In desperate need of some expert advice, :(

[nreo]

Hey guys,

I really hope you can help me/advise me on what to do and what the best steps are. I've been experiencing one problem after the other for about 9 hours now, and I can't for the life of me figure it out. I know its a long post, but i really have no where else to go and i've tried to be as descriptive as possible.

I'll explain it the best I can.

My specs are:

Antec Neopower 550 watt
Asus M2N-Sli Deluxe
Amd x2 6000 with zalman 9700
Corsair xm2 Pc6400
Asus 8800 gts 512mb g92
Liteon dvd rw
Creative Audigy 4

Running Windows xp, NOTHING overclocked, everything on stock.

Okay before the mass of problems today, I had been experiencing a problem which must be down to the psu. Every once in a while if I wanted to turn on my Pc i would press the ON button and it would power up for a SPLIT second and then power down again. The fans would whirr for about 1 second at the most, the lights would go on for that 1 second then power down again. I thought, strange, and panicked. I then simply unplugged my pc from the mains, switched the PSU off from the rear. Waited 10 seconds, replugged it into the mains, turned the PSU back on and pushed the ON button again, voila, it booted fine and the fans kept on whirring. I was never sure what the problem was, it must be the PSU, but it only happened occasionally and not frequently enough for me to worry about it all that much. So I left it as that and performed the necessary procedure to get it booted. NOW, after a while, I had experienced problems and had to RMA my board, I got a new one, and thought that would solve that annoying '1second boot then switch off' syndrome. It didn't, but my PC was on most of the time so I didn't care about it.

I recently upgraded from a 7900GTX to a 8800GTS thinking the performance gains would be considerable. They seemed so but after a while my pc would start getting choppy so i reformatted, and playing games like cod4 i would experience brief FPS drops, of about maybe 10-20, for a split 2-3 seconds occasionally, but the drop , even if it seemed small, would be visible on screen and i could notice the 10-20 fps drop and then push up again. It was annoying, so i set out to rectify the issue.

A friend had said my bios could do with a flash. I had checked everything else, maybe some dust in the cpu fan or dust in the case itself which is causing the cpu to stutter, nope there was nothing there, and my CPU idles at around 38 degrees celsius which is what i thought decent for a x2 6000 and a zalman 9700, during cod4 it hits about 55 roughly. Anyway, with no other ideas, I said to myself, No problem i'll flash my bios ( and being a newbie )I downloaded EZflash ASUS updater and poof updated it, it was quite old. Everything went smooth , it erased and flashed fine, but when verifying the eeprom this came up: Fail to verify EEPROM with new BIOS image Please try again or abort. I reset the cmos and in the bios itself it said it was the latest version - the update seemed to have worked?. NOW... after the bios flash my problems started. I'll explain the problems, but they remain -DESPITE reflashing in the bios itself with a bootable cd, instead of in windows....

My sound card refused to work, no sound would come from it. I reformatted, re-installed drivers countless of times, and no sound would come. Thing is though, is that it installs fine, device manager reads it as functioning properely, but - no sound.

Second problem, my PC wouldn't boot fully, after the flash, I turned it off and when i turned it on again with the Sound card in a different PCI slot ( to test it, i've tried all the slots - to no avail) the cpu fan would spin at its fullest and nothing would come up on screen. It wouldn't start after waiting a while. SO I switched it off, reset the CMOS and changed the ram slots - it then worked.

Third problem, after all this chaos, the network ethernet ports wouldn't respond to a cable being plugged in ( it would usually light up when connected). So i disabled ethernet LAN in the bios and restarted, then turned it ON again and restarted, it then worked... I have no idea why this is.

So there it is, after worrying about my FPS drops my PC is seemingly falling to pieces. I'm really not sure what the problem is, I'm off back to a friend's during the weekend so I can test out the soundcard and his own in my PC. It seems like the PSU has caused all of this, but the poor fps drops were worrying. So now my motherboard's bits and pieces don't seem to function properely... i'll test the soundcard and see if they are the the pci slots or the card itself. But the network ethernet ports?

