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Computer help, I think my girlfriend's mobo is dead.

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Last weekend my girlfriend's uncle upgraded all the parts in his computer(save for hard drive), and just had me move everything from his case, to my girlfriend's case. Pretty straight forward, and I've done it before.

So I do that without any trouble, then I take the computer into his office, go to install Windows, and it just hangs up on the blue "preparing setup files" screen(not sure of what it says exactly). No errors or anything, it just sits there. We left it there for a few minutes and come back, and the screen hasn't changed. Shut the computer off, try again, same thing.

After trying different hard drives, different Windows discs, and different disc drives, it just kept going further back from that screen, until finally it just displayed the MSI logo, with the TAB/DEL prompt. It would let me hit Tab, and go past that screen, to display the memory/processor/etc check, but hitting delete did nothing. I couldn't get into the BIOS at all. I finally got in, after going to the POST screen, hitting delete, and letting it sit there for a while.

I installed Windows XP Pro on one of the spare hard drives, using my computer, which works when inside my computer, but when it tries to go into Windows inside hers, it says:

"The file is possibly corrupt. The file header checksum does not match the computer checksum."


Specs for her computer:

MSI K9VGM-V
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3600+
1 GB(2 512 sticks) DDR2 800
GeForce 7900 GS

I'm assuming it's the motherboard that's the problem, but I could be wrong. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
deadbeef said:
Can you boot with a Linux LiveCD?

Maybe, but I don't really want to install Linux on her computer. She's not particularly great with computers, and I don't really want to take Windows away from her :lol
 

Oreoleo

Member
If you're having trouble accessing BIOS I can't see it being anything except the MOBO.

Maybe your CPU is overheating?
 

deadbeef

Member
Ajemsuhgao said:
Maybe, but I don't really want to install Linux on her computer. She's not particularly great with computers, and I don't really want to take Windows away from her :lol
No but if you can boot with Linux then the motherboard is working fine, and it is something wrong with the Windows installation.
 
deadbeef said:
No but if you can boot with Linux then the motherboard is working fine, and it is something wrong with the Windows installation.

Oh. Well, I don't really think it's something wrong with the Windows installation, seeing as how her drive works fine on my computer. I even tried moving it back into my computer after it gave me that message on hers, and it works perfectly fine...
 

rc213

Member
Ajemsuhgao said:
Maybe, but I don't really want to install Linux on her computer. She's not particularly great with computers, and I don't really want to take Windows away from her :lol

Since you have tried different HDD already try running Memtest to check the memory. You could also try replacing the IDE Cables to rule out a bad cable.
 

ianp622

Member
Ajemsuhgao said:
Maybe, but I don't really want to install Linux on her computer. She's not particularly great with computers, and I don't really want to take Windows away from her :lol

A live CD doesn't install anything, it just runs off of the CD. That means it will be slow, but you can't harm anything by running it.

Ubuntu has a live CD with a nice interface, but it won't work with an NTFS drive. So I use the Knoppix No-Install disc if there's anything wrong with my computer.

http://www.knoppix.net/get.php
 
rc213 said:
Since you have tried different HDD already try running Memtest to check the memory. You could also try replacing the IDE Cables to rule out a bad cable.

Replaced the IDE cables a few times, actually. Haven't tried Memtest, but it couldn't hurt.

ianp622 said:
A live CD doesn't install anything, it just runs off of the CD. That means it will be slow, but you can't harm anything by running it.

Ubuntu has a live CD with a nice interface, but it won't work with an NTFS drive. So I use the Knoppix No-Install disc if there's anything wrong with my computer.

http://www.knoppix.net/get.php

Read that right after I replied.

I'll give that a try tomorrow.
 

thefit

Member
Doesn't seem like its your mobo, go into the bios and select the default settings, on the hd take a look for any pin settings some mobos like no pins or "cs" rather than master and slave, disconnect any other drives that may be causing a conflict, remove any pci devices and if you have on board video use that rather that a graphics card. If its not a sata drive try to make sure each drive, the hd and the dvd/cd, are on their own connection and not sharing a data cable. that should get you going. Again it doesn't look like its your mobo. Start barebones and gradually add you components , its the best way to go about it.
 

trinest

Member
Ajemsuhgao said:
Last weekend my girlfriend's uncle upgraded all the parts in his computer(save for hard drive), and just had me move everything from his case, to my girlfriend's case. Pretty straight forward, and I've done it before.

So I do that without any trouble, then I take the computer into his office, go to install Windows, and it just hangs up on the blue "preparing setup files" screen(not sure of what it says exactly). No errors or anything, it just sits there. We left it there for a few minutes and come back, and the screen hasn't changed. Shut the computer off, try again, same thing.

After trying different hard drives, different Windows discs, and different disc drives, it just kept going further back from that screen, until finally it just displayed the MSI logo, with the TAB/DEL prompt. It would let me hit Tab, and go past that screen, to display the memory/processor/etc check, but hitting delete did nothing. I couldn't get into the BIOS at all. I finally got in, after going to the POST screen, hitting delete, and letting it sit there for a while.

I installed Windows XP Pro on one of the spare hard drives, using my computer, which works when inside my computer, but when it tries to go into Windows inside hers, it says:

"The file is possibly corrupt. The file header checksum does not match the computer checksum."


Specs for her computer:

MSI K9VGM-V
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3600+
1 GB(2 512 sticks) DDR2 800
GeForce 7900 GS

I'm assuming it's the motherboard that's the problem, but I could be wrong. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Your problem.

(and if anyone says win7/vista will not run on those specs- then you havn't seen my computer for the past 6 years. It ran fine.)
 
thefit said:
Doesn't seem like its your mobo, go into the bios and select the default settings, on the hd take a look for any pin settings some mobos like no pins or "cs" rather than master and slave, disconnect any other drives that may be causing a conflict, remove any pci devices and if you have on board video use that rather that a graphics card. If its not a sata drive try to make sure each drive, the hd and the dvd/cd, are on their own connection and not sharing a data cable. that should get you going. Again it doesn't look like its your mobo. Start barebones and gradually add you components , its the best way to go about it.

I forgot to mention it, but I tried that too. Right now it just has a single 40 gig IDE hard drive, and a DVD drive, each with their own cable. I believe I haev the jumpers on master, but I'll switch them over to CS or none.

Again, that's sort of what makes me think it's the mobo.

trinest said:
Your problem.

(and if anyone says win7/vista will not run on those specs- then you havn't seen my computer for the past 6 years. It ran fine.)

My problem is that it's running Windows XP?
Actually, it's not even running Windows XP. It doesn't even get to that point.

Yeah, no.
 
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