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Any computer techies; need help

V

Veniosis

n00b
Joined
Nov 7, 2003
Messages
34
Have a problem with my brothers system.
First off it's a:

P4 2.4C stock was @ 3.3ghz (5.7v)
Asus P4P800 (non-deluxe)
2 sticks Mushy PC3500 PC 2226 1gig stock was @ 250ish (2.8)
Zalman CU7000 (big ol' stank on there tight)
9800np -> to 9800pro bios (stock)
(2) CDRW/DVD-rom on IDE-2
Floppy drive
Chieftech case (awesome cooling no mods)
Audigy 2 (non plat)
WD 80gig SE
Generic 450watt PSU that came with case

The computer seems to reboot after any hard use (ie. playing any games, installing updates)
The thing is stable enough to run @ desktop all the time just not anything else. Can surf web.

It just started doing this out of the blue. After running stable for a long time (like 4 - 5 months O/C'd)

AGAIN: the computer just reboots if used harder than idle.

I'm thinking PSU I haven't had enough time to try a new PSU. I've ran Memtest which I dunno if it did anything took a LOONG time. Swapped out both sticks of ram and got the same thing.
I've reinstalled windows and when I try to install any updates...afterdownloading they try to install...then BAM* reboot.

I'm thinking Motherboard or PSU...any help would be appreciated!
 
So you've overclocked it to 3.3ghz and are now wondering why it's unstable.

Hmm, not a very difficult one to solve, Holmes.
 
Clean out your Zalman.
Mine is clogged after just a month of use(guess it's pretty fucking dirty in here). I went from having a lower core temperature than case temp to having my core temp at 10F more than my case temp.
 
Tedinde uses a Fortron PSU. I use a Sparkle at 460watts, which has Fortron guts. Find an active PFC PSU, at least 430 watts, prefferebly 500+, if you are overclocking; it's as simple as that.

--btw, overclocking means inherent instability, regardless of the measurable stability. That should be common sense, and that's why I don't overclock. A 2.8c will play any game today well, as will a 9700 Pro, stock. Neither are expensive.

Oh, and if it suddenly became unstable, well, then you've had your head up your ass for far too long, and good luck finding the right part that will bring it back to norm. I've been there before, and there is no right answer- other than replacing everything that was overclocked, and everything that could have been affected by the overclocked parts.
 
"Oh, and if it suddenly became unstable, well, then you've had your head up your ass for far too long, and good luck finding the right part that will bring it back to norm. I've been there before, and there is no right answer- other than replacing everything that was overclocked, and everything that could have been affected by the overclocked parts".

Don't listen to this dude. Blow the dust off your heatsink and if that don't work back your clock off to about 3.2GHz
or 3.12Ghz and chances are your problems will go away.
Not all 2.4C's will run at 3.3Ghz. Mine won't do 3.2Ghz
stable but runs just fine at 3.12Ghz.

And no, a 2.8C @ 2.8GHz with a 9800 pro will not run anything
you throw at it. Go pick up Farcry this Friday and try running it
with everything maxed out @ 1600x1200. No disrespect intended but it will b*itch slap your rig.

For a long time, games ruled hardware but hardware advanced so much the last 2-3 years that it's gotten to the point that a $700 rig could run anything you could you could throw at it.
As a result, we have grown lazy, and weak. We laughed in the face of the latest games. Bring it on we said. Now is has happened. The worm has turned. There will be those who refuse to see what has happened. They will defend the weakness of their hardware by proclaiming the software
is not written correctly. We all know these types. Forget about them. Like some old Japanese soldier still fighting WWII on some forgotten island, they are stuck in the past.

Your only hope of salvation now lies with the truely [H]ard dudes
who have spent the last 2-3 years doing battle for the best scores in "meaningless" benchmarks. That's right, the guys
you made fun of while you proclaimed the wisdom of not upgrading the last few years. While you have been taking it easy, these guys have been preparing for the storm they knew
would surely come. Now the storm is on the horizon. Can you hear the thunder?
 
'Head up your ass' means they haven't been paying attention- when I overclock, I have a list of things that will probably fail-weakpoints. I also know to check stability in everything, keep everything cool, same things I've been learning to do for the past 4 years, that I have been overclocking personally. Oh, and Far Cry would kill ANY rig under those settings. Yes, Far Cry would b*tch slap any rig, thank you. A 9800 XT is only so much of an improvement over a 9700 Pro- we all know that. Not even 50%. And he's only running what appears to be a hacked 9800 Pro.

