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Thread: Self build system unstable

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    Self build system unstable

    Hello all,

    I bought the following parts (from Scan) in early October and built them as a new system a few days later:
    - Motherboard MSI H61M-P20
    - CPU Intel Pentium G2030
    - Memory 4GB Corsair DDR3 XMS3, PC3-10666
    - HDD 500GB Hitachi 0J11285 Travelstar Z5K500
    - DVD Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE

    I initially installed Ubuntu 13.04 64-bit and noticed regular but random application / system component crashes (all manner of packages with segmentation faults from udevd to compiz to terminal and sometimes a kernel panic during boot).
    I wasn't 100% confident in 64-bit builds so installed 12.04 LTS 32-bit instead. No improvement, similar issues.
    Even from the 12.04 LTS 32-bit live CD I get similar instability (with the HDD SATA cable disconnected)

    Around half of all reboots result in an eventual app crash, and when I see one problem it's normally followed by several others.

    The other half of reboots are completely stable, I can run CPU stress tests + google earth + firefox with HTML 5 fish graphics test + several instances of supertuxkart for hours and not a single crash.

    I've run memtest86+ for several hours (7 complete passes) without a single failure. I've tried debsums which returns good checksums for every package installed on the HDD.

    Basically the 'random crash' behaviour points to a hardware problem, but any tests I run fail to find any problem with the hardware.

    I'm running out of ideas so any suggestions would be much appreciated. If it was a motherboard fault how could I confirm this?

    Thanks,

    Jon.

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    Re: Self build system unstable

    Quote Originally Posted by RizlawOutlaw View Post
    easy way to check motherboard fault. look at powr caps near cpu socket, any of them bulging ?
    There are several electrolytics around the CPU. They all look fine.

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    Treasure Hunter extraordinaire herulach's Avatar
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    Re: Self build system unstable

    What psu are you using?

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    Re: Self build system unstable

    Quote Originally Posted by RizlawOutlaw View Post
    any dust on mobo ? little clumps ?
    Nope, clean as a whistle.

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    Re: Self build system unstable

    Quote Originally Posted by herulach View Post
    What psu are you using?
    Nothing special, just the 500W one that came with the (cheap) case:
    http://www.scan.co.uk/products/cit-i...12cm-black-psu

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    Re: Self build system unstable

    Quote Originally Posted by RizlawOutlaw View Post
    are all parts new ? bit hard to isolate without knowing full details
    Yes, everything used in the system is new and was bought at the same time. It was meant as a low budget upgrade for my dad, but has turned into a bit of a nightmare! :-/

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    Re: Self build system unstable

    Good old CiT - they make utterly **** PSUs and they are known to end up taking out parts. It happened to my mates build where the motherboard and HDD went wonky as a result.

    If you are on a tight budget,I would order this PSU:

    http://www.cclonline.com/product/982...t-OEM/PSU0486/

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    The late but legendary peterb - Onward and Upward peterb's Avatar
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    Re: Self build system unstable

    It is worth looking at the kernel messages that you get during start up. I'm not sure where Ubuntu puts those, often they are in /var/log/messages, (they are in Fedora) but you may need to search. The bot messages may also be saved. These can give you a useful indication about what is going on in the system.

    You have carried out memtest - that is a good test, but may not always bowl out problems.

    I had a very stable system until I doubled the RAM, where I get occasional kernel panics at start up. If the system starts properly, it is fine!

    So it may be worth swapping memory around, or trying it with reduced memory.

    Power supply is also a possibility - 500W should be sufficient, unless you are running high end graphics - but you as you don't mention GPU, I assume not.

    One other thing to look at is the SATA cable. The cable sockets can develop hairline cracks (it has happened to me twice) and they can cause intermittent connection problems, which could lead to the symptoms you describe.
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    Re: Self build system unstable

    Thanks for the suggestions, they've given me food for thought.

    I think what I'll try next is to install the mini-Linux distro that came with the MSI motherboard. I'm assuming this is guaranteed to work with the motherboard and if that shows signs of instability it would be a clear indicator of a hardware fault (though unlikely to bring me closer to identifying which component).

    At that point I'd be comfortable handing the problem to Scan for analysis given that the system only uses components purchased in a single order from them. If I've chosen incompatible components, my problem, otherwise the onus would be on Scan to resolve.

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    Banhammer in peace PeterB kalniel's Avatar
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    Re: Self build system unstable

    Quote Originally Posted by DerbyJon View Post
    At that point I'd be comfortable handing the problem to Scan for analysis given that the system only uses components purchased in a single order from them. If I've chosen incompatible components, my problem, otherwise the onus would be on Scan to resolve.
    Sadly not. Unless it's a 3XS system then they've supplied you parts as a system builder, so you're responsible for support of the system. Once you've identified the faulty part they will replace/refund it though. Alternatively you return every part as faulty, and suck up the charges for them testing non-faulty components until they find the faulty one.

    Intermittent problems are a pain. Software is usually my first suspect, followed by seating/cables, followed by RAM, hdd integrity, then PSU etc. While you're testing at full loads passes, try cross-loads/standby/resume as that has different demands on the system. Once you've identified a way of making it crash 100% of the time then you can start diagnosis more easily.

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    Re: Self build system unstable

    Quote Originally Posted by kalniel View Post
    Sadly not. Unless it's a 3XS system then they've supplied you parts as a system builder, so you're responsible for support of the system. Once you've identified the faulty part they will replace/refund it though. Alternatively you return every part as faulty, and suck up the charges for them testing non-faulty components until they find the faulty one.
    I have in the past, with major system issues that are hard to pin down, requested that Scan take all the parts back and ascertain which one is faulty. They have on at least one occasion agreed and done that, without charging for no fault found issues - on the basis that one of the components returned was faulty. I'm sure if they all had been working they would have charged me, but it was definitely broken in my case!

    Obviously though, that was at their discretion and by no means am I suggesting that it would definitely happen again. I certainly wouldn't agree that the onus is on Scan.

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    Banhammer in peace PeterB kalniel's Avatar
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    Re: Self build system unstable

    That's certainly worth a try then! And kudos to scan for doing that.

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    Re: Self build system unstable

    Quote Originally Posted by peterb View Post
    Power supply is also a possibility - 500W should be sufficient, unless you are running high end graphics - but you as you don't mention GPU, I assume not.
    CiT are EZCool levels of crap. They are horrendously bad PSUs. Like I said,my mate had a 500W one with an E5200 and an HD4670. It took out the hard drive and the motherboard.

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    Re: Self build system unstable

    Quote Originally Posted by DerbyJon View Post
    Nothing special, just the 500W one that came with the (cheap) case:
    http://www.scan.co.uk/products/cit-i...12cm-black-psu
    That would be my best bet for the cause of the problem; if ever there was a false economy, using a cheap PSU in a new build is it...

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    Re: Self build system unstable

    I've not had chance to make any progress this week, but I did enter the BIOS last Sunday and left it running in the hardware diagnostics screen (constantly updating values of temperature, board voltages, etc).

    That is still running 5 days later. That only provides limited additional knowledge, but thought I'd mention it.

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    Treasure Hunter extraordinaire herulach's Avatar
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    Re: Self build system unstable

    It really doesn't provide any additional data. You need it logging info in windows whilst you're using the system. Something like HWmonitor should do. My suspicion would be you're getting voltage droop on one of the rails under load

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