Okay, so here's the thing. I installed a new motherboard, because I had a new video card, and the old one didn't have an AGP slot. So now I have a decent motherboard, 384 MB of RAM, DVD-ROM, CD-RW, 40 GB IDE drive, 80 GB IDE drive, 9 GB scsi drive. Radeon 9600 LE video card, AverMedia TV capture card, and an unknown brand SCSI controller. P4 Celeron 2.0 GHz.
I had some trouble with things at first, had to format a hard drive and reinstall windows on the other one, but all that's good now, things will actually boot and all. BUT, when playing games, specifically Uru, Rise of Nations, and Freelancer, the system is unstable. Sometimes the games exit randomly, sometimes they shut the entire system down and display a blue screen with no text. Occasionally, the entire system will give me a BSOD, sometimes with some sort of memory paging error. This is XP Home, SP2. All this still occurs with a boot loading minimal services and processes, and with the tuner card and SCSI equipment disconnected.
I've run a diagnostic with Sandra. It claims a few things are wrong. First, it says my mainboard is too hot, supposedly at over 50 C. Second, it says my memory bus speed exceeds the memory's rated speed. It's PC2100, and the board is designed for that, so I'm not sure what the problem there is. Third, it claims my power supply is running at 65 C, which might explain the overheated mainboard. Fourth, it says that my 5V line is at 4.8V, and my 12V line is at 10.8V. Several hours of repeated diagnostics by memtest86 came up with no errors.
At this point, I'm thinking that replacing the power supply would be my best bet. Any input would be appreciated.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 24) on :
Really? The mainboard is showing 50 C and not the CPU? Thats pretty crazy. What is the actual CPU running at then?
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
Huh. Okay, just ran a slightly different diagnostic. It still says WARNING, mainboard temperature is too high (above 50 C). But the actual sensor says the mainboard is at 31 C. CPU's at 22.5 C. Power supply's still at 65 C. Though I'm not sure how much I trust this program/my sensors at this point.
Posted by Saltah'na (Member # 33) on :
What model is your motherboard? Power supply?
And why in blazes are you running with a Celeron 2.0 to play games? WHYWHYWHYWHYWHY????
On an unrelated note, my P4 3.0 roxxors your boxxors.
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
Motherboard: Soyo SY-P4I865PE Plus Dragon2 V1.0 Power supply: Tigerpro TP-350
The computer was once a Gateway. Cheapest desktop we could find at the time. First we tripled the RAM. Then took the whole thing out of the mini-ATX case and into an old AT case. Then added a new hard drive twice as big as the first, and a TV capture card. Then added a DVD-ROM drive. Then put it in a real ATX case and added a PCI video card for dual monitors. Then added a salvaged SCSI card and 9GB drive. Then replaced the motherboard with one that had an AGP slot, allowing the use of the Radeon 9600. So the reason that we only have a 2.0 GHz Celeron: it's the only part we haven't upgraded yet. Posted by Saltah'na (Member # 33) on :
So where did the power supply come from? Did it come with the Gateway or did it come from the case?
Posted by Mucus (Member # 24) on :
Right.
Its a pity that we already know what "roxxors your boxxors," DXDiag boy.
Posted by Saltah'na (Member # 33) on :
Thank you, Mucus. I appreciate all the praise I can get.
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
Do you have an ammeter to test your power supply with? Sounds like the 12V rail isn't cutting it under load, a problem common to almost all el-cheapo PSUs.
One other thing, though. From what I can gather about that Soyo board, it's actually designed for DDR333/DDR400 memory, which would clock your PC2100 sticks at least 33MHz above their rated maximum. Dial the FSB down first and see what that does for stability.
(Also, I wouldn't trust temperature sensors as far as I can throw my 20 kilogram CRT.)
