[Techtalk] Build it! redux, and AMD woes

[Adriana Gonzalez]

Akkana wrote:


> 
> Now, I could run out and invest in an aftermarket fan, but I'm starting
> to think the problem isn't heat after all.  But how to tell what it is?
> Other possibilities that occur to me are
> - memory (DDR): though I have no particular reason to think it's bad
> - disk: the main disk (a WD) took forever to format and gets hot as
>   heck when formatting or compiling.
> - motherboard (Soyo SY-K7ADA, ALi Magik1 1647/1535D+ chipset):
>   - IDE: on bootup, it takes an unreasonably long time to find all the
>     IDE disks (could that be a problem with the WD?), sometimes doesn't
>     find them all, and doesn't see my floppy (an ancient thing that's
>     been collecting dust, maybe it really is broken) 
>   - BIOS: more recent BIOS revs had something to do with "recognizing"
>     the Palomino/XP chips, though my older BIOS does correctly report
>     it as a 1400GHz Athlon.  Upgrading the BIOS requires borrowing a
>     DOS machine but I can do that if it might help.


Take a look at http://www.bitwizard.nl/sig11/


It describes many possible causes for your problem and some possible tests to run.  


Good Luck,

--
Adriana