Now, I said what I said because the guy knows his parts, but doesn't even begin to conclude what went wrong. What he is showing, in my experience, is a power problem, and yes, I did address that. When overclocking, you are either using ALL the right parts from the beginning, or you aren't overclocking, you are destroying. That is my experience, and the experience of everyone I know- in fact, I have never seen a good overclock where nothing has gone wrong over the period of a year (except my P3 600@800), and everytime we traced it down to some cheap part in the system, and almost never have things returned to normal.

Moral: do it right the first time, or don't do it. It's obvious he didn't do it right the first time, so I conclude that he shouldn't have done it, and probably shouldn't do it again.
 
As mentioned blow out the heatsink good first as it's very easy to do. Then the next obvious step imo is to back off the OC to stock, and see if it still acts up. If so you just need to back it off, if it's still unstable then at least you've eliminated a likely cause. The best tool you have is process of elimination, use it well. Switching in another power supply is definately another one I'd try early on, especially if you have a good quality one that could be temp pulled from another system for testing.

As for OC'ing being inherently unstable and being screwed once something goes wrong, I have to disagree. I've only had OC's go bad after a hardware change, and retweaking always settled things down for me. Been overclocking many a system since the days of my Cyrix 686 and Pentium MMX. Of course I'm careful about keeping voltage reasonable, I like to keep voltages within 5% of stock and rarely just a touch more, and I've been quite careful over the years with keeping my pci/agp bus at spec as that's another way to fubar things easily.
 
First off a system rebooting itself offen indicates memory errors. Or it indicates instability with the processor. Clean your heatsink/fan. Then clock back to stock speeds to eliminate that possibility.

Then try memtest on your system and see what happens with that. If that doesn't enlighten you to your problem, then proceede to the next diag level.

The statement that overclocked systems are inherintly unstable is bullshit. They are not if done correctly. That is a myth. My overclocked Pentium Pro's are over 5 years old and have been overclocked since day one. That system NEVER locked up on my once.

My 3.46GHz Pentium 4 has never locked up on me. I play games for hours on end and I rarely reboot the system.
 
Inherently means 'must assume,' sorry- basically saying that if it's a critical machine, overclocking puts that at risk period- some differences in perspective there. Not that his machine is 'critical,' but that if you are overclocking you must assume that you put stability at risk, regardless of the tests run.

Yes, I must admint that you can succesfully overclock, if you either do it right the first time or are lucky with your parts. Part of my point is that there is no way to know wether or when your system will become unstable from an overclock, or if overclocking is the problem (it's not unlikely that a power surge may have caused his problem). It's just one more (well, more than one...) thing that is involved when a system starts going downhill.
 
Originally posted by Veniosis
Have a problem with my brothers system.
First off it's a:

P4 2.4C stock was @ 3.3ghz (5.7v)
Asus P4P800 (non-delu..........
Click to expand...

i can't believe everybody missed the problem...its overvolted!!!

thats SOME baord yer bro's got there ;-)

...and yeah PS would be the first test.
 
I was having problems with my computer getting really slow. So I check temps... and they were really high. I assume my CPU was throttling. Opened up case and blew out heatsink very well. Got it all sparkling shiny like new, and every thing is fine again.

Did you ever test with Prime95?

My guess is you were never really stable to start with and a dirty heatsink is pushing over the edge to total instability.

B/c when my HSF was dirty it got too hot and throttled. Not locked up or rebooted.
 
mine did the same thing. turned out to be the hyper x memory. replaced it with golden dragon and it worked perfectly after that
 
Originally posted by Maynerd Goldstein
"Your only hope of salvation now lies with the truely [H]ard dudes
who have spent the last 2-3 years doing battle for the best scores in "meaningless" benchmarks. That's right, the guys
you made fun of while you proclaimed the wisdom of not upgrading the last few years. While you have been taking it easy, these guys have been preparing for the storm they knew
would surely come. Now the storm is on the horizon. Can you hear the thunder?
Click to expand...

Deep... :rolleyes:
 
Wow....okay..this got a little out of hand.

Ummm what I did is my business don't try to "correct" me because I'm learning like all of you guys. Don't have to shoot the flames out of your mouth while trying to cast me down like I'm some sort of idiot.

