Serious problem. Possibly the MB?

U

USMC_Grunt

Gawd
Joined
Nov 9, 2000
Messages
559
Hey everyone. I just ran into a serious problem. My house has very shitty wiring and a few times a week I'll lose power in my room which shuts down my computer. I didn't think this would be a problem, but it has happened numerous times. I went to the store yesterday, came back 30 minutes later, and my computer was off again. I didn't think it was a problem but this time it wouldn't start up. It would hang on "Loading Operating System", which it has done before so I just reset. Same thing, reset again. Same thing.... uh oh.

I eventually was able to get to the screen where it acknowledges that the comp didn't shut down correctly and I could check for errors. It did and said it couldn't fix it. Shit, ok. Restart again and it can't find my primary HD. Maybe this is a HD problem. I swapped out an old one with Win XP on it and it began to load Windows but I immediately get some blue screen error for half of a second and then it restarts. Ok maybe this isn't a HD problem. I put in my primary HD again and I get the same thing intermittently. Either it doesn't see the HD or it starts loading Win7 and I get the blue screen and it crashes. I tested the memory as well and no problems were found there.

This is leading me to believe that it may be a motherboard problem. I tried clearing the CMOS twice with no success. I'm not 100% sure of the cause of this problem or where the problem truly lies. Therefore I am asking you guys if you may have some insight. Anyone have any idea what may be the problem?

Here are my system specs:

COOLER MASTER Elite 430
GIGABYTE GA-970A-UD3
CORSAIR Builder Series CX500 500W
AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition
G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB)

As always, I appreciate the help.
 
If you're having random reboots, even after the hard drive is swapped, it may be a power supply problem. Do you have another that you can use? Or a PSU tester?
 
I do have both but I highly doubt its a PSU issue just because I always get an error (blue screen) before it restarts. I could test it anyway though.
 
pretty cheap psu.. not saying corsair is bad but a 25$ psu? usually hard for me to put together any pc with out a 60+$ psu but maybe im just obsessed. but i also think its motherboard or hard drive. how long was the memory tested for?
 
It wasn't a $25 PSU. I bought it for $59.99 at the time of purchase late last year. I just did the basic built-in memory test. It took about 5 minutes. I could use memtest or just take each stick out and see if it works that way.
 
Then I guess it's time to start eliminating things one at a time. Get your rig set to barebones and start adding components.

I'd personally run memtest a stick at a time, just to rule out any possibility of a bad stick.

Edit: Have you checked your board for any burns? Any sudden loss of power could definitely pop anything, especially without a UPS (dunno if you have one or not).
 
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I'd say going barebones is a pretty good suggestion. While you're pulling your rig apart to get it set up with only the basics, take a close look at your motherboard to see if VRMs or MOSFETs have popped. (Although then your rig just wouldn't even boot...)

Also, J Macker's UPS suggestion is a smart one as well. I don't know what I'd do without mine.
 
Yeah, I suppose going barebones would be a good first step. So far I haven't seen any physical damage to the board. I guess I'll pull everything out that I don't need in there and if I'm still having problems when it is stripped down, then it might actually be the MB.

I hate to admit this but unfortunately I again live in my parent's house at the moment. Two months ago I moved from Seattle to rural Wisconsin after 6+ years and don't currently have a job, so unfortunately I'm not able to address the shitty wiring.
 
Hey man, don't feel bad. I just moved out a month ago (a few years too late...) with no job and just a few bucks to my name - I feel you on the cash front. It hurts.

If you're running any electronics on a bad wiring job, scrape up the cash for a UPS to get any sort of protection you can. The fewer bucks you have to shoot into your PC, the fewer setbacks for anything else you need to pay for, right?
 
I've never actually considered getting a UPS until now. That is a good idea.

It's too late and I'm far too drunk to work on my PC at the moment, but I'll have to try these ideas out tomorrow (later today).
 
Well I stripped it down and I'm still getting the same problems. It takes about 10 seconds now for the beep and then it posts, but my HD won't show up. I can't find any physical damage either.

I can try a different PSU but it's pretty old so I'll have to check if it is compatible.

XCLIO GOODPOWER 500W ATX
 
OP, you running mechanical drives?

Case in note: My little brother managed to step on his laptop. Long story short, it wouldn't boot up, or it would boot up and blue screen out. It would post, and then sometimes not... etc. Sometimes it would make it into Windows, give errors and then crash out. Sometimes it would just hang at the loading screen. I put an SSD in there for him, and the laptop installed Win7 without skipping a beat. Loaded up, installed all the updates with 0 issues.. All in all, very very weird behavior and symptomatic of a dying board, bad memory sticks etc were all caused by the mech hd.

I then took the mech drive out of his laptop and hooked it up to my main rig to format it for possible storage duty. My main computer here literally took 10 minutes to load, and when it did, it took about 5 minutes to log on to the desktop. I couldn't even format the drive. It was completely jacked.

So, before you begin to start tossing parts and pulling out hair, find yourself a working HD and install an OS on it to see if it isn't indeed your drive causing issues.

