Cerebus06
Topic Starter
I've run into a problem that I've been attempting to resolve now for the last week. I decided that I needed to enable the front USB ports on my case (it's a home built system). I followed my motherboard manual's lead configuration and placed the leads as indicated. When I turned on the machine… I got nothing. It powered on… and the hard disks spun up… but it didn't POST and there was no hard disk activity (no reading of the disks… they just spun). Monitor was blank.
I removed the leads, and eventually had to clear the CMOS while removing the CMOS battery and removing the power cable for about 20 minutes. When I reconnected everything and turned it on, it POSTed and I went into the BIOS and changed everything back to where I had it.
Unfortunately, since this occured, my system has been running at far less than 50% of it's normal speed. Games are a slideshow, even standard windows programs and browsing software (such as FireFox) run much more slowly than they used to.
The really odd thing however is that there is absolutely no indication of a problem in the Device Manager, Event Logs, or anywhere else. The memory reads correctly (both in speeds and amount - 2g at 400mhz), the processor reads correctly at 2.2g (it's an Athlon 3200+), and the video shows correctly in the Device Manager. I've run multiple diagnostic programs… and only one showed something strange… the video card was reading at only having speeds comparable to a GeForce 4 (I have a Radeon 9800 Pro 256). I updated my video drivers to Catalyst 7.7… which didn't help… and even tried a completely different card… with exactly the same results as my 9800. I've tried reseating the memory chips, toyed with multiple settings in the BIOS for speeds and voltages, defragged and scandisked my hard drives… all with no results : system still running dog slow.
The last thing I attempted was to take two hard drives I had laying around and install them and install windows from scratch with just the required system, video, and sound drivers. However, I still get the same issue… system is running much slower than normal.
At this point I'm at a loss. I've never encountered anything like this before. I've checked all my interface PCI and video card(s) to ensure there's no blown or fried diodes or whatnot, as well as the motherboard and memory chips. Everything appears to be fine, and according to the system itself and the OS everything is working fine… but it's most certainly not. I'm convinced I've shorted something… most likely the motherboard. But the fact that I cannot find anything to indicate the problem is puzzling. I hesitate to purchase a replacement board until I know for sure what the issue is.
Anyone perhaps have an idea?
