Lots of problems with <2 month old PC

[Thorsson]

Well, if you can get an hour with one stick of RAM it might be worth trying to underclock the video again, although it seems unlikely now that it is the video.

Does the mobo allow the DDR to be put into the other two slots? Might be worth a try, but it now sounds to me like it is the mobo (just possibly the CPU). This could either be a problem or some BIOS settings being set incorrectly.

What I would suggest is turning everything in the BIOS to do with CPU/DDR/FSB back to Auto, and then *underclock* the FSB and PCI-E, loosen the DRAM timings and, if this runs stable, bring the speed of first the PCI-E and then the FSB back up until it falls over. It's possible that the mobo either has a problem with the NB, or is running something out of spec.

If FSB is the problem then you can go with Auto and then lower the CPU multiplier, which, if it still falls over, will point more to the mobo than CPU. If PCI-E then the mobo is the culprit. If it runs OK, then the problem relates to Memory.

If it doesn't run OK at the slow settings then it's either mobo or CPU, and the only way to tell is to put the CPU into another board or another CPU into yours.

[colinbell]

@ DougMcDonald:

Thanks for the info, however I'm not reading too much into the particular BSOD message. I have had other ones too, whilst usually it just blacks out or gives no message at all.

Does the mobo allow the DDR to be put into the other two slots?

Tried that with both 2 sticks and 1 stick, but didn't help. Strangely however, it defineatly seems more stable with 1 stick (either one) instead of 2. I have no idea what to make of that however.

Cheers for the further suggestions, although tbh I wouldn't know where to begin. I've never tried under/overclocking unless its as simple as pressing a button! I've always been concerned that if I enter the wrong setting I could end up permently damaging something

I'll see what SCAN says.

Colin

[colinbell]

Well the mystery still hasn't been solved. But I have made progress...

(Sorry to those who are bored with this thread!)


I have managed to make the computer usable now by rolling back the driver to the one that came on the CD. I tried this step after an error when attempting to upgrade to the new driver release a couple of days ago.

However this was still only with 1GB of RAM. With only 1GB I have managed to play games for several hours, infact (fingers-crossed) I haven't had a single error with the older drivers and 1GB. However with 2GB I get crashes within a few minutes still, and even have trouble starting Windows afterwards (immediate reset when loading). Using RivaTuner I have monitored the temperature of the GPU constantly and found that it is on average 4&#186;C hotter when using 2gb of ram (60&#186;C as opposed to 56&#186;C with only 1GB), which I cannot explain. I have 2 case fans blowing air across the graphics card, and without after market modifications to the graphics card I cannot see how I can cool it anymore.

From research on the sapphire and ati forums there seems to be a lot of over-heating problems with the X1950 cards, which sapphire refuse to acknowledge as a problem. Suggestions?


Thanks again to anyone who takes the time to read and respond,

Colin

[Thorsson]

Are you running Vista 32-bit?

[colinbell]

Are you running Vista 32-bit?

Nope, normal XP Home