What the hell is wrong with my PC

[Holst]

Hi all.

My system has been horribly unstable for ages (about a month)

Crashes frequenty at stock speeds...

Spec is

DFI UT 754
Mobile 3200 clawhammer 1mb
3x256mb twinmos 3200 Bh5
Gigabyte X800XTPE
2x WD raptor on Sisata card raid 0
1 X WD 160gb sata on adaptec pci card
1 x Wd 80gb ata 133 drive on nvidia SB
DVD and CD writes on nvidia sb
Fortron 530watt PSU.
Watercooled CPU and GPU.

Crashes in GTA SA within seconds.
Failes prime95 fairly quickly (will last at most 30min to 1hr)

This is all running STOCK SPEED!!! , even memory timings!

I have tested ALLOT of things allready these include.

Swpeed PSU for fortron 400watt.
Swapped memory for another stick of Bh5.. tried single sticks of memory.
Removed sata drives and installed win2k onto a new ata100 drive.
unplugged IDE devices.
reinstalled windows, and tried old versions of all drivers.

This week I decided that the motherboard might be bad, so I swapped it, and the problem is identcal.

I have a newark 3700 on its way to replace the CPU... BUT I just tried running 4X200 CPU speed... and I still get the same fault, even at only 800mhz. This new CPU is a newark from Vandi423 that clocks like a biach!!!

Ive tried dropping HTT speeds in bios, as well as turning off fastwrites and things on the AGP. Flashed back to stock bios as well as all the others I have ever used.

I just gave my 9800pro away to the PC for Keeper, but I swapped AGP cards previously and prime95 was still unstable.. so if it is the new(ish) graphics card then its not just that..

This system did previously run 260X10 stable at tight memory timings. And was VERY VERY stable at 250x10 with 2 sticks of ram (my day to day gaming settings)
This didnt happen all of a sudden, its been a slow decline over the past months, the odd crash. I would clock back and it would fix it.. then another crash. I eventually tried everything at stock, and it still crashed. The last couple of weeks I cant play GTA-SA, although some other games are stable for much longer.. CS:S seems fairly unaffected (the odd crash but not instant like GTA-SA.)

I have tried aircooling CPU and GPU, waterblock mounts are good and temps are safe.

Im running out of ideas... can anybody think of anything I have not allready tried. Im hoping that the new CPU will fix it, but I have an awfull feeling that it wont!!

If the new CPU is no good then I might want to borrow an AGP card from somebody in the UK to test with... as I just cant afford to buy another X800 to test with.

Thanks guys.

Frustrated - Holst.

[Holst]

Just played some CS:S with 800mhz CPU ... only getting 30-50fps but still killed loads of people with shotgun!!!!

Till the fookin thing dropped me back to the desktop... good job im not a violent person or I would have to buy a new mouse, monitor keyboard and chair .. not to mention window and car roof (as the chair would dent the car roof as it hit it!!)

[seldomsean]

Holst,

Have you thought maybe it,s Spyware ?

Do you run any Antispyware proggies ? (Background/Realtime)

That is what im leaning twords as i know my pc gets unstable
when something gets installed (software) without my knowing it... ;)

-Sean

[Holst]

Reinstalled windows on a brand new HDD.. so that not it.
Im pretty sure its hardware not software.

[One_Hertz]

good job im not a violent person or I would have to buy a new mouse, monitor keyboard and chair .. not to mention window and car roof (as the chair would dent the car roof as it hit it!!)

I killed my old 9200 while playing cs. It was sitting right there on my desk and I through it against the wall. Many many pieces...

You are 30 min prime stable.... My comp is abpout 10min and I've never ever had problems. Shouldnt be that. Your mobo is probably screwed up and giving funky voltages to everything. Try checking all the voltage readings yourself.

[Ugly n Grey]

Basic trouble shooting applies here, pull everything off the system except one HD and the video card, disable everything else and start testing for stability. Use the latest official BIOS

Add or enable each component one at a time. Test at each step. Personally, I have a sinking feeling though you are having a motherboard issue from the way it went downhill slowly.

[Holst]

I have allready tried that gray.

Stripped her down to mobo, cpu, HDD one stick of ram (tried several known good sticks) and graphics card a week or so back.

Decided that it was probably motherboard, so I bought a new one that arrived today... and its exactly the same damned fault with the new one.

Problem is that its too random, prime is sort of stable at stock speed, but GTA vice city (that used to run no problems when overcloked) crashes pretty much instantly upon loading the level. it will also lock up on the desktop for no apparent reason, sometimes with very odd braphics errors (like explorer.exe is broken) other times a hard lockup..

[Holst]

I killed my old 9200 while playing cs. It was sitting right there on my desk and I through it against the wall. Many many pieces...

