My system is unstable. Is it the bios update, or memory or other?

K

Kazatan

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Ok i'll try and get as much system info in here as i can :-))


I have builta new system using these components:

MSI K8T Neo-FIS2R,
AMD Athlon 64 3200+,
Corsair 1GB DDR XMS3200LLPT TwinX CAS2 (2 x 512mb sticks),
1 60gb hd, 1 new 160gb 8mg cache (ata 133)
GForce 4 ti 4800 SE,
Sound Blaster Audigy 2,
Windows XP (Fresh Install),
QTEC Dual Fan Gold 400W PSU (im sorry but i dont know the max amps its not on their website :biggthumbsdown:)

Now it worked, and was stable (with FSB OCed to 210) until just yesterday, now there are a few things which happened before i got the first crash. But first this is the nature of the crash:

It appears to happen whilst playing games, ive crashed whilst playing counterstrike, rainbow six 3 but i cant think of a time its crashed just on the desktop. It takes up to half an hour, and seems completely random in its timing. The screen just freezes, sound all stops and the only way to do anything again is to press the little shiny restart button.

Now onto my guessed reasons:

The first thing i did was overclock the FSB a little further, i used the MSI core center utility and let it run on auto, everything went well i was overclocking in 3 mhz jumps. until i got to 219, at this point the monitor went into power saving mode and the system had hung. the reset switch didnt work so had to hold down the power button untilit turned off. At the reload i went into bios and it had been set back to 200FSB, so i left it there.
Later on that day (day b4 yesterday (18th feb)) i used the MSI live update utility to flash the bios to 1.20, it flashed fine and after i reset all the CMOS settings it booted fine too. It ran stable for a few hours even when playing the games mentioned above, until suddenly in CS it hung. Now it hangs quickly in Rainbow Six 3, but not always so quickly in CounterStrike.

I read on this forum about changing the timings on the ram because this might be the problem, i changed in bios the trcd setting from auto to "3CLK" but this hasnt helped :undecided:

Absolutely any suggestions would be appreciated,

thanks, dan :confused2:.
 
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try runing memtest86+ to check ur memory .. if it passes that after running no errors for a couple hours u can assume memory is ok

run everything @ stock with memory settings on auto aand check to see what dimm slots u have the mem sticks in .. 1 & 3 are said to be best for most when using two sticks but some mem likes 1 & 2 and some mem only likes being run as single stick

if u have a friend wiith a diff psu .. try running ur system on that to see if its still unstable ..

make sure if ur running a firewall or antivirus that they are not slowing ur system down ..

and the prob i get most with .. check to see if the IRQ of ur grafics card is shared with the lan ... crashes my system if in heavy load game the network kicks in

hope that helps u some ..
 
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My RM is in slots 1 and 2,

i just tried to run memtest86 froma bootable cd rom however it just restarts the computer whenever its set to boot from the cd rom... it POSTs then searching for boot record, it finds it and then goes back to post again :|


Edit: By the way, thanks for the quick replies :)
 
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u need memtest86+ and to run it from a floppy ... download .. make sure its the "+" version .. unzip to a folder ... and run the instal program that will write it to a floppy . then u reboot selecting floppy as first boot item .. it self runs from there
 
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I have no floppy drive :p last one broke and i neevr replaced it :/

will replace it now, ill also get a new power supply after reading about QTecs deficiencies. What would you recommend for about ?63.22? (hopefully it wont tell me one specification and then be another :tongue:)

Also i read up on my corsair ram, and its 2-3-2-6 so ive set it in bios to 2-4-2-6 and ill report back if that helps later on.

thanks again for the quick support guys :smile: really appreciated.

(Edited cash available)


Edit:

Ok ran Memtest86+ (bootable cdrom) and it completed the test with no errors. I will run the extended tests overnight tonight.
 
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Ok ive run the full extended memtest86+ and no errors.

im still freezing in games, and its only since the bios update. is there any chance this could be causing it? if so, can u flash over a newer bios with an older one without problems?

Also one last thing is that with my Audigy2 on my last computer it had this sort of problem with a Realtek NIC i also had, i worked round this problem by buying a US Robotics NIC. I have disabled the Sound and LAN in the bios as i obviously dont need them, Could the problem lie with my Audigy somewhere?

Dan

(Edited memtest86+)

Edit: I didn't jump to this conclusion to start with as it worked fine for 2 weeks
 
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been lots of ppl with audiologys haveing problems on the msi boards .. not sure if thats the cause of games freezes or not but my pc is 100% stable on memtest and prime95 but crashes in some direct3d games

creative and via have always been fussy together so not sure if thats the prob either .. or could be the latest eax4 from creative .. but if u suspect that u could remove it .. run the onboard and see if u get the same probs

u could check IRQ's too .. i dont like fact my 9800pro shares an IRQ with the NIC so i may put in a add-on NIC instead
 
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Ofcourse it's giving problems......
This is your problem: QTec DualFan Gold 400W :lol_anim:

Get an Enermax 465 and the problems should be solved....
 
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ok ive ordered the enermax 465 and a floppy disk drive. be here monday.

thanks for your help, ill tell you if it doesnt work then :cool:
 
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I had the exact same problem. i was playing quake3 and the PC would just freeze. i thaught it was the graphics card at first but after swapping the PSU i found that the fault was there. my local PC parts supplier was amazed that i had to take back a 480W psu cos it wasnt good enough but with only 12A on 12V it wasnt up to the task.

The figures should be on the side of your old PSU see what it says on the chart. i think i saw somewhere on this forum that you should be fine with 24A on the 12V.

I dont know where they get the 480W rating from when one of my old 350W ones put out more power and ran better. I made the mistake of buying a poor PSU and thaught i could get away with it at least i know what to look for now.
 
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heh, finally found out the spec of the PSU, quite appalling really :rolleyes:

This is a Q-Tec 400W Dual Fan Gold:

3.3v rail max ampere = 14A
5v rail max ampere = 25A
12v rail max ampere = 12A

just hope no one else falls into 'oo thats a 400W' power supply trap.
 
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I now have my new PSU but the problem remains.

Any other suggestions?

I was thinking of returning to Bios 1.1 (@ 1.2 atm) i dont remember any problems before flashing to 1.2

this shouldnt cause any compatability problems with anything should it?
 
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There's Bas's shares in Enermax up a few more pence! These boards should be moved to youneedanewpowersupply.com :biggrin:

Since you flashed the BIOS, have you cleared the CMOS completely using the jumper? Also, have you flicked through the BIOS config and checked that the system mode is set to Fast and not Turbo etc.? Did you raise the RAM voltage at all when you first had the system stable, and forget to reset it when you flashed the BIOS? Just a few ideas... :noidea:
 
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look in irq table

have the vga card and sound got their own irq

try the sound card in another slot

one of 2 3 4 should be ok

may be relax that ram

at 200 fsb i use 11, 3,3 cas 2 in my nforce
 
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i reset the cmos (had probs b4 when i forgot to do that) and i hadnt changed any other settings, comp was on FAST not turbo and ram was on AUTO, i have tried it on 2.7 (auto sets it to 2.6 normally) but this doesnt help.

I may as well try flashing the bios back, but, ive never tried doing it backwards so i dont know if it causes issues if you do. I notice in Bas' sig it says returned from 1.2 to 1.1 but i want to check before doing someting like that.
 
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