Hardlocks from nowhere!!! (was: Something in my computer hates me)

[beatle]

I swear I must have the worst luck with my rig. It's the A64 in my sig and it has been problematic since it was a P4. It will hardlock at random even when running at stock speeds. I can run Prime95 without error for as long as it will not lock up. It doesn't have a pattern, as I can be doing anything or nothing at all. I've had it lock up in games, encoding video, prime95, doing absolutely nothing...

I'm running out of ideas here. I've replaced the following things:

[*]CPU
[*]Motherboard
[*]Memory
[*]Video card
[*]Power supply

Any ideas? I'm about to start stripping out my PCI cards.

Scroll to the bottom for the latest update.

These hardlocks come from a source unknown - it just locked with the Audigy out.

STILL having problems after ANOTHER fresh load.

 

[SrGuapo]

Originally posted by: beatle
I'm running out of ideas here. I've replaced the following things:

[*]CPU
[*]Motherboard
[*]Memory
[*]Video card
[*]Power supply

Any ideas? I'm about to start stripping out my PCI cards.

Do you mean you replaced those and it started to lock up, or it still locks up after you replace those? Also, what OS do you have?

 

[beatle]

It locks up after I've replaced those things. I'm running XP Pro SP2. It also locked up with SP1.

FWIW, temps are fine, around 38C idle, mid 40s under load.
Voltages are stable as can be.

 

[Viper96720]

I would try out the system with the minimums. See if it still locks. Then start adding the rest. Have you tried increasing the memory latencys.

Event viewer show any errors. If the error dumped a file can debug it. Find out what caused the error.

 

[beatle]

Ok, I've pulled my TV card. We'll see how this works.

 

[Siddhartha]

Try disconnecting one of your burners.

 

[Mrvile]

Also if you have two sticks of ram, pull one out and see if it works.

 

[beatle]

Just a hunch or have you seen this before?

 

[beatle]

Well, it locked up again. I put my TV card back in and now my Matrox card is out.

 

[beatle]

I really was hoping it was my Matrox card. I had uptime approaching 36 hours, then it hardlocked again.

I've pulled one of my sticks of RAM. I am actually hoping it locks right away, as I'd really like to go back to 1 gig and pull something else.

 

[fuzzynavel]

It's the A64 in my sig and it has been problematic since it was a P4

Do you mean that it was a P4 then you replaced the mobo and CPU to make an A64???


Did you actually format your HD in between??????

Strip the computer down to bare minimum.....1 stick RAM...1 blank formatted HD drive, VGA card...can be either PCI or AGP....try both( separately) if you have them... don't even bother with a floppy unless you need a boot disk.....then go and click the "Reset to defaults" button in the bios......

Now proceed to do a fresh install!!! see if it works now....

Edit:::::: better put in a CD/DVD ROM drive too!!!!! pretty useless without one!!!

 

[beatle]

Originally posted by: fuzzynavel

It's the A64 in my sig and it has been problematic since it was a P4

Do you mean that it was a P4 then you replaced the mobo and CPU to make an A64???


Did you actually format your HD in between??????

Strip the computer down to bare minimum.....1 stick RAM...1 blank formatted HD drive, VGA card...can be either PCI or AGP....try both( separately) if you have them... don't even bother with a floppy unless you need a boot disk.....then go and click the "Reset to defaults" button in the bios......

Now proceed to do a fresh install!!! see if it works now....

Edit:::::: better put in a CD/DVD ROM drive too!!!!! pretty useless without one!!!

Yes, I replaced the mb/cpu. Yes, I formatted. If I remove everything right now, I won't nail down the problem. The computer runs, I just get random locks.

 

[beatle]

Well, good news and bad news. Good news is that it's not my memory. It just locked up after 67 minutes of uptime.

Bad news, it's something else that I'm not sure of. I've removed my USB harddrive. I would have problems with it detecting sometimes on bootup and screwing up my boot order.

It really feels like I'm grasping at straws. I've already replaced all the hardware that supposedly causes these types of problems.

 

[Cat]

Have you checked your Event Logs?

 

[DAPUNISHER]

What do you have for power conditioning? I wonder if it could be the power from the wall that is borking things up?

 

[beatle]

It's an APC BackUPS Pro 1100. That's plugged into an APC SurgeArrest Personal. My server is also on this UPS and it NEVER crashes.

