Really weird problem, can't diagnose

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Neon01

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Just built a new box with the following (major components only listed):

Intel I7-920
Asus P6T Deluxe V2
OCZ Gold 3x2GB 1600 RAM
Intel 80GB G2 SSD
EVGA GTX925
Corsair 750TX PSU
Win 7 x64 Pro

I put it all together, and immediately started having boot issues with the power supply cycling 4-5 times before it would POST. I tested an older PSU and it worked fine so I RMA'd the PSU and got the new one, which eliminated that issue. Then a couple weeks later I started having issues with booting to windows. When I would get past POST and it was ready to throw up the Windows Loading splash screen, it would usually do one of two things:

1. in lieu of the normal loading screen, the "windows is loading files" text would appear with a progress bar, which would then go across the screen twice, and following that, give me a BSOD that typically said IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL_TO or something about a physical memory allocation error.

2. it would go straight to a BSOD saying something like "beginning physical memory dump" or one of the messages above.

Other info: I thought this problem may be my motherboard, so I replaced that too, and still get the problem. I also reformatted from scratch with Win7 a couple times and while it seems to help, it does come back within a couple days. I ran MEMtest x86 4.0+ for a few hours (probably 4 hrs) with no errors on the memory. The system was OCed in the bios by me for a little while (while it was working), with manually adjusted BCLK and voltages to 3.8 GHz. Ran a Prime95 test for 12 hours with no errors. When the OC is removed, it doesn't seem to help the problem.

At this point I've replaced the motherboard and power supply, and unless there's really something weird with my video card (I can't see how it could cause the problems mentioned), its got to be either my memory or CPU or a software issue.

Any thoughts on this would be really appreciated. I'm probably out of my Newegg 30 day replacement window for defective memory and the CPU I bought at Microcenter, but if it were one of those at least it would be a relatively easy fix.
 
You've gone through many of the steps already, but you can continue on with the troubleshooting. The steps I'm referring to are in the sticky thread, basic troubleshooting guide, at the top of the subforum. ;)

Do you have a UPS?
When you ran prime, was it the blend test or small FFT's?
Did you run Furmark?
Can you run memtest overnight for at least 15 passes?
CPUs rarely go bad, but the small FFT's test in prime95 could test the cpu. More tests listed in the sticky.
do all testing at stock speeds and monitor your temps.
 
a few gigabyte boards had a problem like this, one of the fixes were to take out memory in slots 1 and 3 and only use 2 and 4. I had this happen to myself.

you have an asus but worth a try i guess
 
Hmm, ran memtest for 9 hours last night and no issues this morning, still running it now...

I really thought it might be the ram, now I'm really stumped.
 
Bad hard drive would cause boot errors like that as well as virtually any other component, sometimes the manufacturer diagnostic is enough to fix it.
 
Sounds like the SSD you have has some issues with corruption. Did you update to the latest firmware?
 
sok0 said:
Sounds like the SSD you have has some issues with corruption. Did you update to the latest firmware?
Click to expand...

Yes I updated to the latest (I think it was early Dec), when the FW with TRIM came out. It said it worked correctly.

Any way to check to see if a hard disk (or SSD) is good? CrystalDiskInfo showed "good health" when I ran that.
 
The first firmware update with trim actually had a ton of problems and they had to redo it to keep it from bricking a system.
 
sok0 said:
The first firmware update with trim actually had a ton of problems and they had to redo it to keep it from bricking a system.
Click to expand...

Yes I'm aware of that one. I got my drive after that was released and it didn't have it on there. They then released another version that allegedly fixed the issues.
 
I would update the motherboard bios to the latest, and then I would use a harddrive to install windows 7, and see if that fixes it. Not sure if this could cause a problem, but SSDs also have an option called "write caching" which can cause data loss during a sudden power outage or a system freeze.
 
Another strange thing that I think is going on (might be circumstantial) - it seems that it only has problems booting up when the box is completely cold. It'll give me the blue screens maybe 4-5 times and then it eventually gets into windows OK. When the PC has been running for awhile, generally I have no problem restarting it, or even shutting it down and then turning it back on as long as it has been run within the last few minutes.

Does this sound like it could be hard drive related?

I'll try partitioning a part of my WD Black drive and running off of that to see if anything gets fixed. Is there no diagnostic program that can be run on a hard disk. Maybe something similar to memtest for memory?

Thanks for the help btw.
 
Check in the event viewer to see if there are any "critical" errors.
They can indicate the device having a problem.
 
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