Too much load on my PSU?

B

b1k3r4ck

n00b
Joined
Jun 5, 2004
Messages
53
My machine:

Asus A8N-SLI
AMD x2 4400+
EVGA 8800 GTS 640MB
Antec Earthwatts 500w PSU
2 optical drives (1x DVD+R/DVD-R 1x CD-RW/DVD)
3 SATA Hard drives
1 floppy (yea I know, still comes in handy here and there)

My problem:
Random shut downs. Mainly when I fire up World of Warcraft. It's not limited to this though. It occaisionally occurs at other times too. Was watching a video last time it happened when I wasn't gaming.

What I've tried so far:
I had Vista Ultimate running on this when it started getting bad. I kept getting a BSOD for nvstor.sys when I'd try to play WoW. Everything I found from searching "nvstor.sys" pointed to issues NVidia's SATA driver in Vista. I'd been wanting to see if I could up my FPS in XP (it didn't) so I reformatted and installed XP SP2. Still would get shutdowns but no longer got a BSOD.

I replaced the hard drive that contained my system partition and the partition WoW was installed on. No luck. I was finally able to get XP to throw a BSOD though. Machine_Check_Exception 0x0000009C (0x000000004 0x8054D5F0 0xb2000000 0x00070F0F) is what I get.

From what I've found from searching so far it's one of the following: Power issue, heat issue, hardware issue with PSU, Mobo, CPU, or any other part you can think of.

I ran the NTune software and turned on logging and didn't find any issues with tempature at the time of my crashes. I've ordered a CoolerMaster 750 PSU (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817171024) hoping it's a power issue. Is there an easy way to see if I'm putting too much load on the PSU or it's going bad?


EDIT: I've also tried booting using different SATA controllers.
EDIT #2: Forgot to mention the memtest. Ran for about 12 hours with 17 passes and no errors.
 
That PSU can handle it. I had one running much more without a problem. It sound's like a memory issue, run memtest or equivalent and try again.
 
He already ran memtest without issue.

Try removing all hdd's, except the os one.
Remove 1 optical drive.
Run with bare minimum fans/controllers/lights.

Launch game and see if it happens again.

Also, you might want to try running software for voltage monitoring and heat.
 
I'm sorry, I didn't catch the memtest part seeing as how he edited the post to say that AFTER I posted. :rolleyes:

How long did you let memtest run, I'd give it at least 12 hours.

Also get the newest drivers for your video card and chipset. Use driver cleaner to get rid of the old drivers, but if it's a new install it really shouldn't matter. Also try a different hd cable, it could be bad and you've already ruled out the sata controller.
 
Last night I tried to fire up WoW as normal. Crashed. So I disconnected the other 2 hard drives and my IDE cable that runs both optical drives.

It ran much better but at the end of the night my server crashed and I alt tabbed out of the game and did some web surfing. When I alt tabbed back to the game it crashed again. It's not locked up since then but I still have an issue. At least now I know it's not my PSU. I'm guessing my next suspects are a cable to the main drive, the sound card, video card, proc or mobo. I'm gonna test the sound card and cable route but after that it's time to bite on the Q6600 I was thinking about. I was hoping I'd be able to hold out until the new 45nm stuff hit.

Thanks for your replies.
 
I'm going to guess the video card. Ensure that the video card fan is running and that nothing is blocking it from recieving air flow, check power connections to the video card too. I'm suspecting a bad video card.
 
Yep. I did that. Fans are running. The NTune monitor software didn't show any issues with temp. I'm not saying it's not an issue. I just don't have another PCI-E card to test with yet.
 
Note the OP is saying the PC shuts down. It's not a reboot.

So I'm going to say PSU.

Keep in mind that the GPU is a G80. Not a G92.

Get another PSU and at least try it.
 
Well it appears a new power supply has solved my issues. I got sick on Wednesday and wasn't able to install it until Friday night but things are now running without issue since then. Just thought I'd update this thread with the resolution. I'm not sure if the old power supply was bad or just overload. I don't have anyway to test it though.

Thanks for the responses and suggestions.
 
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