Is GPU heat the cause of my crashing problems

[kinkladze10]

Nope not yet but will do.

Already ordered new mobo which will be here tmw ready for a refit, but I need to find someone to do it.

[Webby]

It really is not very difficult to replace your motherboard, people here will happily talk you through it if you need the help. Definitely have a go your self first before paying someone to do it for you if you know someone who will do it for free then watch them do it and learn how

[sleepyhead]

Yep, just need patience, a logical mind and some care If you are concerned at how to put it together, take pictures as you disassemble and do the reverse to re-assemble.

[kinkladze10]

Just took all the ram out and it started beeping, still couldnt get a bios screen but it was beeping a lot, beep beeeep beep etc etc.

so a short beep, longer beep then a short beep

Tried it with 1 stick in in the far left slot, no beeps and no post just as it was before.

Not sure what this is telling me?

[kinkladze10]

*Update just got it working, I put the far right stick of Ram in and it posted and booted so it looks like my mobo lives !!!

I'm going to play around with the Bios and see what's going on now.

Thanks for the support so far guys

[sleepyhead]

Quite possibly one of your RAM sticks or DIMM slot is not operating correctly. Or It may just got dirty connectors (from dust)?

Depending on who makes the BIOS, you can decode the beeps as meaningful messages. This is now a case of trial and error (which I have recently been through).

[kinkladze10]

Well now Im getting an error on the bios that says CPU fan error and 3 quick beeps.

will keep on playing hopefully I can get rid of that and then try and add in 1 stick at a time?

[sleepyhead]

If it was me, I'd get annoyed first and then...rip it all apart.

But if you don't know the cause of the problem, the best way is to start with basics.

Now you say the BIOS says CPU fan error. I have had a problem in the past with my old motherboard whereby I slowed the fan speed (using a fan speed controller) too much and the PC auto-shutdown (as I had instructed it to) as it detected it as a fan failure. Check the fan connector to your motherboard (there is one connection, yellow wire I think it is that reports fan RPM) and also if you got the PC apart, physically see if the fan is spinning. If the fan isn't spinning on your CPU, fix that

Let us know how you get on.

[kinkladze10]

Well I'm almost there, was messing around in the bios and I saw the previous working profile, so I'm loading from that and all the errors went away, I'm straight into windows, no beeps just as I was before.

I've added 1 stick back at a time and all seems to be working fine.

Now its the last stick to add back in and this was the one that caused all the trouble in the first place.

I'm on XP 32 bit so I'm a little reluctant to do it as I only get another .25 GIG of memory so part of me says leave it but I will give it ago.

If this works then looks like I need to send back the new mobo I just bought lol

[kinkladze10]

Well last stick went in and it's works ok.

All settings are back to normal and so far so good.

Guys if I could by you all a drink or 10 I would do, thanks so much you really are the salt of the earth

[sleepyhead]

If you fixed your problems, fantastic. As I have learnt, this place is really great for general discussions, even better when you need a helping hand

Seeing as everything is working ok, best check to see if the RAM is fully working Try running memtest86+ and if you get errors, its time to try and find the problem. If you get no errors on 1 pass, you should be ok Can leave it running over night if you want to be really secure about it but remember, nothing is 100%

Don't be afraid of memtest86+ if you've not used it before. I only recently tried it and it's a self running OS/application. Just remember to have a P/S2 Keyboard plugged in as it doesn't recognise USB keyboards.

memtest86+ can be found here: http://www.memtest.org/

You can make a bootable CD from that site, just need to set your PC to boot from CD first then hard drive.

[TAKTAK]

you can return the mobo that you have ordered under DSR (distance selling regulations) the company may charge you the cost of shipping though...

i'm glad to hear that you have got things sorted

[kinkladze10]

Hi Yeah

It was that memtest that i was using, I think there was a problem with the Ram running at too high a speed.

I've turned my ram down from 1000 to 833, I haven't noticed any drops in performance but my games etc are now stable.

I still did get memory errors with that slower speed but until I start getting serious problems Im not going to worry about it too much,

[Zhaoman]

It sounds as if you've been through a nightmare, I'm glad everything is working ok now. Looks like the source of your problems is the RAM, new 4GB sticks cost just £55 so you could consider getting new sticks altogether, and they should be covered with a lifetime warrantee too.

[chqshaitan]

Also the speed difference in ram these days doesnt make that much of a difference in teh scheme of things(a few percent give or take). Its much more preferable to have a more stable system system than one that is not noticably faster but is unstable.