You are 30 min prime stable.... My comp is abpout 10min and I've never ever had problems. Shouldnt be that. Your mobo is probably screwed up and giving funky voltages to everything. Try checking all the voltage readings yourself.

I have checked all possible voltages (PSU and motherboard voltage regulation + graphics card core/memory) and they are all in spec and as far as I can tell stable.

At stock speed its stable in prime for a bit, but it used to be stable when overclocked as well..

Its not so much the instability in prime that worries, its the other random crashes and severe instability in games.

[Major]

You have a bad cap on the mb would be my guess. Look them all over real good and see if any have been broken, or have any signs of damage

[Vincentvega18]

But surely not on both mobo's?

[Major]

I didn't read that part about gettng a replacement mb ;)

[WxChaser]

Try swapping out your IDE cables, etc, it could be as simple as that.

[Ugly n Grey]

nothing left but the memory controller on the processor....

[brandinb]

i bet you need another bios or non winbond chip memory
get some value ram or something and test
try a different bios version

[Holst]

Tried some OCZ 4500 (or something like that) stuff thats going in the PC for keeper .. same instability issue with GTA SA.

Tried running windows from sata 160 drive on the adaptec pci card.. with all ide devices unplugged.. couldnt run gta-sa as it needs the CD, but it still wasnt stable... GTA-SA was unstable running windows from sata and with only the dvd drive plugged in. Have swapped ALL cables (sata floppy and ide) so im pretty sure its not a cable problem.

This is by far the oddest fault ive ever had.

Im just rerunning some prime on the new motherboard now.
large FTT just didnt seem to work right (I think its a bug) but 8K FTT seems to be running OK. But this is not unusual.

For a long time I thought it was the new graphics card.. when this instability first surfaced I thought it was my 9800pro on the way out (it was vmodded and clocked high all the time) so i bought the x800xtpe. But 3dmark and other 3d only benches run fine for as long as I want. Its just some games (cpu intensive) cause crashes.
The graphics card was bought from 2fast at XR and he tested it before shipping to be 100% ok...
I suppose I could try the X800XTPE in my dads PC with GTASA... hadnt thought iof doing that till today!!
A job for this afternoon :)

[Holst]

nothing left but the memory controller on the processor....

This is what im hoping, but memtest86 and other memory testers seem ok at stock.
I might retry memtest at 250mhz which used to be 100% stable just to see if its any good now.

Graphics card shouldnt affect running memtest at all should it (unless its some freaky power fluctuation thing)

Thanks for the help guys, you are helping me to think of more logical things to test, I had pretty much run out of ideas on things to do but I now have at least 2 more things to try out.

EDIT - Prime95 passed at 8KFTT, testing 10KFTT now (stock speed)

[WxChaser]

Have you inadvertently changed your chipset, Vcore or Vdimm voltages? Good luck on the trouble shooting.

[Holst]

Nope ... that was one of the first things I tried.

But running stock speeds it should all work at stock voltages easily (it used to OC pretty good at stock voltages (bar the memory, which needs a little kick)

If this was just an overclocking problem then I wouldnt be so annoyed, but as I cant even run stock speed its annoying the hell out of me as I cant even play games or use the PC reliably..

Prime95 has just passed 10K and 12K FTT ....

[IvanAndreevich]

Sounds like a new CPU may help since you have apparently tried replacing everything else of any importance

[Ref]

i would get a better psu (OCZ Powerstream 520)

[IYP]

yeah definatly get a better PSU because it may be droping voltages under load

[afireinside]

You 100% sure you get enough pressure on the core? When I first had a watercooled IHSless A64 it was fine for weeks then stopped working. Put IHS and stock cooling back on and I was fine.

[IvanAndreevich]

Dudes FORGET the PSU. He tried another one and it should be plenty for such system.

afireinside, I like your suggestion. It's very possible that their is some local overheating of the CPU core because of a :banana::banana::banana::banana:ty mount.

[-(CH)-]

Its either the CPU or the PSU, theres nothing else that could be broken:
Uve tried a new mobo, other Ram, other VGA card, other cable.. I mean for me i would guess it be the CPU. Because if it where to overheat, then the pc would shut down, or restart, in which in this case it doesnt...

I say CPU is gone...

[Holst]

Ive remounted the cooling 3 or 4 times.

And every time the mount has looked good and reported temps are good.

I have tried both fortron 530 and fortron 400 PSU, both of which are very high quality and reliable.. the exact same fault is present with both units..

Prims 95 passed low FPU tests when I was in the pub... but high FPU are still funny... it wont "fail" it will just stop loading the PSU at all and will not contunue past test1.
I have previously seen people (notably Jeff) state that this is a bug not hardware fault... but im still unsure..

Also the CPU passed memtest86 st stock speed for 4 complete runs (latest memtest version) .. which indicates to me that the ram and memory controller should be ok.

