Megatouch Maxx Sapphire 2 restarts during gameplay

[jasonroz]

I have a megatouch maxx sapphire 2 with a Unicorn motherboard.  I got a new hard drive on ebay and getting the same issues I had with my old hard drive.  During gameplay, the system will either lock up or reboot and state "restarting system to perform maintenance".  Everywhere I research says it is a corrupted hard drive.  I ran a checksum on the drive and it gets errors.  Is there anywhere I can download the software to load on the hard drive myself without have to but another hard drive.

Thanks

[mahkeymike]

If your getting the same error with a new drive you bought off ebay then it probably is not the hard drive. You are going to have to one by one rule out a few components like ram, cpu, power supply, and motherboard.

I would first try applying new thermal grease on the cpu and try reseating the ram. Then look to see if you have any blown or bulging capacitors on the motherboard. Then maybe try another power supply.

To answer your question, you might be able to find some old sapphire 2 install discs on ebay. You have to make sure its a full install disc's and not a spring update. Also I have noticed that the software itself does not check the hard drives serial# but the install disc's do. Its possible to clone an image of an official hard drive on to a non official hard drive and i noticed some ebay sellers are doing exactly that. Make sure you have an official "MERIT" hard drive by checking in the bios the hard driver should be listed as "MERIT" If not, its not official and the install disc's will not accept it.

They changed this security after 2005.5 force but sapphire 2 was before 2005.5 force.

[jasonroz]

Thanks for the info.  I ran a checksum on the hard drive and it came up with 4 errors.  Then I ran a clear memory from hard drive and another checksum and got no errors.  Checked all the caps on the MB and they are all good. Also, tested the power supply and all is good with that.  Will do the thermal paste and reseat of RAM and go from there.  Thanks for the help.

[lilshawn]

I've seen a hot CPU cause all sorts of havoc. it can't hurt to throw new heatsink grease on the motherboard northbridge too.

[jasonroz]

Did the thermal grease on heat sink and northbridge and reseated the RAM. Still having the rebooting issue. The cpu is running at 38 degrees C. I even will run it with the back open and a big fan blowing in and it reboots. Sometimes it will just lockup when playing. Also have issue where I just let it run through the advertising screens and then the touchscreen stops working and have to manually restart the machine.  Odd thing is I can run a checksum on the hard drive and get no errors or sometimes will pop up a couple of errors. Might just try and buy another hard drive and try that.

[lilshawn]

you could have a drive that is starting to flake out....

but you could also have a ribbon cable that is starting to get sketchy too as well. it could be worth it to swap the data cable out first before diving into replacing the harddrive.

those ribbon cables often run right past the high voltage leads used in the monitor (stupid as all hell) it can cause the data to be corrupted as it goes down. maybe try relocating the cable too as well.

I'm one to just jump in and swap out a harddrive, as for most of these games I have install disks and all the hardware to reload the game software...so for me to do it is not a big deal at all.... For you on the other hand, it's not so easy. I'm just trying to eliminate all the possibilities before you jump ship and replace the drive at an extra expense.

[jasonroz]

Thanks for the ideas.  I did change out the IDE ribbon cable and relocated it.  Everything seems to point to the drive.  So a couple of questions if you don't mind answering:

1. Should I buy a new stick of PC100 RAM?  Would this be a cause of the lock ups/restarts?
2. Would my power supply be causing this?  I tested it with a power supply tester and everything was in the correct range.
3. Could it be the motherboard?  Is there a way to test the motherboard?

Thanks for the help.

[lilshawn]

Thanks for the ideas.  I did change out the IDE ribbon cable and relocated it.  Everything seems to point to the drive.  So a couple of questions if you don't mind answering:

1. Should I buy a new stick of PC100 RAM?  Would this be a cause of the lock ups/restarts?
2. Would my power supply be causing this?  I tested it with a power supply tester and everything was in the correct range.
3. Could it be the motherboard?  Is there a way to test the motherboard?

Thanks for the help.

1: it couldn't hurt. I've seen ram sticks go bad before, but still "work".
2: it's possible. i would be best to use a good digital volt meter and measure each of the rails while they are under load on AC. I say AC because this will show you how much ripple or noise is in the line. you are going to want under 30mv while under heavy load on an old power supply like this. (ideally you'd want a constant load like a resistive element but having the computer sitting on the BIOS screen is going to get you a decent reading) the DC voltage reading should be within 5% of the value. (for 5 volts it should be between 4.75 and 5.25) the lower the deviation, the better.
3: the old 586 motherboards are built like a brick dunny. there isn't much to go wrong on these even the CPU would have a hard time overheating. they are just not powerful enough to self destruct if something like a fan where to fail or a heat sink where to fall off. bad caps are always a possibility, but if they aren't visibly bulged out, they are probably fine.

[jasonroz]

Hard for me to believe that this is it, but it might be. I moved the ram to a different slot and now no problems. I have played for about 45 minutes with no issues. Before the longest I played was maybe 2 full games for about 10 minutes one time.

[mahkeymike]

Hard for me to believe that this is it, but it might be. I moved the ram to a different slot and now no problems. I have played for about 45 minutes with no issues. Before the longest I played was maybe 2 full games for about 10 minutes one time.

Its possible a resisitor/s going to that memory slot could have gone bad causing the ram to essentially "over clock" itself causing crashes/reboots. Hopefully the other memory slot holds up.