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About 2 months ago, I began experiencing random reboots while playing games. They weren't frequent at first, but it got worse over time. I thought it might have been my DVD drive because it seemed to only lock up on games while accessing the CD. It would also sometimes reboot just before getting to the Windows desktop if I left a CD in the drive during bootup. I tried installing a different CD drive, but that didn't solve the problem. I also tried a new IDE cable, again without success.
I formatted the hard drive and re-installed Windows hoping that would fix it, but it didn't. I stripped the system down to just the MotherBoard, CPU, RAM, Video Card, one Hard Drive and one DVD drive, and the problem continued.
It also occasionally reboots in games that don't require a CD, so I suspected bad RAM. I downloaded Memtest86+ from memtest.org. The test did show errors with the memory, so I contacted Corsair. They had me change some settings in the BIOS, and I was getting inconsistant results. They said it was likely I had other problems, but offered to RMA the RAM anyway.
I wanted to make sure it was the RAM, so I got a friend to install it in his system, which is almost identical to mine) and he said he only got one error (I was getting over 70). Now it gets weird.
I dicided to do some more tests on my machine. At first I was testing each individual module in slot one. One module consistantly got more errors than the other. I tested each module separately in the other two RAM slots, and only one module got one error, so I thought the mem slot 1 was bad. Then I reinstalled both modules to slots 1 & 2 and re-ran the test, this time I only get one error. So one of my memory modules does have a problem, so now I'm running with the good one only.
The only things I haven't been able to test are the CPU, video card, and power supply. I doubt it's any of those though. I can't get any games to run at all that require a CD in the drive. Games that don't require a CD run will run, but I still get random reboots and other weird things happen while playing them. For example, I was trying to show a friend the SWAT4 demo a couple of days ago. The computer had been on all day. I loaded the demo, and as soon as I clicked something on the menu it rebooted. When it started back up I tried the game again. This time it rebooted just as the mission started before I could move. That happened one more time. I tried again, this time it seemed like it was going to work, but when I was breaching the first door it rebooted. I tried one last time, and finally it played, but every now and then I'd hear a weird high pitch "tink" sound from the computer and the screen would flicker. I can manage to get Pacific Fighters to run if I eject the CD after the load screen, but I hear that same "tink" sound for a few seconds after the game starts. There are no errors loged in the syslog either after a reboot.
I'm thinking it might be the motherboard. Are there any programs I can run to test the motherboard, cpu and video card to find out what the problem is? I downloaded prime95 and let it run overnight last night. It didn't get any errors.
I formatted the hard drive and re-installed Windows hoping that would fix it, but it didn't. I stripped the system down to just the MotherBoard, CPU, RAM, Video Card, one Hard Drive and one DVD drive, and the problem continued.
It also occasionally reboots in games that don't require a CD, so I suspected bad RAM. I downloaded Memtest86+ from memtest.org. The test did show errors with the memory, so I contacted Corsair. They had me change some settings in the BIOS, and I was getting inconsistant results. They said it was likely I had other problems, but offered to RMA the RAM anyway.
I wanted to make sure it was the RAM, so I got a friend to install it in his system, which is almost identical to mine) and he said he only got one error (I was getting over 70). Now it gets weird.
I dicided to do some more tests on my machine. At first I was testing each individual module in slot one. One module consistantly got more errors than the other. I tested each module separately in the other two RAM slots, and only one module got one error, so I thought the mem slot 1 was bad. Then I reinstalled both modules to slots 1 & 2 and re-ran the test, this time I only get one error. So one of my memory modules does have a problem, so now I'm running with the good one only.
The only things I haven't been able to test are the CPU, video card, and power supply. I doubt it's any of those though. I can't get any games to run at all that require a CD in the drive. Games that don't require a CD run will run, but I still get random reboots and other weird things happen while playing them. For example, I was trying to show a friend the SWAT4 demo a couple of days ago. The computer had been on all day. I loaded the demo, and as soon as I clicked something on the menu it rebooted. When it started back up I tried the game again. This time it rebooted just as the mission started before I could move. That happened one more time. I tried again, this time it seemed like it was going to work, but when I was breaching the first door it rebooted. I tried one last time, and finally it played, but every now and then I'd hear a weird high pitch "tink" sound from the computer and the screen would flicker. I can manage to get Pacific Fighters to run if I eject the CD after the load screen, but I hear that same "tink" sound for a few seconds after the game starts. There are no errors loged in the syslog either after a reboot.
I'm thinking it might be the motherboard. Are there any programs I can run to test the motherboard, cpu and video card to find out what the problem is? I downloaded prime95 and let it run overnight last night. It didn't get any errors.