10 bucks tells me that it's your drive.
 
Well I did try out an old drive (working though) with Win XP on it and I had the same result. It would start loading XP and then immediately blue screen and restart. Both are mechanical.

I'm really dragging my feet on all of this testing. Depression + alcohol seems to be make this simple task quite difficult, uhg. I'll try the other PSU today hopefully.
 
I totally got out of hardware to the software side cause of stuff like this. ;)
 
atp1916 said:
OP, you running mechanical drives?

Case in note: My little brother managed to step on his laptop. Long story short, it wouldn't boot up, or it would boot up and blue screen out. It would post, and then sometimes not... etc. Sometimes it would make it into Windows, give errors and then crash out. Sometimes it would just hang at the loading screen. I put an SSD in there for him, and the laptop installed Win7 without skipping a beat. Loaded up, installed all the updates with 0 issues.. All in all, very very weird behavior and symptomatic of a dying board, bad memory sticks etc were all caused by the mech hd.

I then took the mech drive out of his laptop and hooked it up to my main rig to format it for possible storage duty. My main computer here literally took 10 minutes to load, and when it did, it took about 5 minutes to log on to the desktop. I couldn't even format the drive. It was completely jacked.

So, before you begin to start tossing parts and pulling out hair, find yourself a working HD and install an OS on it to see if it isn't indeed your drive causing issues.

10 bucks tells me that it's your drive.
Click to expand...


Ditto on the harddrive, even bad sata cables can cause issues.
 
Whats the BSOD code? Kinda hard to diagnose without it.

That being said, I'd expect 0x124, which would indicate CPU instability, likely due to the PSU. Thats my best guess anyway.

Also: Fix the wiring before you get an electrical short and a fire. Seriously, fix that before doing anything else.
 
Damn, ok a few more problems. I pulled out the PSU and was about to put in the other one but it doesn't have an 8 pin 12V connector. I'm guessing this 4 pin connecter here is the 12V.

Also, I'm not able to view the BSOD code. I was looking up the steps here to have it stop on the error but F8 is doing nothing for me. When it POSTs, it says that F12 gets me to the boot menu but all it does is let me select what peripheral to boot from.

This really sucks. So far I'm still thinking either the MB or quite possibly the PSU now.
 
Well OP, at least you got more target practice stuff at the range eh?:)
 
There's molex to sata power adapters. You should be able to use one of those with your psu tester.
 
atp1916 said:
Well OP, at least you got more target practice stuff at the range eh?:)
Click to expand...

I have a range about 1/2 a mile from me. I think they'd kick me out if I brought in some parts to shoot at though.

I'm not sure what else to do. I'm not able to view the BSOD error, and I'm unable to use the old PSU. I'd rather not order both a new MB and PSU if it is probably just one of them and not something else of course. This is driving me insane.
 
AAHHH! No idea how but I was able to get to that elusive menu to stop on errors. Here is what it says:

*** STOP: 0x0000007B (0xFFFFF8800009A9928, 0xFFFFFFFFC0000034, 0x0000000000000000, 0x0000000000000000)
 
I didn't look into what that error code is yet, but I tried booting from an old Ubuntu disk and I was able to get to the Ubuntu menu to choose to start it up, while almost done loading I got a series of loud, annoying, beeps and I lost video. Not sure if it actually loaded or not.

Wait a sec. I got it running with safe graphics mode. Ok guys, this is a start.... I think. Could possibly be a corrupt Windows problem now. Uhg... what to do, what to do.
 
Well I eventually got it running again a few days ago. I ran all the diagnostics I could, flashed the BIOS to the latest version, etc. I shut it down last night after playing World of Tanks all night and the problems started up again today.

It won't recognize my primary HD again. I went through this thread to see what I did when the problem first began but it just started working by chance I guess. I put in the old HD with XP on it and was able to get that detected and booted into safe mode after an hour or so of the usual problems (BSOD when loading Windows via HD or CD).

Anyway, I'm at the point where I'm reinstalling XP since I don't have a copy of Win 7. I'm thinking a problem might lie in both the HD and the MB but I just can't pinpoint it. I really don't want to spend $300 for a new MB, HD, and Win 7 but I might have to.
 
OK, XP is up and running. I keep trying my main HD but it just won't get detected. Therefore, I think my first damage control purchase will be a new HD and OS. I'm a gamer, and rather poor, so I don't think an SSD is an option. I was looking at prices on newegg and apparently the price per GB is still out of my range. I was thinking about this as a replacement:

Seatgate Barracuda 1TB

I don't necessarily need 1TB for gaming but it seems like a decent deal. I'm open to suggestions of course. I'm also thinking about getting Win7 Home Premium since I heard bad things about Win8. That's obviously pretty standard for any new version of Windows (everyone hates it at first, then they update it and it's fine), but I'd rather save some money and get Win7 and less problems up front.

Anyone else think I came to the wrong conclusion or have any other suggestions for testing?
 
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