endofoctober

Greetings!

Long story short, I inherited an old PC from my sister, and am trying to get it to run as a Linux box, but am running into deadends and mysterious errors (at least to me).

Specs
CPU : PIII 667EB
RAM : 2*256MB PC133 RAM (Memtest performed, all checks out)
MB : Abit VA6
HD : Maxtor 20GB (7200 speed)
Video : ATI Radeon (looks like a 6000 series)

Issue
BIOS/CMOS - I put in a new CMOS battery initially, booted it up, and received a "CPU has changed or has become unworkable - hit F1 to continue or DELETE to enter BIOS". Sure enough, the chip was reading as a PIII 233(66), so I changed it to 667(133) in the BIOS (making sure to verify CPU speed by pulling chip), and saved to BIOS.
After rebooting, the system performed POST, found all RAM, id'd the peripherals correctly, and then the screen went black. After a few seconds, it rebooted, repeating the above until the PC was shut off.

Things I've Tried/Other Weird Things That Might Be Helpful to Know
1) Thinking the BIOS had become corrupted somehow, I checked the BIOS for version, downloaded the flash utility and newest version, and updated. The update went well, and now (during the perpetual reboot), the new BIOS version is displayed -- no other change.

2) My brother-in-law had tried to make the machine dual-boot using BootMagic shortly before handing it over to me. Before blowing away the Win98 install, there was an additional error that "BTMagic.*** image not found - hit any key to continue". Unfortunately, he wiped the drive and re-partitioned with ext2, but I don't think he wiped the MBR to get rid of BootMagic.

3) MemTest ran for 14hrs - no errors detected.

4) The hard drive I'm using has 2 ext2 partitions - HD has been tested in another machine, and works without issue. No OS has been uninstalled on it.

5) All cards except the video have been removed from the machine (tested after each one was removed -- no discernable effect/change).

6) When the CPU is set to 333(100) and below, the machine will boot to "No OS Present" error. Anything above this either produces the "perpetual reboot", or "CPU has changed or has become unworkable..."

Any suggestions on what to try next would be greatly appreciated. I really want to keep this machine working -- I think it will be great as LAN storage and for development if I can just pry it out of the rut it's in.

Best wishes for 2005,
JKCole
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october31 [at] networkusa [dot] net

Valtelino

A couple of random thoughts.
Did you clear Cmos, & load setup defaults after bios flash?
Unlikely to be the prob, coz it was there before flash, but...

Check all the capacitors on the mobo for signs of swelling, bulging, leaking, etc. A popped capacitor will cause lockups or reboots.
I've had cpus with similar symptoms after an overclocked cpu was overheated. They'll run at lower settings, but won't handle their full Mhz anymore. Can you substitute a borrowed cpu just for testing?

go and buy a $2 Pci video card for testing. It's all about process of elimination.
Random reboots are power related. Why is power being interupted?
Either the psu is faulty, or the mobo, or one of the peripherals is causing power shorts or surges- it can be ram, cpu, or anything that uses power.
I've had it caused by CD, HDD, even a keyboard once.
But, the most common for me (in order) were PSU, mobo (usually popped caps) then ram, then CDRom drives !
Abits are renowned for popped caps.

endofoctober

Thanks for the reply! Yes, the CMOS was cleared with jumpers.

I'll see if I can find one - your suggestion did remind me that this chip/MoBo combination are a few years old, and run constantly. Could be that it's just not able to handle the load anymore.

I'll give this a try right away - the higher end video card was next on my list of suspects (since I gutted the thing taking out everything else!)

Thank you very much - this gives me something to work with! Yay!! I'll look at the Mobo closely, and see about securing a test CPU as you suggested.

Thanks again!
JKCole
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october31 [at] networkusa [dot] net