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
Hm. The RAM is in question, now. Some places in my manual reference PC2100 and say it's the only thing that'll work with a 400 MHz FSB. Other places say only 2700 and 3200 will work. SOYO's product description site says it'll work with DDR400/333/266, but recommends PC4000/PC3700. So... WTF!?
For now, I'm just gonna buy the power supply. I KNOW that needs replacing and will still work when I'm done. If I buy PC3200, one reference in the book claims it won't work with my CPU.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Okay, I've just noticed something: Why the hell do you have a "Zero Wing" reference in your status line?
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
*shrug*
It was an ep of Red vs. Blue, I found it amusing, it became a running joke between me and the other EECE student.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Okay. Except, it was already a running joke among everyone on the Internet about three years ago. And holy crap did it ever get old.
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
Turns out there's a difference between ATX and ATX12V. I need the latter, and ordered the former. Yay for knowing someone with an AMD chip that wanted one of those anyway.
So I've got three more I'm contemplating. Opinions would be great.
One Two Three Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
CleverPower and Athena both ring suspiciously few bells with me (as in: none whatsoever), but ThermalTake PSUs have, in general, a solid reputation for quality, and are never a bad buy for any PC.
Posted by Saltah'na (Member # 33) on :
Links are dead.
I have a Thermaltake Purepower 420W PSU. No problems so far.
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
Odd, they work for me. But that's the PSU I'm leaning towards.
Posted by Saltah'na (Member # 33) on :
The links are working now.
The Athena is out. Looks very generic to me.
Clever power simply looks weird. How do they exhaust the heat from the power supply with that arrangement?
You know my opinion on Thermaltake.
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
Okay. First power supply, the one I ordered, was told wouldn't work, and decided to sell? It came in, I installed it, it works. Except that it doesn't fix my problem. The video card seems to work much better, Uru is smoother at uber-high settings than it was on moderate settings before. But I'm still getting the random crashing. Further, Windows seems to have decided to frell itself again. My admin account, as well as the second one I created just for laughs, can't access several admin-only functions like defrag, device manager, and windows update.
So in sum: the ram is fine, the power supply is new, the motherboard is new, the windows install is new, the video card is new, and no removal of hardware or software thus far prevents the crashes. Ideas would be good.
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
The windows frellage has been fixed. Still with the crashes, though.
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
"ram is fine"
Erh, is it? I mean, the memory itself might be, but the combination memory/mainboard might not, what with the latter apparently supporting AND not supporting roughly seven billion types of it. Don't know what else you've tried besides installing the new PSU, though.
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
Memtest86 ran for several hours, ran sevearl full scans, and found no problems with the RAM. Got other diagnostic programs for me?
The RAM should work in the motherboard, according to the most technically detailed docs I have. That being a small chart in the manual. My kingdom for consistent documentation.
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
Hmm. There are some professional diagnostics suites like PC-Certify's, erh, PC-Certify, UltraX's QuickTech, and SmithMicro's CheckIt, and a (primitive) tool from MS, but, frankly, memtest86 doesn't miss much that those programs don't, and for the money you'd have to splash out on even one of them you might as well buy two new 512MB DIMMs anyway. It's just that page fault that seems to fly in the face, well, everything. When it happens again, pipe the BSOD error code through here and read what MS has to say about it.
(Loosening your memory timings and increasing the voltage a notch might help as a stopgap measure, but... meh.)
I'm stumped as to what else on the hardware side of things could be causing this, though. My next guess would be the graphics card, or more specifically ATI's half-assed drivers for it, but I assume you've already updated those, so... I dunno.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
One approach it to start pulling stuff out of the computer and running it for a couple of days without it to see if it's moer stable. And I'd start with that SCSI card and hard drive, if only because they seem extremely pointless.
(Replacing the memory might not be a bad idea anyway. Don't know about US prices, but a 512mb DIMM costs about �40 here, and XP will be MUCh happier with 512mb, esspecially if you're playing games.)
