Major Issues with New Build

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Requiem

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 11, 2004
Messages
208
Yesterday I switched from a E6750 with Gigabyte DS3 and 2 gigs Crucial Ballistix to a 2500K with MSI P67A-C43 and 8 gigs G-Skill Ripjaws. I did not initially reformat my windows partition with the new hardware. At first, things seemed to work acceptably. I was trying to get all my drivers taken care of so I was restarting a lot, but I didn't notice any freezes. A couple hours later, it began freezing within about 10 minutes of startup and it got progressively worse. Within another hour it froze immediately on startup and now it bluescreens after the Windows 7 loading screen. I've tried using individual RAM sticks in various DIMM slots but nothing seemed to help. Any advice on what I should do next? Thanks.
 
So I just realized that the only DVD drive I have is IDE and my new mobo doesn't have IDE. I guess I'll rebuild my old system so that I can make sure I get everything I need off my Windows hard drive and order a new SATA DVD drive so I'll be able to format in the next few days...
 
While you're rebuilding your old system, setup a USB Windows boot drive to install windows on the new system, assuming you have a USB hard drive.
 
I do not, and I assume that it's not possible to do with a flash drive?
 
Requiem said:
I do not, and I assume that it's not possible to do with a flash drive?
Click to expand...

You can install Windows 7 from a flash drive.

Also do this troubleshooting while you wait for the new hardware:

[Testing the RAM]
Download Memtest86+ v4.20 or whatever the latest version is, unzip it, burn the ISO file to a CD, and then boot from it, just like you would do with the XP/Vista install CD. Let Memtest+ run for at least 15 passes with ZERO errors on each stick of RAM separately as well as test the RAM all together. Go for a full 24 hours if you want to be completely sure that the RAM is not a problem. If you start seeing errors, than your RAM is defective or you have incorrect settings for the RAM.

[Testing the Hard Drive]
Download the CD image of Hitachi Drive Fitness Test, burn the ISO file to a CD, and then boot from it, just like you would do with the XP/Vista install CD. Test the hard drive and see if any problems are found. DFT will run on most manufacturers' hard drives. Alternatively, you can use Seagate's SeaTools for DOS to test a Seagate or Maxtor drive. For a Western Digital drive, you could use Data Lifeguard Tools for DOS to test a Western Digital drive. For a Samsung drive, you could use Samsung's ES-Tool.
 
I've got all my old stuff set up again and it works perfectly, so I don't think its the hard drive. I've used this drive for a couple years without problem. I guess I'll use a flash drive to install Windows 7 and test the RAM with memtest. If all that fails should I start disabling the 2500K cores to test them individually or something?
 
After going through what Danny recommended, you may also want to boost up the voltage on the ram in the bios to 1.52(ish) and ensure the timings are correct. Stock MSI likes to set it to 1.488 for some reason. Don't go crazy with the voltage, keep it under 1.55v to be safe

If just the slight voltage boost doesn't do it, try loosing the timings up

Make sure you have the latest bios update for your mobo, there's a bunch of ram timing things they have added to the p67 line.

Try with a different video card as well.
 
I noticed that my new MSI motherboard has two 4 pin ATX power connectors next to each other whereas my previous motherboard only had one. There was a small plastic cover over the second one. I only plugged in one of the connectors when I first built it. Could this be the source of problems?
 
I reformatted and connected both the 4 pin ATX connectors. Everything seemed perfect for a few hours, but then today it started freezing again within about 10 minutes of startup. It successfully completed one pass of Memtest but I'm going to run it overnight tonight. If Memtest runs 8+ hours with both sticks in dual channel is that enough to rule out the RAM?
 
Requiem said:
I reformatted and connected both the 4 pin ATX connectors. Everything seemed perfect for a few hours, but then today it started freezing again within about 10 minutes of startup. It successfully completed one pass of Memtest but I'm going to run it overnight tonight. If Memtest runs 8+ hours with both sticks in dual channel is that enough to rule out the RAM?
Click to expand...

