Replaced motherboard, now Helena freezes randomly

[reffu]

I replaced my motherboard from a biostar p4m890 -m7 te to an Asus p5n-d. Windows wouldn't boot because it was a new chipset so I booted into linux to backup my files before running a clean install. However after a short amount of time linux froze and would not respond. ctrl-alt-backspce and ctrl-alt-F1 do nothing. The numlock light oesn't change an d nothing happens even after half an hour. At first I thought it mught be a corrupt file on the windows hard drive. However It froze even if when I didn't mount the windows partition. The only funny thing is if I hit ctrl-alt-F1 before it freezes I still have a blinking cursor even though the computer will not respond. Other than reinstalling linux are there any options to try and stop this from happening?

Thanks,

Reffu

[richyrich]

Sounds like a hardware fault or over heating the cpu! Did you use NEW thermal paste for your cpu/heatsink? Boot to your BIOS (Del key), and check your cpu temps.

[rich_roast]

I don't know about any specific problems with switching mainboard, having only done this at the same time as replacing everything myself, but the symptoms described could be attributed to a hardware fault. Advise carefully checking all connectors, jumpers and switches, and if possible run diagnostic tests, especially memtest+, using a live CD along the lines of SystemRescuecd before progressing to checking BIOS configuration and software faults.

[reffu]

Actually after a couple days of looking at the problem I believe it is due to my windows partition which is partially corrupt. I have been recovering some of my files via testdisk and after a few minutes it freezes. Any Ideas why something on my windows partition causes it to freeze? Also I have tried from a live cd and it lasts longer without freezing up but still eventually freezes. I can't run chkdsk or fsck on the partition because it is extremely corrupted to the point it can't be mounted except by testdisk.

[rich_roast]

AFAIK chkdsk and fsck require that the drive being tested not be mounted (afaik they don't actually "mount" the media; however it sounds from your description that they're not able to read the media at all anyway which is considered, I believe, to be a "bad thing"), but either way a drive which is that badly corrupted might definitely be causing the hanging problem, especially if swap is in some way affected; since you'll be needing one anyway is it possible to install a new HDD, install Mint onto that along with a swap partition and recover the files from the corrupted media from there? My thinking is that the corruption on the old HDD won't affect the installation on a new one (as much, anyway), although I'm not 100% sure on this.