I cleaned the whole system out and defaulted the bios. And it still did the rebooting dance.

It will run fine idling, but when you run certain things its reboots. It seems like heat, but I don't think so.

I did happen to get a program called "The Troubleshooter" which ran tests on all the hardware, which found NO problems.

I took a guess and ordered a 420watt Thermaltake Active PFC. So hopefully this will solve the problem and I'm going to clock her down way more than I was going.

Thanks for the flames, skits, dances, advice, yadda yadda....

v3rN
 
"Your only hope of salvation now lies with the truely [H]ard dudes
who have spent the last 2-3 years doing battle for the best scores in "meaningless" benchmarks. That's right, the guys
you made fun of while you proclaimed the wisdom of not upgrading the last few years. While you have been taking it easy, these guys have been preparing for the storm they knew
would surely come. Now the storm is on the horizon. Can you hear the thunder?
Click to expand...


Originally posted by Vs17
Deep... :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

agreed :)
 
Originally posted by Veniosis
Wow....okay..this got a little out of hand.

Ummm what I did is my business don't try to "correct" me because I'm learning like all of you guys. Don't have to shoot the flames out of your mouth while trying to cast me down like I'm some sort of idiot.

I cleaned the whole system out and defaulted the bios. And it still did the rebooting dance.

It will run fine idling, but when you run certain things its reboots. It seems like heat, but I don't think so.

I did happen to get a program called "The Troubleshooter" which ran tests on all the hardware, which found NO problems.

I took a guess and ordered a 420watt Thermaltake Active PFC. So hopefully this will solve the problem and I'm going to clock her down way more than I was going.

Thanks for the flames, skits, dances, advice, yadda yadda....

v3rN
Click to expand...

Your probably right with teh PSU but also try and put it to stock everything, ie. clock, volt, timings...ect
 
Ummm do you understand when I set the ENTIRE bios to default that....probably there ain't no overclocking going on? HMMMM
 
ONE of my points (a more relevent one) was that IF it was overclocked, and subsequently failed, and then set to stock, and continued to fail, then something must have broken or began to break. First to check is power, then you have mainboard+cpu+ram (they are all interconnected and mostly indistinguishable when failing). basically introducing parts from a broken system into a working system would be prefereble- ie:

try the overclocked CPU, and then the overclocked ram, in another working system. If they both work independantly, then try them both at the same time. If they don't work, you've found a problem, if they do, the mainboard is suspect. Come back with results, that's the only way we can help you.
 
Originally posted by Veniosis
Ummm do you understand when I set the ENTIRE bios to default that....probably there ain't no overclocking going on? HMMMM
Click to expand...

Yeah sorry I missed that. Its probably the PSU then. If not I would say its just a dud proc.
 
For a long time, games ruled hardware but hardware advanced so much the last 2-3 years that it's gotten to the point that a $700 rig could run anything you could you could throw at it.
As a result, we have grown lazy, and weak. We laughed in the face of the latest games. Bring it on we said. Now is has happened. The worm has turned. There will be those who refuse to see what has happened. They will defend the weakness of their hardware by proclaiming the software
is not written correctly. We all know these types. Forget about them. Like some old Japanese soldier still fighting WWII on some forgotten island, they are stuck in the past.

Your only hope of salvation now lies with the truely [H]ard dudes
who have spent the last 2-3 years doing battle for the best scores in "meaningless" benchmarks. That's right, the guys
you made fun of while you proclaimed the wisdom of not upgrading the last few years. While you have been taking it easy, these guys have been preparing for the storm they knew
would surely come. Now the storm is on the horizon. Can you hear the thunder?
Click to expand...

Dude, that would BE my sig If I was allowed that many lines.....gold.
 
Moral: do it right the first time, or don't do it. It's obvious he didn't do it right the first time, so I conclude that he shouldn't have done it, and probably shouldn't do it again.
Click to expand...


Now what I wanna know is....Who put the idiot in charge!?

I had to get that one out :)

Now whats with telling the man not to overclock again? So he did it wrong the first time and for all you know it could be shitty components. Dont go shoveling shit his way man. He posted here cause he needs help. Dont hand that "Been there, done that, take it somewhere else" arrogant bullshit man.
 