I recommend testing the RAM individually as testing them together sometimes hides defective RAM.
 
I ran Memtest overnight with one stick in slot #1 and it made 16 successful passes. I booted up with the same configuration and it's more stable that it was with dual channel but it has still frozen twice in the past 2.5 hours. Does this suggest that the motherboard or CPU is to blame?
 
At this point, it sounds like the mobo may be defective. Thought to try to rule it out: Update the BIOs to the latest revision.

Also note what error messages you're getting in Windows 7.
 
Is there any good guide for updating the BIOS? The MSI instructions are written in such broken english that I can't even understand them... And they keep referencing a Windows 98 or ME floppy disk which doesn't really make sense to me...
 
The Windows 98 boot disk was pretty famous. Ten years ago. Handy to have for all sorts of things. I'm surprised they still reference it, though, as that was ages ago. They should have utilities that can be run from Windows, from a CD image, or from a floppy; everyone else does and if MSI doesn't they really need to get on the ball.
 
Requiem said:
Is there any good guide for updating the BIOS? The MSI instructions are written in such broken english that I can't even understand them... And they keep referencing a Windows 98 or ME floppy disk which doesn't really make sense to me...
Click to expand...

WTF? Sounds odd. Anyway, you don't have to deal with all that. Within the UEFI BIOs, there's feature called "LiveUpdate" under the Utilities category. Click that to update the BIOs straight from the net.
 
I found a good utility on the MSI forums that worked perfectly (at least so far). The instructions for that were still barely legible... I have no idea why the official BIOS zip files I downloaded from MSI didn't reference this utility at all rather than telling me to use a Windows 98 boot floppy! It hasn't frozen since the flash (2-3) hours but I haven't tried dual channel RAM yet.
 
I thought all these issues were done with, but it's been locking up again. At this point, the RAM has been tested quite thoroughly. I used the system nearly two days straight without a lockup, but today it has frozen once or twice. It seems much more stable but I need this system to be stable for days, not hours... I disabled some power saving stuff in the BIOS that I had read sometimes caused problems like this and I increased the RAM voltage from 1.488 (automatic) to 1.514 as suggested earlier in this thread. Right when it booted up it froze again. I set the voltage back to automatic and it has been stable now for about an hour. Considering that changing the voltage to what it should be screwed up stability so much, it seems to me that the motherboard might be the source of my problems?
 
Fair enough assessment. Time to RMA that mobo and/or get a new mobo.
 
With the RAM voltage set to auto it hasn't frozen in about a week now. My main concern is that I will want to overclock my 2500k in the next couple years and I need to make sure my motherboard can take it. Is there any good way to check whether the motherboard is somewhat defective? Should I just overclock now and see whether it's stable? I only have about a week before I won't be able to return it easily so I need to decide soon.
 
Your issue sounds very similar to what I went through with my MSI mobo using socket 1156.

My PC would freeze for no reason and I couldn't figure it out. I started my process of elimination. Did all kinds of tests on my rig. Everything turned out ok. So here I was stable for about 3 days and all of sudden here comes the freeze. So I sat there thinking. so I reformatted my rig again with a fresh install once again. So as you can see I have an SSD drive to boot into windows. So I narrowed it down to my old WD drive. Unplugged it and walla no more freeze.

All that time it was my old WD drive locking up my rig and killing me. At this point my rig was stable for a weeks without any freezing.

So what I'm saying it could be the your HD! Just my .02 cents!
 
Requiem said:
With the RAM voltage set to auto it hasn't frozen in about a week now. My main concern is that I will want to overclock my 2500k in the next couple years and I need to make sure my motherboard can take it. Is there any good way to check whether the motherboard is somewhat defective? Should I just overclock now and see whether it's stable? I only have about a week before I won't be able to return it easily so I need to decide soon.
Click to expand...

Run Prime95 and Furmark for several hours at the same time. That'll stress the CPU, mobo and GPU at the same time.
 
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