Keeps rebooting for no reason

[sraphim]

I have a homebuilt computer that is using a Soyo K7VEM+ Motherboard, Athlon 1700+ XP processor, and SuSE Linux 7.3 as it's only OS. However, a problem that when I put in a new card (Inland IEEE1394 (firewire)) it just would not boot at all.

Here's what happens: I plug in the card, turn on the machine. The BIOS does the POST, everything checks out normally, it detects the disks just like before, and it loads up the bootloader. The moment I hit the "linux" option, it won't boot the OS, instead, the whole machine just reboots.

When I take the card out, everything works perfectly fine, and it's back to normal. The card works, and I have tested it on another machine. I have used Memtest86 to throughly test the memory (256MB) of this system, and there were no problems. I have checked the motherboard meticulously: nothing odd looking or out of place. The processor is seated properly and the heatsink/fan are installed... I checked the hard disks (both are ReiserFS) and they have no errors on them. I even put in a temporary hard disk and installed Windows 2000 on it just to test the card, but it still has the same problem... OS boots, system reboots, so it's not a problem with the OS.

The power supply I'm using is generic (MaxPower?) and it dosen't have a wattage on it, so I'm guessing that it may have something to do with the power supply? Do these firewire cards take up a lotta power? Becuase to put in this card, I had to remove a second video card, which probably takes up more wattage, throwing the aforemtentioned theory out the window...

Someone please help. Thanks in advance!

[in silico]

this used to happen to me on my first computer and it ended up being bad ram.

[cbuddha42]

do you have latest drivers/BIOS for your motherboard?

oh and welcome to TechIMO

[Omardeth]

this is a Classic power supply issue . sounds like with the added firewire card it just doesn't have the gumption to power the system . i bet if you replace the power supply all will be good .

[cbuddha42]

firewire shouldn't burn that much without any devices pluged in...what kind of vid card was it?

[sraphim]

Originally posted by cbuddha42
firewire shouldn't burn that much without any devices pluged in...what kind of vid card was it?

ATI Radeon 7500

[Omardeth]

if the power supply is right at the limit adding just 1 fan can make this happin . if you have a power supply handy ( i build alot of pc's i always have an extra ) try it i bet it solves your problem . if the system ran fin in its current set up i don't think it is memory or any other issue other than the ps just doesn't cut the mustard .

[cbuddha42]

i dn guess it must be your power cause you haven't really changed anything and no conflicts by the cardd would cause reboot like that.....guess when the cpu goes to full load its just too much for you psu...dont think 7500 burns very much power

edit:hey just a thought make sure the card isnt shorting the pci buss or anything else out

[sraphim]

Okay, apparently, after a LOT of tinkering, I have found the problem, though it dosen't make a lotta sense.

It seems that the system NEEDS the graphics card (despite the fact that it was auxiliery, and I use the onboard graphics as the primary, and it is not activated until the system starts) to boot for some weird reason. After I plugged the graphics card back in and seated the FireWire card in the place of a sound card (I have 2) it worked fine.

Weird.... Thanks for all your help, people who posted!

[Omardeth]

i am lost here you have 2 video ? 1 onboard 1 pci ? and 2 sound cards ? so you took 1 sound card out and replaced it with firewire card ?