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
Hey, nine gigs of space is enough for my documents and backups of all my e-mail and chat logs. Hardly pointless. Besides, I've tried what you suggest, no joy. Ran Uru with nothing but the system drive attached, and it still crashed.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
Why don't you just use the 40 gig as the backup drive? Or are those two drives filled up?
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
Because that's a waste of 40 GB of good space. I don't need that much backup capacity.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
Stop using good arguments.
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
We've spent the last six years trying to persuade the poor lad to do just that, and now you want him to stop? What the hell is wrong with you?
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
My shoulder hurts.
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
And why is that?
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
I don't know. Possibly the above average amount of exercise I've been doing recently. I've decided that having a big arse is not desirable or bootylicious in non-female R&B stars.
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
Erh, you're not training your shoulders to burn fat from your behind, are you? Because that would be ineffective.
Also, I give my arse plenty of exercise. By sitting on it.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
Bad Cartman. Go to your room.
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
You mean the one I am in right now?
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Then go out of your room, and go back in.
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
I am not programmed to follow your orders.
Also, I am writing a term paper. Which is due in tomorrow. Which is today. I am possibly in trouble. Leave me alone.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
A term paper? Ha ha school is for nerds for sure!
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
Yes. The rest of us are worred about the job interviews we have in 5 hours time. Rule.
When did Simon graduate then?
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
The world is not ready for me yet. So says my manager.
And what's this about an interview, eh? Were you fired from your tech support dream job already? WERE YOU?
Posted by Nim' (Member # 205) on :
Is it a rule to be worried about T-minus 5h job interviews, in Britain? Or wait, are you a shameless persnickety? Vermillion hells, I lack data.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
I am being outsourced. Boo!
But job offers with more money. So yayness.
And I think most people are slightly worried about about job interviews. Natural, it is.
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
HAHA LIAM IS GOING TO INDIA HAHA
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
I didn't graduate so much as, uh, stop going.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
Suck you are.
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
Didn't get the job, did you dear?
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
Not that one, although I'm still waiting to hear back from another one.
Posted by akb1979 (Member # 557) on :
Hello! It's me again! Not been around for a while - been SO BUSY!
LOL! Got another technical question - IE related again!
Right, after every 5th or 6th IE window is opened, I get the following web page opened automatically (even though I've added it to my block list): http://540.filost.com/randonsites/banner.aspx
It's only happened in the last 2-3 weeks but is really bugging me - I gather it's from something I've installed, but can't for the life figure out what as I've taken the demos I installed off as I've finished with them. What else could it be and how the bloody hell do I get rid of the bugger?
Thanks in advance! Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
1/ Run a scan for spyware.
2/ Install Firefox.
3/ Shout at Liam for being a hypocrite.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Hijack This is a pretty useful diagnostic tool in situations like these.
I still don't have a bachelor's degree.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
They're over-rated.
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
"I still don't have a bachelor's degree."
Snark: that is usually what happens when you quit school.
(Why did you, anyway? I thought you were this promising, last-best-hope-for-mankind philosophy/computer science dual major with big, big plans for the world? Did spell-checking obituaries and picking fruit really change you that much? Eh?)
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
(Well, I have been picking fruit for longer than I have been a student.)
There's a whole dull minor crisis of identity thing which I will go into sometime when it isn't nearly five in the morning. But, like: adolescence has sort of become a holding pattern that I cannot get out of.
Posted by akb1979 (Member # 557) on :
Hi!
Thanks for the advice - tried Ad-aware and Spyware software but it's still happening - any other ideas? Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
Had the same thing happen to me. Ultimately I ended up installing and using Mozilla (which I like much better than IE, thanks), and ran the spyware cleaners many times for a couple of weeks after. I'm still not sure if they cleaned out everything, but I haven't had any problems since then. Oh, and my wife still uses IE through her profile, but strangely enough it was only my profile that was having issues.
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Not been around for a while - been SO BUSY! ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
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