Originally posted by 2phastPRO
Now whats with telling the man not to overclock again? So he did it wrong the first time and for all you know it could be shitty components. Dont go shoveling shit his way man. He posted here cause he needs help. Dont hand that "Been there, done that, take it somewhere else" arrogant bullshit man.
Click to expand...

I agree, you have to learn by doing, and there's only one way to do that, by making mistakes. You have no idea how idiotic I was a couple years ago.....but I worked at it. Give the guy a break.....sheesh.

I had to get that one out
Click to expand...

No, you really didn't. Very rude man, not cool at all.....I suppose you've NEVER messed anything up then huh???

Take it easy why don't ya, nobody's perfect.
 
Originally posted by cornelious0_0
No, you really didn't. Very rude man, not cool at all.....I suppose you've NEVER messed anything up then huh???

Take it easy why don't ya, nobody's perfect.
Click to expand...
I think he's messing with Idiotincharge's name... where the hell did that name come from anyway? lol
 
Originally posted by cornelious0_0
Oh Gawd.....I've really gotta start paying more attention when I'm posting. ;) :p

Sry dude. :cool:
Click to expand...

Like jeez man...just messing everyone up... :p ;)
 
Originally posted by Maynerd Goldstein


For a long time, games ruled hardware but hardware advanced so much the last 2-3 years that it's gotten to the point that a $700 rig could run anything you could you could throw at it.
As a result, we have grown lazy, and weak. We laughed in the face of the latest games. Bring it on we said. Now is has happened. The worm has turned. There will be those who refuse to see what has happened. They will defend the weakness of their hardware by proclaiming the software
is not written correctly. We all know these types. Forget about them. Like some old Japanese soldier still fighting WWII on some forgotten island, they are stuck in the past.

Your only hope of salvation now lies with the truely [H]ard dudes
who have spent the last 2-3 years doing battle for the best scores in "meaningless" benchmarks. That's right, the guys
you made fun of while you proclaimed the wisdom of not upgrading the last few years. While you have been taking it easy, these guys have been preparing for the storm they knew
would surely come. Now the storm is on the horizon. Can you hear the thunder?
Click to expand...

are you a bad enough dude to save the president?
 
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Maynerd Goldstein


For a long time, games ruled hardware but hardware advanced so much the last 2-3 years that it's gotten to the point that a $700 rig could run anything you could you could throw at it.
As a result, we have grown lazy, and weak. We laughed in the face of the latest games. Bring it on we said. Now is has happened. The worm has turned. There will be those who refuse to see what has happened. They will defend the weakness of their hardware by proclaiming the software
is not written correctly. We all know these types. Forget about them. Like some old Japanese soldier still fighting WWII on some forgotten island, they are stuck in the past.

Your only hope of salvation now lies with the truely [H]ard dudes
who have spent the last 2-3 years doing battle for the best scores in "meaningless" benchmarks. That's right, the guys
you made fun of while you proclaimed the wisdom of not upgrading the last few years. While you have been taking it easy, these guys have been preparing for the storm they knew
would surely come. Now the storm is on the horizon. Can you hear the thunder?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



are you a bad enough dude to save the president?
Click to expand...

bahaha...that's actually something to laugh about thx! =)

okay, well my PSU should arrive here in the next day or 2. So I'll keep yall posted.

ThX!
 
For a long time, games ruled hardware but hardware advanced so much the last 2-3 years that it's gotten to the point that a $700 rig could run anything you could you could throw at it.
As a result, we have grown lazy, and weak. We laughed in the face of the latest games. Bring it on we said. Now is has happened. The worm has turned. There will be those who refuse to see what has happened. They will defend the weakness of their hardware by proclaiming the software
is not written correctly. We all know these types. Forget about them. Like some old Japanese soldier still fighting WWII on some forgotten island, they are stuck in the past.

Your only hope of salvation now lies with the truely [H]ard dudes
who have spent the last 2-3 years doing battle for the best scores in "meaningless" benchmarks. That's right, the guys
you made fun of while you proclaimed the wisdom of not upgrading the last few years. While you have been taking it easy, these guys have been preparing for the storm they knew
would surely come. Now the storm is on the horizon. Can you hear the thunder?

-Maynerd Goldstein
Click to expand...

OMG! I have an idea :eek: Why don't we make a new Thread, and put it in the topic - General Hardware - and sticky it as The [H]ard Motto or something. I really think that this is about the most amazing thing I have heard of....on the internet :p

Any moderators approve of this?

