Please help me troubleshoot

D

DaMaDo

Gawd
Joined
May 31, 2001
Messages
681
I hate to admit this as it's embarrassing, but I made a huge mistake...I was an idiot and it's cost me. I was sleeving a fan connector while I was tired late and night and got the red and yellow wires mixed up when putting them back in the molex connector, turned on the system and all the SATA drives except the BD-RW instantly fried...huge acrid smell. I went to bed.

The next day, I put in a new HD and the system worked except for random BSODs PFN, page fault, memory management, etc - usually when trying to play a game.

I took three sticks of ram out and left 3 in, still got BSODs.

The new hard drive speed was also randomly horrid and showing minimum reads of 2 with big downward spikes when it should be over 70 (HDTune)

I then took out all the ram except one stick and tested each one individually with memtest and they all passed perfectly. When I tried to test with 2 sticks, memtest just locked up at 7%. Not matter which two sticks I used.

Sometimes the motherboard wouldn't even post with more than one stick in.

So I ordered a new motherboard and PSU. They both arrived yesterday and I have the same problem. All the ram tests perfectly individually.

I haven't checked to see if the HDD is still going slow though.

Portal, WoW, Battlefield Bad Company 2, etc all work perfectly with just one stick in...any of the sticks. And temps are in the 40s for CPU and 50s for mobo. Vid card temps are in the 40s.

System is in the sig.
 
OK so just to be clear:
- You're not using a single drive from before the fan mishap correct? The only hard drive connected is the new one correct?
- You're using a new PSU and motherboard, correct?
- You're still using the old RAM and old CPU, correct?
- You're still using both video cards correct?
- There's no other devices, other than the ones listed above, connected to the PC?
 
I just got a pair of Corsair CMX4GX3M2A1600C9 to troubleshoot with and they both work no problem.

BUT

I tested the new HD (the only SATA item connected except the BD-RW) and this is what I get in HDTune (same as before):
hdtunets1.jpg


The 9800gt is out of the case, the only old items connected still are the CPU, 5870 and BD-RW, oh and the pumps.

Also, before even getting all the new parts, I ran OCCT's power supply stress test and everything worked perfectly for 2 hours, after which I then stopped it myself.
 
OCCT's PSU test means nothing.

Now remove the BD-RW. In addition, try to find another video card you can test with. I.e NOT the HD 5870 or 9800GT.

Also is this a fresh reinstall of Windows?
 
Still horrid HD rate.

Here's what I did:
-Disconnected BD-RW completely..sata cable and power.
-Disconnected all power and sata cables from the hot swap PCBs on the 800D case and from motherboard.
-Connected the new HD directly to the mobo with a new sata cable and new power line direct from PSU
-Connected 4870 that has never touched this computer

Now that you mention it, no not a fresh windows 7 install...used an image from the original system. I'll try that tomorrow. If that fails, is there anything else I'm missing before I spend another $300 on a new CPU?

Although the windows install doesn't explain why only one stick of the dominators passes memtest :(

And many thanks so far for your help Danny Bui, I really appreciate it.
 
Also, try the system outside of the case. Long shot I know but worth a try. Also, try new fans just in case.
 
DaMaDo said:
Still horrid HD rate.

Here's what I did:
-Disconnected BD-RW completely..sata cable and power.
-Disconnected all power and sata cables from the hot swap PCBs on the 800D case and from motherboard.
-Connected the new HD directly to the mobo with a new sata cable and new power line direct from PSU
-Connected 4870 that has never touched this computer

Now that you mention it, no not a fresh windows 7 install...used an image from the original system. I'll try that tomorrow. If that fails, is there anything else I'm missing before I spend another $300 on a new CPU?

Although the windows install doesn't explain why only one stick of the dominators passes memtest :(

And many thanks so far for your help Danny Bui, I really appreciate it.
Click to expand...

the memory thing could just be a compatibilty issue.
 
I'll try it outside the case when I get home.

I actually did get new fans in that I put in right after this mess happened. They should be ok anyway though since I just switched the 5v and 12v, not pos and neg. I might try anyway, because it's true, you just never know.

The memory shouldn't be incompatible...even though Asus doesn't list it as being compatible, all 12gb were working just fine for a week before all this.

Many thanks again.

I'm almost afraid to get a new CPU because if that doesn't fix it...there's nothing else to try and at that point...I'd go crazy.

Edit:
Tried it, still no go...ordered another i7 930, should be here tomorrow....love amazon's $4 overnight. If this doesn't solve it, then it's just possessed.
 
Last edited:
Well new CPU and it's still happening...there's nothing more it can be...I'm stumped.

Actually, although the HDD is still showing drops, the 12GB of dominators work now...So now my only issue is the HDD performance.
 
Last edited:
Hmm, well since this isn't a fresh reinstall, it could be anything. Could be background app or seomthing.
 
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