problem, 5 weeks running

M

MrWizard6600

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Jan 15, 2006
Messages
5,791
I got 2 hours of sleep last night so i'll keep it brief:

invoice is dated june 30:
Phenom II X3 720
Gigabyte 790X-UD4P
Corsair 2X2GB DDR2 800
Antec Earthwatts 500W
XFX HD4870 1GB
WD 320GB blue HDD.

After between 5 and 7 days of use it bluescreens once or twice. The next day a few more times. More than a couple days after that it becomes unusable. There is no decernable pattern to the bluscreens aside from the dates at which they happen, but all are related to generic memory failures.

I moved from Win 7, to win vista, to Ubuntu. All of them did the same thing (cept ubuntos version of the BSOD). I've rotated through 2 and a half sets of memory (I didn't leave the 2nd set in long enough to complete one of these 5 day cycles). I've been though two different hard drives. Ive returned the motherboard for a new one, and placed that in the system.

It's survived 1.5 hrs under orthos with high memory usage and furmark running at the same time.

What the hell is causing this.

I built this computer for a friend I've known for years. I dont think I've ever come across as this totally inept before, and tbh it's not a nice feeling. Help me out here guys.
 
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I bet the PSU isnt putting out the correct voltage and/or power. I would try swapping it out.
 
Try a different motherboard, heard too many iffy things on Gigabyte boards to trust them.
 
Memory.

Of the dozens of times I've sen this, I always tell myself it's something else, but it has always been memory.

I just had this problem a few weeks ago on my own machine. Would blue screen from time to time then got progressively worse. Would pass memtest and run prime95 for 24 hours+

I swapped out the memory and it's been fine since.
 
It's either bad memory (most likely), bad power supply, or bad cpu.
 
Memtest86, use it to test your RAM overnight. If there are issues, I would say it is very likely (since you tested multiple kits of RAM) that voltage isn't correct or the motherboard is bad. Either way, the tool to test RAM is Memtest86.

Ignore the bullshit about Gigabyte boards being bad. I've owned and built systems with probably 10 different boards spanning multiple generations, CPUs, and platforms, and none have had any issues.
 
i had a C2D machine do this, turns out there was a loose clip on the mounting hardware, replaced it and was good to go.
 
quadnad said:
Memtest86, use it to test your RAM overnight. If there are issues, I would say it is very likely (since you tested multiple kits of RAM) that voltage isn't correct or the motherboard is bad. Either way, the tool to test RAM is Memtest86.

Ignore the bullshit about Gigabyte boards being bad. I've owned and built systems with probably 10 different boards spanning multiple generations, CPUs, and platforms, and none have had any issues.
Click to expand...

Nail on the head. Gigabyte boards are not bad, I too have had over 50 different builds with Gigabyte boards and only have ever received 1 DOA. Out of the other 49, they are still in machines running as I type this...

Run memtest overnight, check memory timings next, then check CPU seating...
 
Try another more powerful PSU.

Also dont run more than one stress testing program at once, it will dilute the stress down and will not be effective
 
I would swap out psus and see if that may be the issue, Antec's are usually good psus, but every brand, even a good one, is bound to have duds...
 
I would say it is probably the PSU too. Maybe try a different one, or one with more power.
 
leezard said:
next obvious suspect IMO is the CPU
Click to expand...

I've built a good number of computers, I've never seen a bad CPU. This would be a first.

dwk said:
I bet the PSU isnt putting out the correct voltage and/or power. I would try swapping it out.
Click to expand...

I was thinking about it, but i figured if the PSU really was the problem it would manefest itself differently. It BSOD's on load or no load randomly. But at this point I'm clutching at straws so, yeah this was my next move.

stevedave said:
drop ram to 5-5-5-15 and 667 then give it a go.
Click to expand...

squishy said:
Memory.

Of the dozens of times I've sen this, I always tell myself it's something else, but it has always been memory.

I just had this problem a few weeks ago on my own machine. Would blue screen from time to time then got progressively worse. Would pass memtest and run prime95 for 24 hours+

I swapped out the memory and it's been fine since.
Click to expand...

The thing is as I've said I've been through 3 sets of memory. I'll swap his ram out for mine and run memtest overnight.

Sphere said:
I had a similar issue close to ten years ago with the random blue screens and rma'd almost every part but the cpu. Low and behold that was the issue.
Click to expand...

sorry I dont quite understand, your saying the CPU was the issue?

odoe said:
No swearing in thread titles please.
Click to expand...

wont happen again. sorry.
 
MrWizard6600 said:
I was thinking about it, but i figured if the PSU really was the problem it would manefest itself differently. It BSOD's on load or no load randomly. But at this point I'm clutching at straws so, yeah this was my next move.
Click to expand...

Well it sounds like a RAM issue, but you've replaced the motherboard and have used different sets of RAM. PSU issues can manifest themselves in many weird ways. It could be iffy and not putting out stable power causing the ram voltage to randomly drop and blue screen.
 
ooook.

We'll i swapped my 2X2gb kit and 8800GTS for his HD4870 and 2x2GB kit, i just ran orthos for a bit and low and behold:

STOPPED.jpg


Corsair, for the record, you are responsible for getting my blood pressure higher than it was during my calculus exam.
 
I had corsair ram that didn't work in my p5n-e sli (650i) board. Then got buffalo FireStix and have been the best set of ram I have ever used.
 
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