My event logs look ok to me. I can save and email them to someone if they'd like.

Edit: My comp crashed in record time - 47 minutes! The USB drive is back in and my Audigy 2 ZS is now sitting aside. I've enabled onboard audio in the meantime.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Given that answer I would call an exorcist.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: DAPUNISHER
Given that answer I would call an exorcist.

Maybe still a little early for that.

First, set everything to stock if you're overclocking anything. Then pull out everything (you only need the CPU, RAM, and video card -- not even hard drives) and run memtest86 overnight (set it to "Full tests" and let it get at least 2 passes like that). It runs without even loading the OS, so you can be certain that you're not getting weird driver or OS problems. If that passes, you can be reasonably certain your MB, CPU, and RAM are functioning properly at a basic level.

Once you've done that, add your hard drive back, load up Windows with a minimum of programs running in the background (strip your startup files as much as you can, and close anything that's running), and run Prime95's torture test (I find "blend" to be the most strenuous, as it uses lots of RAM). If you pass that, you're probably OK on a basic hardware level, and there's nothing grossly wrong with your OS installation. You might also try 3DMark01 and 3DMark03, since those will stress your video card as well as your CPU/RAM, and will put extra strain on your PSU.

Then start adding things back in, one at a time, testing for stability each time. Eventually, something (hardware or software) will cause it to fail.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Originally posted by: Matthias99

Originally posted by: DAPUNISHER
Given that answer I would call an exorcist.

Maybe still a little early for that.

First, set everything to stock if you're overclocking anything. Then pull out everything (you only need the CPU, RAM, and video card -- not even hard drives) and run memtest86 overnight (set it to "Full tests" and let it get at least 2 passes like that). It runs without even loading the OS, so you can be certain that you're not getting weird driver or OS problems. If that passes, you can be reasonably certain your MB, CPU, and RAM are functioning properly at a basic level.

Once you've done that, add your hard drive back, load up Windows with a minimum of programs running in the background (strip your startup files as much as you can, and close anything that's running), and run Prime95's torture test (I find "blend" to be the most strenuous, as it uses lots of RAM). If you pass that, you're probably OK on a basic hardware level, and there's nothing grossly wrong with your OS installation. You might also try 3DMark01 and 3DMark03, since those will stress your video card as well as your CPU/RAM, and will put extra strain on your PSU.

Then start adding things back in, one at a time, testing for stability each time. Eventually, something (hardware or software) will cause it to fail.

Brudda, he says this has been going on since his P4 and is continuing with this new setup despite replacing every major component. If that ain't possession by evil spirits I don't know what is!

MY bad, the HDD is still@play here

 

[beatle]

This is true. I'll give memtest a try tonight anyway. Troubleshooting a problem like this takes a LONG time, as everything seems hunky-dorey for hours (sometimes a day and a half) under ALL conditions: loaded or unloaded. Putting stress on the system doesn't seem to make it happen any faster. In fact, most of the time the computer is nothing nothing at all.

I'm not overclocking anything in my system right now. I did unlock the pipes and vertex shader in my 6800, which I suppose I could re-lock. I had no artifacts. Does the card make use of these in 2d? I don't think it does...

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I would try another HDD regardless of passing doagnostic ect. It is the one major thing you didn't mention changing, or did you?

 

[beatle]

No, I did not try a new hd. I'd like to have a 74GB Raptor, however. Maybe I'll try that after Christmas.

 

[beatle]

Damn! I had 32 hours of uptime with my Audigy 2 ZS out of the system. I then reboot to install new Detonator drivers. While the machine is booting, I decide to go into bios. I notice that I'm still running a divider on my ram from when I was overclocking, so my ram was running @ 166 instead of 200. I play UT2k4 for a few minutes with the new drivers. I then go to quit and I get a BSOD (IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL). Seems like drivers, but I'll have to retest my memory again. :|

 

[Philippine Mango]

Um ever thought it was your video card???? Are you using nvidia's drivers or the one that came with the card/from the company website? Try a different card, seems like the only component in the system that could be causing this. What video card did you have before? Have you tried running the system out of the case? Haunted case????

 

[beatle]

If you notice in my original post, I've recently replaced my video card. I previously had a 64 meg Ti4200.