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Asrock K7VM2, Athlon 2400+ and a gig of pc2700...

Was getting bsod's when i plugged any usb device in. re-installind drivers
didn't help.

Then random but often hangs with completely black screen made the thing
unusable.

Tried reseating the graphics card (Albatron 4200p) to no avail...

Tried a repair install of xp, got the classic 34 minutes hang during device
installation. .inf that caused it to fall over was usbport.inf. removed that
and it carried on to inputting serial etc.

Then suddenly black screen with no hd activity...

Rebooted but no post. Removed graphics card and tried an old pci card...
still no post. Got fans, hd's fire up but nothing else.

I'm thinking it's terminal, cpu or mobo that's gone. No bulging caps, no
burn marks... all looks as it should 'cept it won't post.

Any thoughts anyone? Maybe a decent UK supplier of mobo, cpu, fan, ram and a
new HD to migrate too? As you can tell from the spec i've been out of the
loop for a while. Will have to do a lot of research to find out what a
reasonable budget system actually is nowadays...

Anyway.... glad to see your all still here )

AJ

Amelia Jane wrote:
> Asrock K7VM2, Athlon 2400+ and a gig of pc2700...
>
> Was getting bsod's when i plugged any usb device in. re-installind drivers
> didn't help.
>
> Then random but often hangs with completely black screen made the thing
> unusable.
>
> Tried reseating the graphics card (Albatron 4200p) to no avail...
>
> Tried a repair install of xp, got the classic 34 minutes hang during device
> installation. .inf that caused it to fall over was usbport.inf. removed that
> and it carried on to inputting serial etc.
>
> Then suddenly black screen with no hd activity...
>
> Rebooted but no post. Removed graphics card and tried an old pci card...
> still no post. Got fans, hd's fire up but nothing else.
>
> I'm thinking it's terminal, cpu or mobo that's gone. No bulging caps, no
> burn marks... all looks as it should 'cept it won't post.
>
> Any thoughts anyone? Maybe a decent UK supplier of mobo, cpu, fan, ram and a
> new HD to migrate too? As you can tell from the spec i've been out of the
> loop for a while. Will have to do a lot of research to find out what a
> reasonable budget system actually is nowadays...
>
> Anyway.... glad to see your all still here )
>
> AJ
>

When you get the black screen, is the power supply shutting off ?
I might reach for a multimeter, and check the rails while it is
running. Your motherboard puts a significant load on +5V, as
the processor runs from +5V on that board. There is no ATX12V 2x2
connector, so it is impractical to run the board from +12V. You
can access +5V on the end of a Molex disk drive connector, to make
a measurement. Or, the back of the 20 pin connector is also accessible,
if you're careful. For a power supply, I'd want a rating of at least
5V @ 20A on the label of the power supply.

Paul