Problematic SN95

Relaly don't know what's going on with my machine, but I hope someone out there can help me out here...

Was playing BF2 on my machine last night (see spec in 'My System') without any problems.....no glitches, no hiccups, no worries. Had to go out, so quit and shut down as normal.

When I returned, about 3 hours later, I switched on the machine and it started fine, booted to windows, loaded BF2, and then about 45secs into the game, is did a complete restart. Not a CTD, not BSOD, just a complete restart, as though I had pushed the reset button.
It then froze at post.
Then it froze when I reset and tried to get into the Bios.
Then it just sat there, with a blank screen, no activity, and just all the fans spinning at 100% like the do when you very first turn a Shuttle on.
After a little while (and a few more instances of the above) it got back into windows, but was very unstable, crashing and resetting all over the place.
It wouldn't even perform a scandisk fully (I wanted to make sure that all the info on the HD was intact, even if the PC was kakked) resetting part way through that.

Has anyone else experienced anything like this? Does anyone have any suggestions as to what to try? I really have no explanation as to why it's suddenly started doing this, and up until the last time I used it properly, was working flawlessly.

Any help would be really appreciated. :(

personally I'd be looking at reseating everything, giving any fans a clean and maybe redoing any thermal paste.

Once that's done see if you can run memtest or something similar. Do you by any chance have another machine you could swap parts out with?

I have a copy of BurnInTest that I could run.....would that suffice? (assuming i can even get the machine into windows!)

Unfortunately, this is my only machine at the moment.....I've been planning a second, but so far that's as far as it's got.....a plan. So no, I have no parts with which to chop and change.

Turn off, unplug, reset CMOS, clear dust out, check there's no loose bits (i.e. all fans plugged in, everything seated correctly), plug back in, power on...

So it seems that so far reseating is my first port of call....

Why would things become unseated whilst not being moved around?

I've had something similar, turned out to be the HD, or atleast the windows install on the HD. But I would initially go with the above.

Its never been the same since... Keeps corrupting data, very occasionally, and all testing, including work utils, report all is fine :/

Nox

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jinx

So it seems that so far reseating is my first port of call....

Why would things become unseated whilst not being moved around?

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Electricity vibrates. Well, AC does atleast, not sure about DC.

Nox

And with heat, things expand and contract. They are always moving, and that's the one of the reasons things die over time.

Okey dokey.......I shall be attempting the above things tonight, and shall report back in the morning......with smiles or tears......:undecided

Either way, thanks all for the input......although more may be required....

I would be checking the PSU first if I had a spare.....

OK, my comment about my HD still stands, but... Its not the most likely cause. Its just my most recent, so ignore it. (i'm still miffed !! had to download DDO beta gain.)

Firstly, turn off the bit that reboots your machine without a BSOD - system properties, advanced, take the tick out of automatically restart.

Hopefully, you will now get a BSOD, and you can work with the error message. If you don't, and it still resets, it could be hardware. But reinstalling windows is free, and thats the key. Try memtest86+ At work, random reboots ar usually memory related. The only downside is its not necessarily the ram module memory, could be cache on the cpu, gfx card memory, or even the mobo. The best bit is a rebuild takes about 3 minutes work, then leave for 2 hrs...

Assuming you get a BSOD, ignore it (yes lol) Get another, and maybe a third. See if they are all the same. Bung the error into google, see if someone else had had the problem, and what they did to fix it. Even if they are different google is worth checking, just means you are getting more than one fault.

The thing to remember is, there are 100+ different reasons a computer could do this... You need to narrow down the cause, or find more info.

Nox

Well, it's the morning, and as promised, I'm reporting in......



........so, guess you're all waiting with baited breath.......not.

Anyway, did a reseat of most of the components, as suggested by a fair few of you, and tried that. No luck.....in fact it all seemed to make it worse, as now it wouldn't even get past the initial power up......ie: fans on full, no signal to the monitor, no nothing.
Bum.
Right.....cpu time......stripped out the innards of the box (which in a shuttle, those of you who know, means taking everything bar the psu out to get to the cpu) and removed the ICE system. This was when I realised my first problem.....I have no fresh TIM with me. (normally Arctic Silver, but just not got any with me at the moment) Hmmm...that'll be fun.
Anyway, once the ICE was off, I removed the CPU and cleaned it off as best I could. Then, i resmeared the paste that was on the underside of the ICE (and before you all berate me, I know that's not the best idea in the world, but it was all I had at the time, and as soon as I have some, I'm gonna do fresh Arctic Silver, I promise).
Once the CPU was reseated (making sure not to put too much pressure when inserting) I then replaced the ICE on top, and clipped it in. Once that was in, I cleared the CMOS just to be on the safe side, and then replaced the rest of the kit.
I rebooted (which thankfully, it did this time) and reset all the info in the BIOS, and then on to Windows. It got there fine, made all the settings changes fine.......reinstalled the graphics drivers fine.....ran at least 4 runs of 3dMark 2005 with different drivers and OC settings, and rebooted many times (intentional, I hasten to add) without any problems.
It then sat and played a DVD for over 2 hours, without any hiccups.
Now I'm not holding my breath assuming that it's fixed.....only time will tell......but so far things are looking up.......I'm gonna give it a proper running tonight, and see what happens.
Thanks to those who gave their advice......although you never know, I may be asking again soon....!

Cheers guys.

Oh well.....I'm back, and nothing is solved.

Something must be quite wrong, as it's the most unstable computer at the moment.

Sometime's it won't start at all (that's from cold or from a reboot) and sometime's it will go in and play a DVD or something........the worst thing is that there's no common factor as to when it's failing.......it can do it at the login screen for XP, it can do it at POST, it can do it after 1 hour of gaming......

I'm really lost as to what this can be......I've never come across this before and it's totally baffled me.........really don't know where to go from here.......

Any help would be appreciated, as I've kinda lost all hope with it......:(

Try www.sfftech.com as you sound like youve got a common problem with the SN95G5 it would't happen to be a V1 would it?

This is sounding like a motherboard or power supply problem. Do any of your friends have PC's that you'd be able to test memory, hard drive, graphics and cpu in?

It also might be worth borrowing a friends PSU, sit it on the desk with your case open as it wont fit in the shuttle (obviously :) ). That's at least one further thing that can be discarded from the equation.

My money is on motherboard or power supply.

tino - yup......it's v1 alright........v1.2 to be precise.....

Quick update: A friend of mine (IT Manager blokey) has been looking at it for me, and has thoroughly tested as many components as he can lay his hand on....he pretty much discounted the DVD and Hard Drive, as they wouldn't cause the problems my machine has been having. So, he's swapped out (at different points and altogether) the g/card, memory and psu.......and it still has the problem when running dual channel.....it only does it then.....and with different sticks of memory, so it's decidedly the motherboard or the CPU (what with the mem controller being on the CPU itself) not liking two sticks of mem to deal with........and at the moment, I don't have a spare CPU with which to test the theory......so opinions if you please.......which is the most likely......?!