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Alright so lets keep this short. Im re-building the other piece of trash in my house and hopefully it'll stop being slow when trying to play SNES games on it The formatting will be made as to follow a diagnosis or something. Its easier for me to follow.


Notes
When reading from Story, the text comes first, then the picture(s).
End of notes

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Configuration
Motherboard - MSI MS-6340 Ver. 1 aka MSI K7TM Pro | View Manual | View Manual Mirror
CPU - AMD Duron 800
RAM - 192MB SDRAM PC-100 or PC-133
Sound Card - Creative Sound Blaster
Graphics Card - Integrated with motherboard. VIA ProSalvage something like that
PSU - 250W
Hard Drive - 15GB Western Digital
Cooling - Heatsink with large fan on top. Cleaned and silver thermal compound applied.

Problem
Graphical corruption on desktop and .jpg files. Also programs using DirectX have problems displaying (There are no pictures of this).

Story
Picture of what we're working with.


We get to the bios and find everything normal. It's even at the latest bios version 4.7.


I installed Windows XP earlier and it boots up fine. Really quick too.


We get to the desktop. All the drivers are installed so there are not any unknown devices. The background is set to None by default, I did that on this installation of Windows XP. Personally I know pre setting the background to none is fine and nothing bad happens. I've installed this version of XP on my current computer and on my friends computers and there has never been a problem.


If you look both in the picture below and above, you'll notice around the desktop icons and text there are pixels of blue. This is something not normal and I've tried many ways to fix it but I think it's a problem with one of the computer components. It's important to note here that Ive installed XP on this machine with and without a graphics card and with a different hard drive. In total I've reinstalled Windows XP 6 or 7 times. Once for each change in component and a few extra times with a different XP install CD to make sure the disc was not the problem.

Okay if we look at the preview of the wallpaper, its garbled (to me it actually looks like it can't represent the compressed data correctly). Lemmie also say this only happens when your previewing jpg files. When you preview a BMP file, it comes up normal.


Lets apply the background. Okay everything looks kind of normal. Even if we apply the new background and click on another jpg file, it will come up garbled like before. Also check out the desktop icons, they still have the extra blue pixels around them.


A closer look at the messed up icons. This time it isn't as severe as other times.


If we check the registry and go to the icons we see they are being drawn in full 32-bit so they should look completely smoooooth. However, we've just seen otherwise.


Tests (Ultimate Boot CD; I am very cheap)
Memtest86+ - Ran it for almost 30 minutes. No problems here.
Mersenne Prime Test - This totally failed lol.

End Result
I've given up on this set-up and will now rebuild the computer with different a different mobo and cpu. I think in this configuration, the mobo or cpu has some problems. Possibly it was overheated in the past and there is evidence of this corruption in programs using DirectX. I know though that I used a heatsink and fan with thermal compound so it couldn't have been overheating while I was using it. It's silly to not provide statistics, but I'm confident it was in a good temperature range otherwise if it was overheating it would be really obvious on screen.

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Configuration
Motherboard - ASUS MEB-VM | View Manual | View Manual Mirror
CPU - Intel Celeron 700
RAM - 192MB SDRAM PC-100 or PC-133
Sound Card - Integrated with motherboard
Graphics Card - Integrated with motherboard. ATi 3D Rage Pro
PSU - 250W
Hard Drive - 15GB Western Digital
Cooling - Heatsink with small fan on top. No thermal compound, this is testing

Problem
CPU is not supported by the motherboard.

Story
This is the last configuration!


Okay, lets try this new motherboard with the Intel Celeron 700. But first we reset the CMOS. This board doesn't have reset pins so let's just pull out the battery and put it back.


Hmm, doesn't want to even start POST.


Lets shift this jumper to another position. This motherboard is old and you can change the clock by changing the jumpers. Bad part is, the motherboard doesn't come with all the pins. Lets hope this make its greater than 700MHz.


Nope, no good. Well this one is done!
End Result
Let's try a different CPU!

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Configuration
Motherboard - ASUS MEB-VM | View Manual | View Manual Mirror
CPU - Intel Celeron 466
RAM - 192MB SDRAM PC-100 or PC-133
Sound Card - Integrated with motherboard
Graphics Card - Integrated with motherboard. ATi 3D Rage Pro
PSU - 250W
Hard Drive - 15GB Western Digital
Cooling - Heatsink with small fan on top. No thermal compound, this is testing

Problem
None so far!

Story
This is the CPU we're trying next!


End Result

I did Memtest and Mersenne Prime Test. I don't think I should be doing Linpack testing on a CPU from like 1999. I dont really care though because I think I'll just push this in a corner I can't see and pull out this Intel board I have in my closet. Im just really looking for something around the house that will work

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v317/blueblaster64/Old%20Computer%20Rebuilding/DSCF0029.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v317/blueblaster64/Old%20Computer%20Rebuilding/DSCF0030.jpg

I reset the BIOS/CMOS/Pulled out battery/shorted reset jumpers in order to get the computer to boot when I first put it together

when my computer breaks i buy a whole new one

That's wasteful and pointless. Send them to me.