Help wanted. BSODs, can't install OS, can't restore from image

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titan97

Gawd
Joined
Sep 27, 2004
Messages
562
I think I'm having some hardware issues. Last week my machine started to have random BSODs. They would happen anytime between the desktop showing up and after several hours after bootup. The CPU had been overclocked from 1.8 to 2.1 several months ago, but it began acting erratic so I dropped it back to stock, where it currently is.

Specs:
AMD 9150e Phenom w/ Coolermaster Hyper TX3
Gigabyte GA-MA785GM-US2H
4 x 2GB G. Skill DDR800 @ 2.1V 5-5-5-15
eVGA GTX 460 @ 950/1900/1900 w/Arctic Cooling Xtreme Plus II
Win7 Ultimate x64
Seagate 160GB HDD
OCZ Synapse 32GB SSD
Coolermaster GX 750 750W 80+ PSU

I've run Memtest86+ and I had some errors, but only when 4 DIMMS were populated. With only 2 DIMMs, in various combinations of slots, Memtest came back clean. I kicked up the NB voltage and CPU NB VID by a couple of notches, and this seemed to fix the issue. It ran fine overnight without errors, w/ 4 DIMMs installed.

From the Ultimate Boot CD, I ran a couple CPU stress tests, but the CPUStress sub-menu doesn't like my keyboard and mouse. I can only watch the results for 10 minutes before the screen goes dark, which I think is caused by the lack of KB/mouse input by the user?? In any case, Mersenne Prime95 and the CPU Burn-In test seem to go fine while I can still see the screen. The heatsink feels barely warm during the run, and it didn't get above 45'C when running F@H a few days ago.

I thought this might be a software or MBR/HDD issue, so I tried to restore a backup from my Windows Home Server. The restore screen came up, it found my Server, and began the restore, only to error out after 5 minutes or so. I also tried to install Win7x64 Ultimate from scratch (original MS media), and it, too, errored out after a few minutes into the file copy portion of the install. I had tried to format the drive several times and in a couple of different ways, but the issues still were present.

I ran Seagate's drive diagnostics (via the Ultimate Boot CD), and it passed the SMART test and the Long test.

I'm getting the feeling that my mobo is having issues. Your thoughts?

 
Am I the only one that thinks 2.1V is pretty damn high for DDR2 sticks? I mean I'm running a 1Ghz OC on my Q9550 with standard DDR800 memory with a 50Mhz OC and haven't even touched the voltage. Something tells me if you're getting errors running Memtest with all four DIMM slots populated then the memory is definitely having some kind of problem, which would explain the BSOD.

I'd suggest rolling with two DIMM's that you know worked and showed no errors and see if the system stays stable for well past the time it would normally take to crash things. I'm going with memory or mobo slots being bad/dead/burned out.
 
The G.Skill DIMMs are rated for their speed at 2.0-2.1V. The company's product page only mentions 1.9, but the sticker on the DIMMs says 2.0-2.1V. ??

 
titan97 said:
The G.Skill DIMMs are rated for their speed at 2.0-2.1V. The company's product page only mentions 1.9, but the sticker on the DIMMs says 2.0-2.1V. ??

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Hmm. That is strange. I don't know what your OC is on the memory, but that just seems unnecessarily high even if it supported it with just a 300Mhz OC on the CPU. Mine is only rated for 1.8v and as I said the voltage was not touched at all to get a 50Mhz OC on the memory sticks leading to a 1Ghz OC on my Q9550. I would try turning down the voltage and set back all changes you've made to the BIOS to default and re-run MemTest86+ and see if it spits out any more errors on 4 fully loaded DIMMS.

If it still spits out errors I have a feeling one of the DIMMS got burned out and or a slot is bad. I just cant see it being anything else knowing what we know. Memory modules are not very tolerant when they got bad and does explain the random BSOD's. Your system may go for an hour or a week. Eventually when it gets to that bad block it's going to crash.
 
I've been running MemTest 4.2.0 for the past week. I've been tracking how each DIMM reacts to each slot on the mobo. Of the 16 combinations, I've tested 8 so far.

DIMM #1: Slot 1 Fail @ 9hr, Slot 2 Fail @ 8hr, Slot 3 & 4 not tested yet
DIMM #2: Slot 1 Fail @ 16hr, Slot 2 Fail @ 7hr, Slot 3 Fail @ 9hr, Slot 4 @ 12hr
DIMM #3: Not tested yet.
DIMM #4: Slot 1 passsed @ 2hr, Slot 2 passed @ 4hr, Slot 3 Failed @ 9hr, Slot 4 Failed @ 5 min.

I think the mobo is dead. I find it hard to believe that all of the DIMMS would fail like this. I also find it odd that most of them pass until I get to 7-9 hours. Most of them fail Test #6, with one of them failing Test #8.

Thoughts?

 
My bad. It is a TX750, not the GX. That's what I get for trying to remember my specs without atually looking at the PC. :-D

The CM TX750 was recommended to me by numerous folks over in the DC subforum.

 
titan97 said:
My bad. It is a TX750, not the GX. That's what I get for trying to remember my specs without atually looking at the PC. :-D

The CM TX750 was recommended to me by numerous folks over in the DC subforum.

Click to expand...
Coolermaster doesnt Have a TX 750. Corsair does though.
 
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