Sorry off topic.
Anyways mine was doing that not to long ago. Not to sure what it was, but what I suggest is to make sure you have everything being cooled right. I am thinking that it could be memory or video card...because it sounds exactly what mine was doing, and I knew it couldn't be PSU because it was a really good PSU. Anyways it ended up just being like maybe the drivers or cooling or something on video card. I did get mine to quit doing shutting down like that though.
 
That gives me an idea- maybe try and take a spare hard drive, and try to install windows onto it. Especially if power supply replacement doesn't help, it very well could be a software problem (make note of all current drivers, etc). i know I've done this before many times, especially in the days of Win98. Not the same thing I know, but it's worth a shot and mostly free.
 
Originally posted by cornelious0_0
Meh.....

Oh, and BTW, it's : and p NOT : and P ;)
Click to expand...

actually...it can be either or, personal preference and I prefer the latter.

Originally posted by SilentButDeadly
I am thinking that it could be memory or video card
Click to expand...

Very good point, it could be either of those although I would blame memory over video but It could go the other way too.

It doesnt hurt to buy a good power supply either if the one you had was no name...even if thats not the problem :)
 
Well...i install the video card drivers...and lone behold...AGP = off Fastwrites = off....and when I set them on...restart...back off again.

Wooh, all that jazz for a graphics card.

Well back to the vendor for repair/replacement.

Grrrrrrrrrr...lol

I'm debating on keeping the PSU.
 
So, what did you do and what happened? I read your posts, but could only speculate as to the details...
 
Originally posted by Veniosis
Well...i install the video card drivers...and lone behold...AGP = off Fastwrites = off....and when I set them on...restart...back off again.

Wooh, all that jazz for a graphics card.

Well back to the vendor for repair/replacement.

Grrrrrrrrrr...lol

I'm debating on keeping the PSU.
Click to expand...

Im sorry but...how exactly does fastwrites and AGP being off mean faulty video card and the cause of your restarts? if those are defaulting off I would make sure that you have the intel chipset drivers installed correctly or try a fresh install of windows.
 
Hrmmmmm

I'm a put my 9800pro in my brothers, test her out....see what the crap is the deal.

I guess with this new PSU it still restarts. Anyway I could still test with different ram, video card. I just find this sooo odd, possibly the intel chipset could be wacked?

An Asus board would be better than this I would think, course this O/C was pretty crazy.

This is all on a fresh install of windows ever since this started happening a couple weeks ago.
 
Well, replaced the VGA card and ram and still restarted. GREAT...

I guess it's the motherboard or processor now, this is so weird because I ran a hardware deep scan and nothing was detected as being wrong...

GAHHHHHHHHHH!! *attempts to pull hair out.....decides that's not a good idea*
 
Originally posted by Veniosis
Well, replaced the VGA card and ram and still restarted. GREAT...

I guess it's the motherboard or processor now, this is so weird because I ran a hardware deep scan and nothing was detected as being wrong...

GAHHHHHHHHHH!! *attempts to pull hair out.....decides that's not a good idea*
Click to expand...

You start to understand my original comment; this is why I choose not to overclock a machine I will actually use, and I probably will not overclock until I can afford to put all of the right parts in the machine from the start, and afford to replace them if they break.

Anyway, try putting the processor, ram, and video card on another motherboard, if you can. That will effectively eliminate them from the list, and point directly to your mainboard. I know it sucks, and I know you thought you bought a good one, but hell, Ive had nice quirky motherboards for YEARS (go Abit, reviewers keep saying they're great, I refuse to buy another.)
 
Oh yea man, I've worked at a computer place and everything is pretty much garentee-LESS. I mean anything we try to work on and fix on the customers computer.

But man, this sux, you think you've seen the most of it, and "here comes the curve ball" type thing.

Oh well, it'll get solved if not now, later.

Will report ta yall later.

Peace, n thanx
 
Well...I got the new Epox mobo and pop it in. Whaddaya know, it's still rebooting, so I'm guessing it's either the Hard-drive (not likely) or the processor.

Prime 95 halts on FATAL ERROR and that means either memory or processor. I KNOW it's not memory because I used my old memory and it still rebooted, and it doesn't reboot in my system. SOOOOoooo new CPU is what I'm guessing?

Rounding was 0.5, expected less than 0.4
 
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