02 Mar 2003, 13:47, Wayne Chirnside (1:275/311), wrote to Matt Mc_carthy:

Hi Wayne.

 MM>> The most common cause for lockups on a new install is incorrect 
 MM>> CMOS settings and bad RAM.

 WC> More bad RAM, what kind of crud am I running into?
 WC> Symptoms are really bizarre, missing and corrupt files,
 WC> registry disappeared once, modem - sound card wasn't
 WC> operating, modem - sound came back, hard drive light stays on
 WC> sometimes but no activity, three finger salute fails
 WC> and only a hard shutdown will get it unlocked with
 WC> the requisite scandisk :-(

Check all the fans, particularly the CPU fan, be sure they at least seem to
be running 'up to speed'.  Check the fins of the CPU heatsink for crud
buildup.  This looks a LOT like something overheating and shutting down. 
Maybe set a small table fan to blow onto the MB just for a comparison test.

 WC> I'll look at the CMOS again but it locked twice operating
 WC> in DOS from the rescue disk, once while typing and once on 
 WC> saving.

If possible, set everything to 'default' or slower as it related to RAM,
just to see if there is any difference.

 WC> I'll try reseating the RAM and running just one or the other of
 WC> the sticks. 

That would be the next step.  Also, when using only one stick, try it in
different slots to see what happens differently.  Some boards were made
with the RAM slot numbers _NOT_ matching the description in the manual, as
a result, they 'said' use Slot 1 first, and should have said use Slot 4
first.  Never can tell...

 WC> CMOS is pretty standard stuff and nothing weird except it's
 WC> shown a couple of bad settings on my looking at it on
 WC> two occassions! One time CMOS showed no hard drive and another
 WC> time it had the CD-ROM controller disabled.
 WC> These errors are all over the place.

Ouch!  That is _really strange!  I wonder if the CMOS itself is beginning
to go south?  Losing those settings in the middle of a program's operation
would surely result in lockups.  Any chance the BIOS chip is socketed?  It
_might_ have a corossion problem like the battery holder did, and need a
re-seating or two.   ????


     Good luck...  M.

--- Msged/386 TE 06 (pre)