Possible power supply problem

I'm currently building a new system and I ran into a small problem. Purchased a new hard drive, motherboard, cdrw, and CPU. The tower is an older tower with the original power suppy.

The problem is that after I Fdisk then format and go to setup Win 98 it freezes up then says fatal error with a bunch of gibberish. Now when I hook up the hard drive to my own system and run set up, everything sets up fine and I can run the OS,

Now I go back hook the newly set up hard drive to the new system, when the Win 98 screen is loading I get error messages such as HIDEM.sys is missing please restart sytem. And of course no luck.

I'm starting to think it is possibly the power supply because it is pretty old and dusty and I have heard sometimes when a power supply is failing the OS will produce error messages.

Has anybody heard of anything like this? I know I should try replacing it but I do not have an extra right know and I just wanted to see if this could possibly be the case.

I don't it because of power supply. My power supply blown before and I can't even start my pc. So if u on the switch and u can see the light or watever to ur pc, then ur power supply is ok. But I'm not sure bout ur pro, but may be sth else u done it wrong. So better check ur connection, ur wire everything inside ur box, and bios and try to start a windows.

Oh yess.. sorry if I'm wrong. (correct me plz)

Did you run setup from (start setup from cd rom)-make cd rom your first boot device?, or did you run it from a slave drive in your system?Just make sure you run it from cd rom(change your first boot device to cd rom, ide0-second boot device.

hope this helps
regards
v/man:)

The PSU can cause problems.. not just go, no-go symptoms.... Filtering problems or "noise" generated in the switching circuits can interfer with the operation of your computer. this can be random and can be regular (trigered on similar events)..

The problem here though while it could be the PSU, could also be a RAM fault.. ie the good old two sticks of RAM of different speed/brand/mood.. I noticed that most everything else is new but the RAM was not mentioned..... may need to check this out..


Cheers

Yep check your ram out. Other possibility: HEAT . Make sure proper ventilation is used. Modern CPU's do need good cooling! The same goes for VGA cards and Northbridge on motherboard.

You should start with checking the cheapest component and going further. Therefor start with checking all cable connections, cables itself, make sure all cards are properly plugged in their slots, all jumpers or settings are correct. Next check your cooling? Is it working? Than Disks, Mobo, CPU, ...

It can be your PSU if it does not produce the right power output voltages needed your box will become very unstable. However quality PSU's switch off when they cannot deliver the right voltages to ensure proper operation conditions.

If you have two computers which is what it sounds like, I would possibly think of taking all this new equipment and put it in your own system or just use your own systems power supply on the new stuff. If you get the same error then it would be your power supply or a bad ground on the motherboard.

Another thing to try is to make sure the processor is fully seated on the motherboard.

I suggest you continue this process with each piece of hardware (ie. Motherboard, Ram as others have said, Check your slave master settings like others have said)

I don't think its a heat problem if this is happening in the first minute it takes to boot this thing.

Hope this helps

specifics are always good... tell us the power supply wattage and manufacturer, what kind of motherboard you have, cpu, the ram and its age, etc.. That would help everyone help you out. For instance if you have an old Sparkle 200W power supply hooking that up to a new Athlon XP 1900.... obviously the old sparkle 200W isnt enough sparkle to tickle that Athlon. :D

We were having a whole bunch of problems like this yesterday with a PC we were setting up. It would keep freezing, then not find anything blah blah blah. It turned to be the controller on the mother board itself. That's just another idea, check your ram though like what has been mentioned already.

-gunder

one if the problems you might be having is your accedently over clocking your new processer
wich in some operating systems like XP, and some hardware causes problems in reading the hard drive.

Go over your manual and make sure this isnt the case, and if all else fails, under clock it and see what happens.

The ram might be the problem because it is the original ram and now I have swapped the power supply with a new and still no luck. The ram sticks are a 64mb PC100 and a 32mb PC100. I am at work now and I'm going to grab a new PNY 128 PC 133 and throw it in. Don't think it is the controller because it reads all the devices fine.

It loads to the WIN 98 screen then after that I get the error messages telling me to restart. Sometimes it says HIMEM.SYS missing or something like NKLTER missing. I hope it is just the RAM. I don't think it has anything to do with the CPU.

Specs:

Duron 1.3
Pine KLE133 MB
Seagate 20.0 HD
Norcent CDRW
300 watt power supply

Good advice already, hope more information will help you guys. Thanks..

The first thing I would look at is check to see if your CD is clean and not scratched. Run a cd cleaning disk in the drive. Some cd roms are very sensitive to surface defects on the disk, so you might even try swapping cd drives in your pc's. If the cd appears dirty, use a cd disk cleaner or try pouring a little alcohol on the disk and gently rub the surface with a small bit of CLEAN soft cotton cloth, such as a well worn undershirt etc. DO NOT use kleenex or similar products as this can scratch the disk surface wven worse. Rub the disk in a motion from center to outside edge, not in a circular motion around the disk. rince under cool water of a faucet and pat dry.
IF the cd is scratched badly, sometimes you can polish out those areas with toothpaste, but be careful to not over do it. Then rinse and dry as stated above.

If you have bad ram it should show up in the ram test at boot up,and most modern systems will lock up at this point if bad ram is detected. Also you can always remove your ram strips one at a time and see if the problem goes away, as its unlkely all your ram strips went bad at the same time.

Lastly your message said you had pc100 ram and were going to pc133. the pc133 should run at the slower clock speed ok but do not mix pc133 with pc100. That will cause problems also.

I had a very similar problem last time I built a box. I bought a new motherboard, cpu, ram, video card and upgraded. I was running Win2K at the time, It would startup to the point where it allowed you to hit F8, soon after that the screen would go blank. Make a long story short, my power supply didnt have enough juice and I had to get a new one.250watt, to a 350 watt. Hope this may have helped

With your current configuration you must not have problems.The supply is enough powerfull. Check yor CPU FAN !!! Duron 1.3 processors need very powerfull FAN-s to work properly. And something else ... check in your BIOS if VirusProtection is on or off. It must be OFF durring the installation of Win 98, then tou can set it ON if you want. Cause i suppose that the problem is the FAN if you use your old FAN it can be weak for that processor. If you have new one it's possible that you need MORE powerfull. Without seeing your machine i cannot say precisely, but that's what I can tell to you :) I hope that I hellped. Greetings from Bulgaria :)