HELP ME!!! MY PC IS FREEZING

[sreevirus]

hi all

i'm having some serious trouble with my PC

i got my Lite-On combo drive that i ordered from digit on the 6th. after surfing the net for some time, i turned off the pc and got to installing the drive. i fitted the drive as secondary slave, connected all the cables and the turned on the pc but it didnt boot. instead i got the beeep sound that is heard when the ram is badly conncted/not installed/bad. i thot the jerks on handling the cabinet mite have loosend the slot. so, i opened the cabinet again and double checked if the ram was loose i also checked for ANY faulty connections and found none. so i again turned on the pc but no luck again, after checking for ANY sort of faults for over 2 hrs, the pc seemed to boot normally(the single beep and all). it showed the lite-on drive at startup but stopped just afer that showing this msg:
IDE 80 cable is not connected
(or something like that)

i tried a few more times and then it seemed alright when i got into GRUB. i logged into windows xp (sp2 installed) and everything seemed smooth, Lite-On drive was detected and i put in the digit DVD...the drive was working like a charm....but after 5 minz, the pc froze(i cant find a more suitable word). yeah it just froze - no error messages, no BSOD, even the mouse pointer wasnt moving. i cold rebooted and this time things seemed worse. the pc froze on the GRUB screen with 7 seconds remaining. i cold rebooted again and this time, tried to log in win 98. but the pc froze at the windows 98 startup spash screen. i then tried logging in fedora core 2...this time the pc froze when i got into GNOME.i checked for all the fans(the proc and smps) and found that they were working even when the pc was frozen.

i thot maybe my hdd is faulty and so, i put in SLAX LIVE BOOT in the new dvd drive and booted...i was able to use SLAX for abt half an hr, when that froze too, when i was listening to mp3s. this assured me that it was a h/w fault. and after that, when i start the pc, sometimes, it just freezes AT THE START UP PROCESS. it sometimes shows : Intel pentium 4 2 GHz and thats it....sometimes, the screen just doesnt even turn on at startup. and all the time when the pc freezes, the tiny red light on the cabinet never glows(the light that shows if the pc is busy or not)

i called up a service guy and after checking he said that the smps was faulty and that was the reason. i somehow found that reply unsatisfactory.

now, i logged in win xp for a last time to post this, but, when i tried to connect to the net, i got a msg that Modem was not found. i checked in the device manager and then found that the Modem and TV capture card was missing. i tried to add them thru the device manager, but no luck....it seems like the pci slots r missing. and the hardware doesnt get detected in any OS. (FC2 warned me abt modem not being detected at startup). and its not the driver fault.

NOW, i wanna know why my pc is FREEZING like this. SOMEONE PLEASE HELP

ME WITH THIS!!!

my configuration:
Intel P4 2 Ghz
Intel 845 chipset mobo
256 mb sdram (single stick)
60 gb samsung hdd
samsung 52x cd rom
liteon 52x32x52 combo
conexant chipset 56 kbps modem
frontech tv capture card (actually rebadged lifeview prime 30 card)

OSes installed:
Win xp home sp2
win 98
fedora core 2

PLEASE HELP!!!

It could be true, if U have less then 300W SMPS then it might be faulty, I guess U did not installed the cable of DVD Drive as it should be installed, take a look at the cable, it has two sides, normally one side will be red in color, or will be red from one end, now the Molex Power connector which goes in the Drive will also have a last side cable red in color, so they sould be installed like

yellow- 2 - 3 -red molex - red side in DVD Drive - big cable - end

If this doesn't helps then try working with the DVD Drive removed

Check in BIOS the temprature, since U said it is not even going after that BIOS Start screen it sure shows that one of your HD is not being detected, I don't know how many HD & OD U got, but better if U use them as

On 1st channel, HD as Master & CD ROM as Slave
On 2nd channel DVD as Master, not slave

Basically U should remove the CD Drive now, as U got a combo drive

[sreevirus]

the smps isnt 300W...its above 450 W i think
and i have tried every setting possible....liteon as master, samsung as slave, vice versa, one drive at a time (on different ide pins), no drives at all....but the problem remains. just to be absolutely sure, i also swapped the ram in the slots....nothings helping, the damn problem remains, the pc still freezes...and it aint the drives fault either....temperature is normal in the bios.

what is drivin me nutz is that i was usin the pc normally bfor installin the drive...surfin the net and listenin to music....

but anyway...thnx for the response gx

[enoonmai]

Whoa, buddy, thats some serious trouble you're having. But you said that you got a IDE 80 cable error. Since you're getting the error even after trying all possible things, the only thing I can think of is that either the IDE port or the controller on the mobo has gone kaput. I may be wrong, but there's only one way to find out. btw, did you change the ide cables? Get some fresh ones from someone else's and check them out. If they don't work either, I'd have to say its the controller or the port, because seems to me like what you describe are classic symptoms of a problem with the comp's IDE channels.

[it_waaznt_me]

Hmm... Does removing the DVD Drive help ..?

[enoonmai]

Originally Posted by it_waaznt_me

Hmm... Does removing the DVD Drive help ..?

Originally Posted by sreevirus

and i have tried every setting possible....liteon as master, samsung as slave, vice versa, one drive at a time (on different ide pins), no drives at all....but the problem remains

Yes, the poor guy's tried everything. Must be the controller on the mobo, don't you think?