Very very strange problem for a CPU fault though... but the new one should arrive any day.

I still dont feel any closer to fixing the fault... ill test my X800 in my dads PC tomorrow night if I have time.. If that is stable then im totaly stumped.

[purefun65]

i have this board use the 10/15 bios and ONLY 2STICKS OF RAM.this board wont run right with a 3 slots filled. its a known issue with this board

[mad mikee]

in task mangler before starting OCCT. OCCT in this state is loading and unloading memory every 1-5 minutes and usually uncovers nasties faster than prime.

Not a game player but can you limp along on one stick at a time and at least eliminate them for sure. Just some shots in the dark? :D

[i found nemo]

i was running 800 mhz on my cpu cuz any higher would crash found out i hadn't shaved the dimples on my hsf holder (yellow thing) do ur self a favor, check it out. check the temps

[Holst]

i have this board use the 10/15 bios and ONLY 2STICKS OF RAM.this board wont run right with a 3 slots filled. its a known issue with this board

It was running absolutely fine with 3 sticks for ages at 250mhz.
have to run 2T but its still faster.

But ... I have allready tested a known working stick of OCZ4400 in different slots and the problem was the same.

[Holst]

i was running 800 mhz on my cpu cuz any higher would crash found out i hadn't shaved the dimples on my hsf holder (yellow thing) do ur self a favor, check it out. check the temps

The mount is good ... exactly the same way that I clocked to 2.65gig for 3dmark runs.
This isnt down to cooling or mount.. with my mounting system you cant get it "wrong" anyway as the heatsink cage is removed and there is nothing for the block to foul against.

[Holst]

Update..

I have received my new 90nm newark 3700.

Swapped the CPUs over and the fault is EXACTLY the bloody same!!!

now im totaly stumped..

It MUST be the graphics card as its the only thing ive not swapped/changed.

Ill have to route about for another AGP card, unfortunatley I think the newest one I have is an old GF3 .. so it might not be much of a test..

But at this stage I cant think of anything else.

Ill also put the x800xtpe in my dads PC and try and replicate the fault there.

Thanks guys.

[Holst]

Yep :)

The only graphics card I can find is an old GF3 .. cant find the cooler and a spider had made a web on the PCB..
If this thing works ill be amazed..

I think i have an old socket A heatsink I can mod to fit it... wish me luck :)

[Holst]

Im still getting some very odd things happening.

To be honest I think somebody put a curse on me and every electronic devide I touch breaks down..

Anybody know a reliable PC exorcist?

[drcrawn]

edit: I see you mentioned reinstalling windows, sorry. Well I'm out of ideas.

Hey man, when you have any corrupt data on your hardrive, everytime it gets written, it can potential become more and more corrupt leading to more frequent crashes and bluescreens. I bet if you do a clean install of windows again, the problem will dissapear.

[Holst]

I think it might be ok now..

But ive little idea why.

I reinstalled windows using only sp1 but it stil crashed in GTASA.

Then I updated all my drivers (graphics, chipset, sata) and it seems to be stable now.
Ran GTASA for 30 min at highest graphics settings and it didnt crash. Tried my best by causing a pileup on the motorway with like 20 cars!! but it was fine.

One point to note these newarks cant run 2T cmd rate .. the option isnt even there in the bios. So I cant run 3 sticks of ram, only two.
2T cmd and 3 sticks was fine with the clawhammer.

Ive not tried any real overclocking on the newark yet, im still working on getting 250fsb at tight timings stable .. this is proving harder than usual as im trying to use only 3v vdimm .. being a litte cautiious with voltage thus far.

CPU overclocking seems good though .. ran 2.75gig at only 1.35v. I didnt do any real stab tests (as my memory is still iffy at 250mhz) but for aircooled stock voltage thats not half bad.

[seldomsean]

Well im glad to see you have narrowed it down and Maybe
fixed it...

G/L
-Sean

[Gogar]

I reinstalled windows using only sp1 but it stil crashed in GTASA.
I've noticed that when i'm overclocking my video card GTA:SA crashes at some point while BF2 just keeps playing like normal. So i suspect GSA:SA is a little more sensitive to video card stability than other things. What happens if you downclock your card?

[Holst]

I've noticed that when i'm overclocking my video card GTA:SA crashes at some point while BF2 just keeps playing like normal. So i suspect GSA:SA is a little more sensitive to video card stability than other things. What happens if you downclock your card?

Tried taking 100mhz of the core and memory as well as dropping back to agp 4x and disabling fastwrites and stuff. Didnt help at all when the system was crashing..

Ive not tried clocking the card yet but once im back on the watercooling ill give it a try.

So far it "seems" fixed... but ive not done any long term stab tests yet.