after the crash, unless you turn off the power supply unit of your PC and switch it back on again. Your PC tells you (sometimes only) that the ati2dvag driver has failed to function. This is a universal problem afflicting thousands of PCs worldwide and can occur in totally new or old computers; it doesn’t discriminate. Imagine the frustration of buying a new PC only to have it crash on you after a few weeks and thereafter. There have been many hypothesis’ postulated. Some say it is a very stealthy virus, some say it is an incompatibility with Windows XP SP2 and ATI, some say it is a problem with the hardware acceleration settings in the ATI graphic card, others say it is a problem within Windows XP itself…etc. So I have decided to try and buy another Graphics card but def not an ATI one. I will, [ like a lot of old Guys] be a bit strapped for cash, but I shall be looking for something not too expensive. If you have any suggestions, I appreciatte it. All the best and thanks again. Lucky

Hi Lucky,

That motherboard:

http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Mode…AL-SATA2%20R2.0

Has only these graphics options:

- 1 x PCI Express Graphics slot (@ x4 mode)
- 1 x AGP 8X slot

A "normal" PCI_E card is set to run @ x16 mode.

So from the get go you have an issue here due to the motherboard.

…..

May I ask the source of the ATI data? Link? On first glance it appears the opinion of a user who could never resolve their issue.

…..

All hardware should be "backwards compatible" but throttling down an x16 card to x4 could also be the cause of many "strange issues".

Also running a PCI_E 2.0 card on a PCI_E 1.0 motherboard, although it should work, is just adding to possible issues.

There could be absolutely nothing wrong with that ATI card but simply some incompatibility with the motherboard.

…..

System Requirements

–PCI Express® based PC is required with one X16 lane graphics slot available on the motherboard.

On further review the x16 slot appears to be a necessity for this card.

Hi, Thank you Tech Team for your brilliant input into my problem. So as I see it, I need to get another PCI Express based Motherboard, with a x16 lane Graphics slot in it. Do you think it is possible for me to get a socket 775 motherboard, with the same specs. I still would like to go to a different motherboard maker , than ati though. Look forward to your reply. All the best. Lucky

Newegg has two ASUS boards for under $100 that support socket 775 as well as PCI_E 2.0 x16

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx…N82E16813131347

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx…82E16813131347R

The latter is "open box" meaning you get only the board. No cables; manual; drivers CD.

However you can always get the drivers and manual online.

As to your ATI question are you talking about replacing the ATI graphics card?

If so the other chipmaker is Nvidia.

If you are reconsidering graphic cards it is also necessary to match compatibility with your PSU.

Many new cards have specific wiring configurations as well as wattage requirements.

Cheers for that info. I am just looking at the new MB at the moment and will not be changing my Graphics card yet. All the best for now. Lucky