A Complex Situation

[kfkgitdept]

Hello fellow It people, i bring to you a confusing situation we have at our company.

I work for a radio station in phoenix, we bought 4 computers from a company that refurbishes pcs. They are ALL IDENTICAL well they have a couple differences

The ONAIR, PRODUCTION ROOM, and STREAMING pcs are IDENTICAL the ONLY difference is that the ONAIR has a larger hard drive and THAT IS THE ONLY difference.

all of the pcs in question have the following specs

DELL OPTIPLEX 745 MINI TOWER
Processor x86 Family 6 Model 15 Stepping 2 GenuineIntel ~2126 Mhz
the machines all say Intel Core 2 Duo on them
4 GB RAM
160 GB HDD (SATA)
CD ROM
WIndows XP sp3 (Exact version is 5.1.2600 Service Pack 3 Build 2600)

All machines have the following BIOS version (BIOS Version/Date Dell Inc. 2.6.6, 6/26/2011)

we use XP on these machines because the sound hardware we run is professional sound cards that are run by PCI cards installed that run cables to breakout boxes to external devices, we use hardware by Echo Audio, Aardvark Sound, and M-Audio Sound.

Whenever we try to install the ECHO or ARDVARK into ANY of thesem achines the driver installs and as soon as it is accessed (a sound is played from it) we see the following thing happen to the machine, this happens on EVERY machine (makes sense since they are all identical)

the STRANGE thing is we have ANOTHER pc that we did not purchase from that company, it is an older dell as well, and when we install the echo, or aardvark on this machine it functions perfectly, for reference and comparison i have provided the specs from that machine as well, THERE IS SOMETHING that makes it work on this machine and not the other 3, the question i hope to answer is what that is , i welcome any conversation as our station is OFF AIR until we solve this mystery

the machine that all this hardware works on has the following specs

Dell Dimension B110
1 gb ram
WIndows XP sp3 (Exact version is 5.1.2600 Service Pack 3 Build 2600)
Intel Celeron D Processor
BIOS Version/Date Dell Computer Corporation A01, 1/3/2006
80gb hdd IDE
CD ROM


so that's all for now, maybe its a bios thing i don't know and if that's it that would be awesome if we can somehow put an older bios on i don't know, I DO know that these cards are not defective and work fine, so anyone at all out there that can see the issue please kindly comment here

We at the station thank you for your rapid response!

 

[Clarence]

one question? are you getting this blue screen on all three machines?

This behavior can occur if a hardware component malfunctions, or if there are damaged or incompatible drivers installed.

 

[root]

This is a bit of a weird one.

Have you checked to see if any hardware updates (e.g. BIOS) is available from Dell.

First ensure that you're running the latest firmwares inside the machine,
Then see if you can find a memory testing bit of software? Do a stress test of the Memory, I suspect that the memory may be faulty -but that would be weird in three machines, -so update bios's first.

 

[kfkgitdept]

so an update

we have not tested the memory but per another forum we DID pull the upper ram out (tried running it with two sticks only for a max of 2 gb)

got error on both pairs of ram as soon as the OS loads

As for the cards they are all in perfect working order, and to my knowledge the latest bios is on these machines

if you look on this forum on dell you will see some people believe that these cards will NEVER run on these computers

something do to with PCI voltages?

I didnt pick up on it and havent lost complete hope but if it comes down to going out and getting older slower computers or more modern cards well we have to go more modern, its a tragic shame that dell cant run these cards though

Very interesting and Complex situation - Desktop General Hardware Forum - Desktop - Dell Community

 

[kfkgitdept]

one question? are you getting this blue screen on all three machines?.

only tested them in two out of the three but with the same hardware config it is unlikely the result would be any different

the cards themselves work fine in the dimension tower with no issue, all three of them

 

[Clarence]

Hmmmm, according to root a firmware upgrade might do the trick but still test out several possibilities first. Try booting to safe mode on startup and uninstall the drivers, secondly try and run a memory testing software, evaluate the memory chips carefullyy ...

narrowing down my first guest would be the drivers is the problem, secondly it could be a firmware.... you play around a little, experiment, let us know the results.....

 

[kfkgitdept]

Hmmmm, according to root a firmware upgrade might do the trick but still test out several possibilities first. Try booting to safe mode on startup and uninstall the drivers, secondly try and run a memory testing software, evaluate the memory chips carefullyy ...

narrowing down my first guest would be the drivers is the problem, secondly it could be a firmware.... you play around a little, experiment, let us know the results.....

clarence

can you elaborate on a "root firmware" upgrade, also in safe mode the system functions fine, but of course the driver is not loaded, i am doing an eval on the memory shortly, but im guessing it will come back fine

Whats your thoughts, im about to pack up one card and ship it off to someone who can use it, as its no use to us here?

thanks for the input

 

[strollin]

I would test the memory thoroughly and would even try buying new memory for at least 1 of the computers to see if different memory works better. It may be that the brand of memory they put in those machines is not compatible with them.

 

[kfkgitdept]

I would test the memory thoroughly and would even try buying new memory for at least 1 of the computers to see if different memory works better. It may be that the brand of memory they put in those machines is not compatible with them.

memory tested thoroughly, new memory tried, maybe it was wishful thinking to think these computers could do this sort of thing

who knows