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Ok, I always considered myself a very adept computer user. I've built about 6 computers and never had any problems at all. About a year ago I built an HTPC and loved it. It worked fine for about 8 months, but around September I began having problems. I've done everything I could but I can't figure out what's happening. I'm hoping some one here can help me, because right now I'm looking at a $1500 paperweight sitting next to my computer.
Here's what happend first. Like I said, everything worked great for several months. Around September I started getting some artificating on my pictures. I'd get "ghost" images in the middle of watching tv. Eventually when I rebooted, the picture of the BIOS logo was distorted and missing pixels (lots). My computer would randomly look up.
I RMA'd the videocard. After 6 weeks MSI finally sent me a new card. This cleared up the artificating and ghosting the BIOS logo returned to normal. However, the computer would only view video for an hour or so. After that time the picture would just freeze and the system would not respond at all.
I thought the PSU may be the problem so I replaced it with a 550watt Enermax. Still the same thing happened. The only thing in the event log was an error related to the DVICO fusion card at reboot, but it worked fine and the lock ups happened whether I had the card in or not.
After awhile the MOBO just quit working completely, it wouldn't even post. So, I RMA'd the MOBO. As I said when I first got the MOBO back it worked fine. Then after about 2 weeks I started getting lock ups. After some time I'd hear the sound just repeating and the computer would freeze. Again, system logs show a DVICO error and just before the error there would a log of NVATA discovered a driver or something like that. Not sure what that would be though. The only ATA device I have attached is my DVDR.
I tried to update the BIOS to see if that would clear it up. I used the ASUS Update tool since I didn't have a floppy drive. It got about halfway through and then died. Now, I've got no post again. I bought a floppy so I'll give it a shot of restoring the BIOS and see how that goes, but I still have the problem of locking up.
Does any one have any ideas on what could be wrong? I'm up for any suggestions. Basically, I've replaced the Video Card, PSU and MOBO and I still have issues. I'm at my wit's end now.
Temperatures were fine. CPU was in the 40's. Vidcard got up into the 60's and chipset was in the 40's. Both Speedfan and Motherboard Monitor showed temps of 125 on 2 readings, but I think that was an error because the ASUS monitors showed nothing that high and the BIOS hardware monitor didn't show this reading, so I'm assuming this was a communication error in speedfan/MOBO Monitor.
I didn't try different RAM sticks. I have 2 512mb Mushkin PC3200 chips. I tried using just one, and then the other and still had problems. I thought the chances of 2 RAM modules being bad were minimal, but I'm up for anything at this point.
The main issue I see is that my Vidcard did get fried and the MOBO as well. So whatever is wrong with the computer is damaging other components. The only thing I can think of that would do that is a PSU, but I've used 2 different PSU's with the same results
My case (Antec Overture) has a wiring system that routes the PSU wires to the front of the case. I wonder, would it be possible to have a short or something in there?
Hardware:
ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe
3x250GB SATA HDD's
Liteon DVDR
2xPVR-150
1xDVICO Fustion 3 Gold
MPlay-202 VFD (doesn't work-gets distorted text)
MCE Remote
MSI Geforce 6600GT Vid Card
Running Windows MCE with all available updates
Here's what happend first. Like I said, everything worked great for several months. Around September I started getting some artificating on my pictures. I'd get "ghost" images in the middle of watching tv. Eventually when I rebooted, the picture of the BIOS logo was distorted and missing pixels (lots). My computer would randomly look up.
I RMA'd the videocard. After 6 weeks MSI finally sent me a new card. This cleared up the artificating and ghosting the BIOS logo returned to normal. However, the computer would only view video for an hour or so. After that time the picture would just freeze and the system would not respond at all.
I thought the PSU may be the problem so I replaced it with a 550watt Enermax. Still the same thing happened. The only thing in the event log was an error related to the DVICO fusion card at reboot, but it worked fine and the lock ups happened whether I had the card in or not.
After awhile the MOBO just quit working completely, it wouldn't even post. So, I RMA'd the MOBO. As I said when I first got the MOBO back it worked fine. Then after about 2 weeks I started getting lock ups. After some time I'd hear the sound just repeating and the computer would freeze. Again, system logs show a DVICO error and just before the error there would a log of NVATA discovered a driver or something like that. Not sure what that would be though. The only ATA device I have attached is my DVDR.
I tried to update the BIOS to see if that would clear it up. I used the ASUS Update tool since I didn't have a floppy drive. It got about halfway through and then died. Now, I've got no post again. I bought a floppy so I'll give it a shot of restoring the BIOS and see how that goes, but I still have the problem of locking up.
Does any one have any ideas on what could be wrong? I'm up for any suggestions. Basically, I've replaced the Video Card, PSU and MOBO and I still have issues. I'm at my wit's end now.
Temperatures were fine. CPU was in the 40's. Vidcard got up into the 60's and chipset was in the 40's. Both Speedfan and Motherboard Monitor showed temps of 125 on 2 readings, but I think that was an error because the ASUS monitors showed nothing that high and the BIOS hardware monitor didn't show this reading, so I'm assuming this was a communication error in speedfan/MOBO Monitor.
I didn't try different RAM sticks. I have 2 512mb Mushkin PC3200 chips. I tried using just one, and then the other and still had problems. I thought the chances of 2 RAM modules being bad were minimal, but I'm up for anything at this point.
The main issue I see is that my Vidcard did get fried and the MOBO as well. So whatever is wrong with the computer is damaging other components. The only thing I can think of that would do that is a PSU, but I've used 2 different PSU's with the same results
My case (Antec Overture) has a wiring system that routes the PSU wires to the front of the case. I wonder, would it be possible to have a short or something in there?
Hardware:
ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe
3x250GB SATA HDD's
Liteon DVDR
2xPVR-150
1xDVICO Fustion 3 Gold
MPlay-202 VFD (doesn't work-gets distorted text)
MCE Remote
MSI Geforce 6600GT Vid Card
Running Windows MCE with all available updates