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REZ

REZ

FNG / Fresh Meat
Nov 21, 2005
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Last night I ran memtest86 on the new RAM I bought, just a single pass. It was fine, of course. So I reinstalled the previous RAM and let memtest86 run overnight.. it passed with flying colors as well; 100% with several passes.

So, this morning I decided to test my hard drive. I have a Western Digital Caviar Blue. There is a diagnostic tool made by Western Digital called Data Life Guard Diagnostics which you can burn as an image and boot up to it. I ran the 'extended' test and the hard drive passed with a 100% rating.

Hmm. The only things left would be the PSU, the CPU, or the motherboard itself. I'm going to see what I can find as far as bootable diagnostic tools go for these items. If anybody knows of any, please post them. Thanks.
 
REZ

REZ

FNG / Fresh Meat
Nov 21, 2005
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After some reading it looks as though the only test for CPU's is to stress the hell out of it and try to get it to fail because of overheating. I've already spent several hours monitoring the heat of this system and it doesn't get too hot. Also, considering the thing will reboot under minimal usage, the case is always fully open, all of the fans work, no dust whatsoever, I really don't think it is a heat problem.

I'm most likely going to return this RAM and try a new PSU since I can't really test the motherboard. If a new PSU doesn't do the trick, then it has to be something wrong with the CPU or the motherboard.

I need an ATX type PSU. I'll probably go for a run-of-the-mill Antec seeing as how all of the rest of the components in this PC don't really warrant me buying something too nice. I'll most likely be building an entirely new system when those new 3-D Intel chips come out next year, so this thing has to get me through until then.

Wish me luck that this PSU attempt solves the problem :D
 
REZ

REZ

FNG / Fresh Meat
Nov 21, 2005
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:|



Bought the new PSU. Went with a CoolerMaster 500w. I previously had an Antec 350w in this thing if you can believe that. Installed it and then ran a fresh Windows install. Things were looking promising because I was actually able to make it through the whole install without a random reboot. If you remember from my previous posts, I couldn't even make it through a Windows install without it rebooting on it's own.

I install the ethernet drivers etc.. no problems. I then begin to run the Windows updates and.. aaaaaand.... 'BAM!' random reboot!. !@#$%^*. When the PC gets back to the desktop after the reboot it displays an error message which says 'The system has recovered from a serious error'. Then it asks if you want to send the error report to Microsoft. I said what-the-hell and I sent the error message. I then get a webpage that pops up and tells me that it is a corrupted error report and it can't be analyzed; corrupted error reports are rare and indicate a serious problem with your PC; it could be hardware or software related etc. etc.

So, to recap..

1. A freaking fresh install. No video or sound cards installed. Bare bones.

2. Thorough RAM test in which the RAM passed with 100% rating (over 6 hour test, several passes).

3. 'Extended' (1 hour long) Digital Life Guard diagnostic test on my hard drive. Passed 100%.

4. CMOS reset.

5. A new PSU.

6. Hours spent monitoring the CPU and motherboard temps; paying close attention to the temps when the machine randomly reboots; temps are not too high when the system reboots. All fans are running; open and dust-free case.


I don't know if anyone is even reading these anymore, but I can't figure it out. Do I really have to buy a new CPU and/or motherboard? Those are the only things left that I haven't either replaced or tested. Totally at a loss here.

*jangles coins in a tin cup toward your general direction*
 
=GG= Mr Moe

=GG= Mr Moe

FNG / Fresh Meat
Mar 16, 2006
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Newton, NJ
Sorry, no help here, just a comment. My old computer had problems very similar to yours REZ and checked and removed/replaced everything including the CPU and GPU, except for the MB and PSU. I even reformated the hard drive when the problems were only minor ones with some program crashes and occasional blue screens.

I can only imagine mine is either the PSU or the MB but I had given up on it.

I hope you resolve your problem.
 
REZ

REZ

FNG / Fresh Meat
Nov 21, 2005
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Thanks for all the input guys. I went and bought a new SATA cable and tried it in the SATA2 slot. This time I was able to get further along than before with the Windows updates, but when SP3 started to install I had another random reboot.

It's strange because every time I try to install SP3 the thing reboots about halfway through. It will reboot randomly while I'm on the net as well. However, I can let the PC sit idle at the desktop for hours and it won't randomly reboot. Weird.

So I've decided to try a refurbished motherboard that has the same socket and RAM specs, plus an AGP slot so I can try my current chip/hardware in it.. this way I can see if it's the motherboard that's screwy. Older refurbished motherboards are only like 25-30 bucks, so it isn't a huge investment. I looked over my motherboard and didn't see any bulging or leaking capacitors, but that doesn't mean it isn't the failing part. If I still get random reboots with a different motherboard then damn, it's gotta be the CPU right? This is unbelievable.. I've never had a computer problem that's stumped me like this before.
 
REZ

REZ

FNG / Fresh Meat
Nov 21, 2005
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Well, no.. it randomly rebooted during the fresh Windows install a bunch of times too.. I think it's a hardware problem because it did the randomly rebooting thing while I was running Knoppix from a CD as well. I'm pretty positive it isn't a software based problem.

By the way, I miss Old Glory and all the regulars :( Hopefully I'll get this problem licked soon so I can jump back in the mix.
 
REZ

REZ

FNG / Fresh Meat
Nov 21, 2005
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I'M BAAAACK! :D

Finally. Man.

It was the motherboard. I bought a refurbished motherboard that fit the current hardware I had from ebay for like 25 bucks. Set it all up and it's running just fine. The only real difference in this motherboard is that I can't run my hard drive at 3 Gb/s... I'm stuck down at 1.5 Gb/s (but this board has a PCI-E slot, the last one didn't). I don't know how much the slower data rate of the hard drive will affect my ROOST gaming, hopefully not much.

Anyway, thanks for all the advice and I'll see you guys in Old Glory :cool:
 
REZ

REZ

FNG / Fresh Meat
Nov 21, 2005
3,534
482
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The Elitist Prick Casino
Thanks :cool:

However... after about 3 hours of RO, I've had one game crash (RO crashed to the desktop), and 2 BSOD's. Totally strange.

At least the machine is running is how I'm looking at it right now. The damn thing was totally broken prior to this morning. I still can't figure out what causes RO to give me blue screens and the occasional crash to desktop though. I've tested my memory with both memtest86 and Windows Memory Diagnostics for more than 8 hours with each testing tool. The RAM is fine according to them. I have a brand new power source, brand new Windows install, a new (refurbished) board, fresh installs of all software, new SATA cable, new CPU fan, and my hard drive has been tested twice with Data Lifeguard Diagnostics; passing 100% no errors.

I dunno what else to do. At this point I'm just going to suck it up and deal with the occasional crash. I'm not ready to build a whole new box right now.
 
F

Flogger23m

FNG / Fresh Meat
May 5, 2009
3,440
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0
Update your BIOS. This solved my BSOD issues. I've tried the same stuff as you, three sets of RAM, memtest, Windows memory test, video card stress test, different drivers, different OS, different HDD, scanned with HD tune, and just about everything else. I never OCed.

I have no idea how my "BIOS went bad", but they did. A simple update with ASUS EZ Flash 2.0 solved my BSOD issues.

I did not read the whole thread, but if you OCed your hardware try turning it back to the default settings.

I hope this helps.

Edit: You have a new motherboard? I guess a BIOS update couldn't hurt... but if that is the case I am really not sure what can be wrong.

Recently I had a friend receive a dead AMD 1090T. While that was dead out of the box, perhaps your CPU got damaged some how? Try reseating it if you haven't already.
 
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