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Freakish server instability (put on your thinking caps)

S

stultus

Golden Member
I have a freakishly weird problem. My gaming server is not stable. Specs: Soltek purple mobo (not sure which exact one), xp 2100+, 1.5 gig ram.

The problem: large files (20+ megs) are "corrupted" and server is not stable for hosting games. For example, let's say I download the 300+ meg America's Army executable. When I run it, it gets to a point and tells me it's corrupted. I can run it again and again and it will give me the error in a different place, or it may work fine on the nth try (at which point I happily install the program). Game servers (AA, Tribes2) die after just a bit of stress. If I copy a CD image file from C to D (same physical drive) it doesn't work on the new drive.

I thought this was bad ram. Swapped all (1.5 gigs) out. Problem persists. Thought the problem was in having all three DIMMs populated (512x3). Took one of the DIMMs out. Problem persists. Problem has persisted through Win2K and two separate installs of XP (note that both OSes load fine without error).

Does anyone have any ideas on what this could be? I've been running prime95 on it for the past hour with no problems. I'm pulling my hair out.
 
Try a fresh, standard 80-wire IDE cable, and see what happens. Also, if the cable has just one drive on it, the board should be at one end and the drive should be at the other end, to eliminate vacant cable beyond the drive.

Also, is your power supply pretty strong? Three DIMMs can actually pull a lot of wattage (up to 15W each, according to Micron).
 
No problem with power then 😀

How about trying Memtest86 as another memory/northbridge/CPU test. And maybe try Maxtor PowerMax, WD DataLifeguard, or whatever drive-fitness program your HDD manufacturer has to offer, just for good measure. You can find Memtest86 listed in the stickie at the top of CPU/Overclocking.
 
Will try new cables, but I'm still fishing for more suggestions/agreements. I think if it were a bad HD a file would be "bad" and not "temporarily corrupt." Also, yes, we have swapped HDs 🙂 Problem persists (oops, forgot to mention that).
 
I had some inexplainable problems with my server... dual xp1600/tyan mp. It turned out to be the crucial registered ecc ram.. i had THREE bad sticks!
Try running it with one good stick of ram and see if the problem goes away.
 
I'm using remote desktop to access the server (it's several hundred miles away), so these dos memory test programs aren't the greatest for me and the site doesn't have much time to just goof around with the server trying stuff. Is there a windows-based memtest program (yeah, I know, don't hurt me...)
 
If you run chkdsk /f on all volumes does it still report errors after a day of running?

If so, replacing the motherboard may by your only option OR installing your drives on a Promise controller.

Cheers!
 
Brand new, 430W Antec.
Click to expand...
a suggestion , because i just spent a full day going nuts due to a power supply swap. new Antec380W to replace a fine working generic 300W (just for peace of mind). first bootup after changing it i got an "NTloader missing" error.
OK i use drive image and did one 2 days ago. i'll just replace the c: drive. replaced the image fine , tryed to reboot and got "no FD detected" error. 2 other floppy's and 3 ribbons later (never throw out good parts) it still won't see a floppy AND everytime i restart it losses the BIOS settings like i just cleared the CMOS. after a couple more hours trouble shooting with no consistancy of problems, (tryed the old PS too) , i strip the case. MB ,vid card ,1 mem stick. IT WORKS!. finally got it back in the case and started to hook everything back up one at a time untill i found it.
it was a 3 fan baycooler that due to the way i had run the wiring had remained hooked up the whole time i was trouble shooting in the case. the fans work , but something is just not right about them. (windings shorting out ??). everythings fine now but i can recreate the problem just by hooking them up , but just on that power supply. tryed them in 2 other comps with different (generic)
PS's and there seems to be no problem.
they are going in the trash though.
just a thought , good luck
 
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