Random Resets and Green Screens

[JohnClark]

Hi all, my first time posting so forgive any newbie errors, like posting this on the welcome page!

Have just built a new machine with the components listed below. However, I am getting major issues with the machine randomly resetting itself. I have also had a few instances of the machine causing a green screen and I have two episodes of a blue screen. This is not the blue screen of death but appears to be more like the Windows XP Home welcome screen, but with no text at all. The machine is unresponsive when either of these happen and I have to reset the machine myself.

What is very strange is that these random resets usually occur when I have switched between two user accounts, but not always. I am able to run Hyper Pi to 32 million places whilst downloading continuously and NOT get any problems. I can run Call of Duty Four with everything 'maxed' out for hours and UT3 too with absolutely no problems, whilst downloading. I can encode DVD's too my hearts content with no issues. However, when I tried to read data from an external Maxtor 500 GB USB drive the machine restarted with no warning. I thought that the errors may have been caused by overheating but this does not appear to be the case as all temperatures were within normal limits just prior to the last reset. The green screening occurred when switching between windows in Internet Explorer 7, whilst two accounts were active. These errors occur only when doing something simple.

All items were purchased from scan, with the exception of the Raptor X disk drive which was an ebuyer purchase. Any assistance and or suggestions would be most appreciated.

Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R with a Quad-Core Q6600, 2GB (2x1GB) Corsair TwinX XMS2, 512MB HiS HD3850, WD Raptor X150, WD750GB and a Corsair VX450W power supply.

[Thorsson]

1. Are you running XP? 32 or 64 bit?
2. If so have you installed all the P35 chipset drivers?
3. Are you overclocking either the CPU or GPU?
4. What voltage are you giving the RAM?
5. Have you installed the latest certified video drivers?
6. Does the problem with the external HDD happen every time?

[JohnClark]

Thanks for quick response. In answer to your questions:1) Windows XP 32; 2) Yes all drivers are correct and latest; 3 + 4) No overclocking, all at stock speeds and default voltages; 5) All latest drivers; 6) No, actually this has only happened once, what I was trying to say that this fails only when doing something really simple. Yesterday got a green screen when another account was opened and surfing the net, whilst the original account was left open and was downloading and encoding at the same time, not sure whether this is relevant or not. Not been able to reproduce this again today, however. Hope that this does not confuse the issue.

[Thorsson]

If this is your RAM: corsair.com/_datasheets/TWIN2XP2048-6400C4.pdf (for some reason this isn't linking correctly).

You will see that it is rated for 2.1V. Most P35 motherboards default to 1.8V. You need to change this in the BIOS.

Possibly this will cure the problem, given that video cards (because it seems like a video problem) make use of main system memory. If not I have a few more questions.

From what I can see, the issue occurs not when you do something simple, but when you start another task on top of tasks already running. Is this correct, or do you get problems when starting a task with nothing else running?

Can you confirm that you are using on board sound, and that you have no additional PCI/PCI-E cards (e.g. a TV card) installed?

Did these problems take place right from the start?

[climbingkid]

JohnClark

I would definitly follow up on the RAM suggestion, but if I read correctly then your using an ATI 3850 with 512MB Ram - this won't be using main memory for its video ram as was suggested; it has its own (lots of it!), its not an on-board solution.

What seems wierd to me though John is that you can hammer the machine, and the graphics card without issues - then, what seems quite randomly, the machine gives a green screen. And a green screen - thats truely wierd too...

I wonder whether the power supply is on its max here - but maybe others can comment on this with thier experiences.

CK