Fatal Hardware Error Windows 7....

[PowerPie5000]

My brothers PC has started playing up and he sent me a quick message with a quick description from his event viewer:

'A fatal hardware error has occurred.

Reported by component: Processor Core
Error Source: Machine Check Exception
Error Type: Bus/Interconnect Error
Processor ID: 0'

Does anyone have any idea what this means? He recently upgraded his PC and it's been randomly crashing in games with a garbled display!

His current PC spec is:

*Intel Core 2 Quad Q9505s CPU (Asrock reports this as compatible)... Upgraded from a Core 2 Duo E6550.
*Asrock 4core1333-viiv motherboard (Intel P965 chipset).
*4 x 2GB Kingston DDR2 800 RAM (running at 667Mhz)... Upgraded from 4 x 1GB Crucial DDR2 667.
*Club-3D AMD Radeon 6850 overclocked edition... Upgraded from Geforce 8800GTS.
*1TB Hitachi SATA HDD... Upgraded from 250GB Seagate drive.
*Generic PCI wireless card.
*550W XFX Core Edition PSU... Upgraded from a weak old Hiper PSU.
*Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

The crashes only happen when playing games... Could be after a few hours or every 10 minutes!

I noticed the boot screen and motherboard bios display the CPU as a 'Q9505' and not 'Q9505s' which is the 65W version. CPU-Z reports it correctly as a Q9505s. There has been no overclocking and the temps are relatively low with the GPU never going over 65C and the CPU cores never go over around 52C (when gaming).

This is all confusing and i will ask my brother if any other information is provided with the error. Does anyone here have any ideas? I cloned his old HDD and resized the partition on the new one using the 'disk upgrade' option in a utility called 'EaseUs'.

Cheers

[GoNz0]

look for a bios update, failing that reset the bios, failing that check the memory timings.

that codes common when overclocking!

[PowerPie5000]

look for a bios update, failing that reset the bios, failing that check the memory timings.

that codes common when overclocking!

Already tried clearing the CMOS and there haven't been any bios updates for that board in a while... The latest (and last) bios is installed and the CPU support list says it works with the Core 2 Quad Q9505s.

Only the Radeon 6850 is overclocked (by the manufacturer) and everything else is running at stock. Temps seem fine and all memory timings seem fine... I have no idea whats wrong with this thing

[PowerPie5000]

Just noticed something a bit odd...

Asrock list the Q9505S as compatible with the 4core1333-viiv motherboard, but not the normal Q9505... The last bios for that board is dated 03/07/2008 and the Q9505S wasn't released until 31/08/2009

[GoNz0]

may be it then, stick the old cpu in and see if it behaves.

[PowerPie5000]

may be it then, stick the old cpu in and see if it behaves.

It was definitely a compatibilitly issue with the motherboard... It worked fine with a couple of other 775 CPU's (E6550 and Q6600) and the Q9505S along with 8GB of Kingston DDR2 RAM worked fine in another PC using an 'MSI P43T-C51' motherboard.

Anyway we gave up with this one and have built a nice and reliable AMD rig instead. Some of the parts are now listed on ebay (and are practically new!).

[GoNz0]

why not sell on hexus, no fee's that way!

[PowerPie5000]

why not sell on hexus, no fee's that way!

Didn't think of that... I've not actually seen the classifieds section yet! Anyway it's too late now but i'll remember for next time