Having a few new rig problems, please help!

[sagramore]

Okay
Right

UPDATE

During games of WC3, once i'm in game, and have been playing for a few minutes, approcimately 5-10, the game will suddenly crash, i'll be switched to a blue screen (not a BSOD) but a low res blue screen (you can just tell its low res even though it's completely blank) and then the PC just turns off and reboots....

Usually, this is then followed by the same problem as I have explained above where it reaches just past the SATA RAID BIOS, says "verifying escd......" then just stops loading.

It's beginning to get annoying now - I know it can't be heat related because like i said before i have a large desktop fan blowing in there and when it crashed i immediately touched everything to feel its temperature, nothing at all was even warm (apart from the RAM which just about felt higher than room temp)

In order to get the PC to boot again I took out a stick of memory and it went fine.

I'll try running WC3 with just 512mb of memory in, but i dont think it's going to help - i've also upped the memory's voltage to 2.85 (the max stated on GEILs website for this RAM (it says 2.45-2.85V) )

If anyone has ANY ideas, please help cuz I really want this new rig to work properly after spending so much money on it....

[directhex]

disable automatic reboots (right click on my computer, properties, advanced, startup & recovery, disable "automatcially reboot") - that should ley you read any errors.

and run MBM5, with logging ON (10 second interval or similar) - look at the log after a reboot to see if voltages are screwy or temps are screwy

[sagramore]

Automatic restart is already off, which is why I don't think it's a BSOD....

Only problem with the MBM idea is that this board's temp sensors are totally screwed, but i'll give it a go

Cheers for the idea, by the way - in case you didn't realise I'm Haml0r on IRC

[SilentDeath]

welll youve definatlty got a prob with your mem or board, probably the cause of everything else..

ill try upping the voltage a bit as it's running at stock FSB and lower timings than it's rated for.

lower timings than its rated for? or do you mean higher timings?
lower = more demandiing on the ram.

[Rabs]

Aha...found some info from Sundian, apparently the earlier bios's had trouble with the latest steppings of A64 - you probably have one of them - lots of people are having issues with ram and temp readings because of these new cpu's.

Get the latest bios from http://www.biostar-usa.com/mbdownloa...odel=ideq+200p and give it a try...

Let us know how you get on.

[BenW]

the Radeon 9800Pro will want more than 200W i would think

I would guess thats the problem, my Dell 250W burned out a few weeks after putting in a 9800Pro

[sagramore]

I have just played a game of WC3 for over an hour by removing one of my sticks of RAM....

I think all these problems must be linked to the memory somehow, i'm just not sure how as I've had the problem with both sticks and it's so random... i've also upped the voltage to 2.85 as i said, maybe that's helped? They are however running at lower timings than they're meant to be.... the board defaults to that...

[sagramore]

welll youve definatlty got a prob with your mem or board, probably the cause of everything else..



lower timings than its rated for? or do you mean higher timings?
lower = more demandiing on the ram.

Yeah, sorry
I meant higher timings as in - it's meant to go faster, but the board has set it to something more "easy" to deal with...

The FSB = 200, and it's PC3200 so that shouldn't be a problem...

I'll try running the ONE stick of memory overnight on memtest, but i dont know if it'll be any good or not :S

How do i go about updating my BIOS without messing everything up permanently?

[sagramore]

the Radeon 9800Pro will want more than 200W i would think

I would guess thats the problem, my Dell 250W burned out a few weeks after putting in a 9800Pro

I thought that, but i'm told the SFF PSUs are a lot higher quality as they have to deal at lower wattages - and it doesn't quite seem like a power problem....

[Rabs]

I have just played a game of WC3 for over an hour by removing one of my sticks of RAM....

I think all these problems must be linked to the memory somehow, i'm just not sure how as I've had the problem with both sticks and it's so random... i've also upped the voltage to 2.85 as i said, maybe that's helped? They are however running at lower timings than they're meant to be.... the board defaults to that...

Get prime95 run through and 3d mark 2001 in a loop for an hour - that'll show if your system is now stable.

[sagramore]

i've had no problems with 3dmark01, 03 or aquamark at all

ill try a torture test on prime95
the benchmark had no problems, but i know that only runs for like 2 minutes

[sagramore]

Hmmm, GEIL's website has changed and my RAM's voltage rating reduced to 2.45-2.65V

Which means running it at 2.85 like i am might not be such a good idea.... I'll put it back to default - Also, i've had no problems since i took one stick out, not yet anyway, ill leave it to memtest tonight to find out for sure though

[SilentDeath]

the Radeon 9800Pro will want more than 200W i would think

I would guess thats the problem, my Dell 250W burned out a few weeks after putting in a 9800Pro

I agree 200W isnt enough for all of that but I doubt its the cuase of this.

Theres a massive difference between a cheap dell 250w psu and a high quality 200w psu. The dell, if measured the same way as the high quality one, would probably be more like 125-175w.

[sagramore]

Hmmm
I found someone else with the same rig as me on another forum and he tested various memory modules in the box to see what would happen.

Turns out that for a lot of cheaper memory he couldnt boot with two sticks in, but it worked perfectly with just one. the stick and the slot made no difference as long as both werent in.

It was only with his much more expensive memory (Corsair I think it was) that he was able to run two sticks at once with no problems, so it looks like that could be what's up with it..

I've taken out one stick of the memory and left the other in, set it to 2.75V and lowered the timings slightly (so they match what is specified on the GEIL website) so hopefully this 512mb stick will do me okay for the moment - i cannot afford to spend £200 odd on another gig of better RAM and I dont know how OcUK feel about RMAing for incompatability, even then it'd cost me another £100 as this stuff was only £120 for the gig

I have use for the other stick in my old rig, so i think it's not a GREAT loss, i just woulda preferred 1gb of RAM.....

Beggar's can't be choosers! I'll still run memtest overnight tonight, but i've been gaming WC3 and UT2004 without any further problems so far... *touch wood* that's where the problem lay

[sagramore]

Just a quicky to say "check my sig" for the rig specs, i've put them up now.
Also has some pics!

[sagramore]

Well, i ran memtest overnight last night (with just one stick in) and i received 0 errors in about 8 hours of testing, and that's with my timings at 2.5-3-3-6 and a voltage of 2.75V


The previous night, i ran memtest with both sticks in with looser timings (2.5-4-4-8) and higher voltage (2.85V) and got 2 errors in test 3 and one in test 4 after just 7 hours.

So the last thing to test, is to swap the sticks over and run the other stick on its own while im at work. If that one errors then I'll RMA it as faulty. If it does not however, then it just goes to prove that the board doesnt like running them both at the same time!