Computer has become problematic

My computer has been behaving really funny lately. The other day when I booted it up I noticed that my clock speed had changed down to 1800+. I went back in the bios and changed the settings back (thinking my 2-year-old daughter had somehow changed the settings.) Now the computer won't boot up. I hit the reset button and the settings are yet again different so then I thought it was my mainboard battery. Changed it, still nothing. I eventually got to my OS boot menu, but it wouldn't load anything. I'm really lost with this one. One of my problems is I don't have any new components to test on the mainboard.

Ok, thought it might be the PSU, so my new one came in today. I'm still having problems. One of the things I now notice is my bios doesn't seem right. When I change the clock multiplier and the FSB freq to the right settings and the computer flashes them into the memory, the settings don't change. If I'm able to get it stable enough to boot into Windows I notice I've lost all my sound, if the computer doesn't reboot on its own, or My mouse quits all of a sudden.

I'm starting to wonder if something has not gone wrong with the mainboard. As always, any help is greatly appreciated.

So you have a new PSU and replaced the mobo battery? You havent changed anything lately in the comp?

Try resetting the CMOS. If that doesn't help, consider reformatting and reloading the OS. If that doesn't work, then you need to remove all cards and drives except video, one stick of RAM and hard drive. Reformat and reload windows. If that doesn't work, you are down to video, RAM, mobo, or CPU. The only way to eliminate these is to try components in another computer.

yep time to strip it down to min.. even the HDD go into bios change settings reboot a couple of times to make sure that the settings will stand, add HDD. if it boots add one card at a time. reboot, etc.

Upon closer inspection I have noticed that a couple of the capacitors have some brown "goo" on top of them. My next option is to purchase a new MB I guess, but could someone tell me how this happened?

Cavermike said:

Upon closer inspection I have noticed that a couple of the capacitors have some brown "goo" on top of them. My next option is to purchase a new MB I guess, but could someone tell me how this happened?

Click to expand...

Your problem may be related to this article...

http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2003Feb/bch20030207018535.htm

Well I ordered a new motherboard to replace the one with the blown capacitors. I decided to bench test this since I am having so much trouble. Well, still having problems. I stripped everything down to mem and cpu and my setup turns off after about 10 seconds. The new mobo is an Epox 8RDA+ Pro. I then decided to swap the memory but still the same results. I then took out the processor (AMD Athlon XP 2400+) and it does not shut off. Does this mean I've fried the processor as well? Thanks again for helping a guy out.

Do you at least get an initial reading on the screen, or does it just run for about 10 seconds? If its just running, I'd suspect that the CPU is damaged. Otherwise, try reseating your HSF, as you might be getting too hot, and thermal protection could be taking over.

BTW, as this happened suddenly, I'm wondering if you have surge protection on your rig.

First, to the forums. Did you take your processor out when the computer was turned on?