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Help diagnosing a problem

M

MGMorden

Diamond Member
I'm having a very odd problem that I figured I could use some help diagnosing.

My computer's specs are as follows:

ECS 755-A2 Socket 754 Motherboard
AMD Sempron 64 3400+
1GB DDR Ram (2 512mb sticks - different brands)
MSI Geforce 6600GT Video Card
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz Sound card
4 Hard drives
1 CDRW/1 DVD-RW
Thermaltake 430w Power Supply

Ok, when I first had this setup, I also had in 2nd NIC (a 3c905b; now I'm just using onboard) and a video capture card (no tuner). With my original video card, an ATI Radeon 9000 Pro, the system would crash and get a VPU Recovery Error every 20 minutes or so. I put in an old Geforce 1 DDR that I had lying around and it seemed to go away, so I had thought it was a video card compatibility issue with the mobo. Bought the 6600GT and it wouldn't boot into Windows (it'd show the splash and then the screen would go blank right before the screen is supposed to apear, but it would stay black). Taking out the 2 extra cards SEEMED to make this go away, so I figured there was a confliction between the NIC/capture card and video card.

Now, fast forward two months or so. The system seems to work ok most of the time, but a while back it crashed and wouldn't boot back up. The system would reboot itself at the Windows splash everytime. I put in three different cards (a TNT M64, the Radeon 9000, and the Geforce DDR) and it would go further, but would blue screen while loading Windows. Then I put the 6600GT back in, and it worked again fine.

This has happened in Windows once more.

Now, last night, I needed to burn some mini-DVD's on my DVD burner, and Nero keeps erroring out. I use K3B a lot on my Linux machine and like it, but my Linux machine doesn't have a DVD burner so I decide to install Ubuntu as a dual boot on this machine.

I get Ubuntu installed, and for whatever reason, it's really "pushing the buttons" on this setup. About 20 minutes into a session, the display starts becomming corrupted. Terminal text will go all white (can't see it unless it's highlighted), webpages will render "messed up", etc. About 2 minutes after this starts, the system locks up. The cursor will still move, but I can't kill X11, I can't switch to a virtual terminal, and trying to SSH in from my other box doesn't work. If I restart the computer, it won't even POST. I can switch in another video card at this point and they work for text mode, but X won't start and the framebuffer loading screen displays with huge portions of the top & bottom cut off. If I wait about 10 minutes though, the system will boot with the 6600GT again.

So, I know I've definately got a problem here, just not sure where it's coming from. I'm thinking either motherboard or powersupply, but unsure on which (I don't have another Socket 754 board to try out, and my biggest best PS is this one). The system worked perfectly with my previous setup, which was an Abit NF7-S + Athlon XP 2100, and that had 5 PCI cards & 1 AGP in, compared to 1 PCI & 1 AGP. That kinda makes me lean towards MOBO issues. Then again, taking stuff out earlier seemed to help, and the system seems to go a bit further when a lower power video card is used. That kinda makes me lean towards the PS.

Anybody have any ideas on the situation?





 
Might wanna try pulling out the sound card. If that helps try it in different slots. Six drives are gonna suck up some power, but I don't know anything about your PSU.
At least you get your thread bumped 😉
 
Ok, I got the exact model of the power supply (was at work when I made the original post):

It's a Thermaltake HPC-420-102 (and it's 420W, not 430W like I said earlier). It's a little bit older, but at the time Thermaltake had a decent reputation for their power supplies. Should 420W be enough for this system?
 
motherboard or possibly video drivers. ECS isn't a great brand. everyone i have ever known who has owned one has had problems with it. think about geting an MSI, Gigabyte, or Asus mobo.
 
I'm starting to not trust Thermaltake's PSUs. Apparently the one that I have (Thermaltake TR2 430W, model number: W0070) has an irregular 6-pin PCI-e molex power plug. It is shaped such a way that it won't fit with a video card that would need it. Luckily for me, I've got an eVGA 6600GT, which doesn't need the special power plug; however, my friend's 7800GT does require it and because of this flaw, he must use the 4 pin molex adapter. Also, I've observed very inconsistent voltage to my CPU (it's overclocked from 1.8GHz to 2.5GHz right now at 1.6V). I have to crank up the voltages that much because the rails sag on the PSU and thus I get system instability unless I overvolt. It's a bad situation...

I am going to make a hasty conclusion (I have to go soon or I'd spend more time analyzing the problem) and say that it's your PSU. You've also got a very high demand system from what I see, so that might add to it. Try running only one HDD and see if it's stable.

Good luck!
 
I'm not positive, but I'm thinking it's not the video drivers, as I've had problems using both the Nvidia-provided Windows drivers and the open source Linux drivers (and I've also had trouble with an ATI card).

I'm thinking it's the mobo too, but I just wanted to get some other opinions. I already replaced a video card on the thing by jumping to conclusions too soon 🙂.
 
Make sure you do a thorough troubleshooting process of removing non-critical hardware and seeing what works and what doesn't.

Also, try using the latest WHQL tested display drivers. I have problems with the very latest Nvidia drivers and must use the "81.85_forceware_winxp2k_english_whql" driver instead. With the latest driver (81.98_forceware_winxp2k_english_whql), I get a blue screen at random times after booting the computer, saying something about an IRQL driver. I do not get this error with the 81.85 driver.

Try this and see if it helps.

Keep us up to date. I'd really like to see your issue resolved, so I'm going to keep posting (if for nothing more than to bump it to the top of the forum) to get more attention to the situation.
 
Well, I disconnected the CDRW and 2 Hard drives . . . and the problem seems to have gone away. Guess I will be needing a new PS 🙁.

Anybody have any recommendations as to brand? Something good and reliable is all I want. Doesn't have to have any special features.
 
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