My questions are, can the PSU actually affect the overall performance of my PC while in game? Could a lack of power or a defect PSU in some way decrease my in game fps performance? Or is it not my psu but a SECOND board which is now dodgy?

What has gone wrong

A million million thanks to whoever can help me out in some way or another,

Chris

 

[jterrell]

I would definitely get a different psu. Antec makes good psu's but when they have duds they are real duds.

You could certainly see your issues with a bad psu, possibly exacerbated by a BIOS issue.

The first mobo going bad could have been a psu issue. If the rails are off a tad it could have simply fried a component.
I have seen a bad psu appear fixed but then end up killing the mobo in 6 months time.

I only trust a very few psu makers. Antec is good but I do not personally use them.

I trust only fortran power group(power pc and cooling) and seasonic(corsair).

I'd try to upgrade the psu and see what happens. Also grab a power supply tester, they are really cheap.

Here and at hardocp there are electrical engineer types who can offer far more specific and valid info than myself but they will all agree that you should never mess around with a questionable psu at all.

 

[imported_wired247]

Every once in a while if I wanted to turn on my Pc i would press the ON button and it would power up for a SPLIT second and then power down again.

ASUS Mobos tend to do this sometimes, I think it's a CMOS check or something, it does not necessarily indicate a problem. It does this for me when I mess up overclocking something and the mobo won't POST. then it automatically powers up again and loads default settings into the bios and asks me what I want to do from there.


As for the FPS drops in your games, that could be a number of issues and it sounds impossible to diagnose using your limited description of the problem. Are you still asserting that the 8800GTS gives worse overall performance than the 7900GTX? or just that it hesitates at times, when the 7900GTX provides worse overall preformance but does NOT hesitate?


To get the best performance for your games, try defragging with perfectdisk (trial version is fine)


For your sound card problems, make sure the sound card is outputting to the correct channel. when I first installed my soundblaster XFi card, it was outputting to SPDIF even though nothing was connected, so no sound came out (at first).

Another possibility is BIOS Settings... double and triple check everything.



I highly doubt your PSU is to blame for all of this, especially if your system is not getting random BSOD/reboots.

What MIGHT be the case is your motherboard/chipset drivers. make sure they are up to date.


What you need to do is get your bios situation resolved. update your bios from within the bios (EZ Flash)... using a fat/fat32 formatted flash drive with the bios file named something like m2n.rom

if you're having trouble, try clearing the CMOS overnight.

do not use the alt-F2 method or internet/windows method to update the bios. only update from within the bios.


do the complete driver cleaner / cab cleaner process for your video card drivers and get the latest ones available (non-beta).


Finally, a lot of your problems could be stemming from the BIOS. You say everything is stock clocked, does this mean your mobo voltages / memory timings are all set on AUTO? If this is the case, you might want to consider specifying appropriate voltages/timings instead of relying on the motherboard to automatically set things.


And one last thing... MEMTEST... need I say more


To be honest I really feel like this whole thing is PEBKAC but I could be wrong. worst comes to worst, find a knowledgable friend or a local PC shop to fix your problems, if they are too much for you to handle.

 

[nreo]

Thanks wired, that's really given me some insight. I'm not really a complete newbie so I think i can try and sort this one out.

1.)Jterrel, I've ordered myself a PSU tester and it'll be here in the morning - just to clarify, if all everything 'passes' i'll presume the PSU is then 100% not faulty?

2.) With regards to game performance, well I've just formatted - infact a couple of times now and the same 'lagginess' occurs I'm not sure how perfect disk can help me just after a clean format and an installation of cod4. You're right on the point that maybe my 8800GTS hesitates - but it shouldn't do.

If i put things into perspective, I play everything on low ( it helps you see better and i play rather competitively), and the fps i'm getting is around 200 constant. But while its moving, it fluctuates slightly from time to time - so it drops from 200 to 180 or 170 even,then flies back up to 200 within that second. The fluctuation is so great that it becomes visible on screen. When in comparison to my brother, whose set up is as follows:
intel e6600
2gb corsair pc6400
ati 2900xtx

and he averages around 250 constant - all the time, without these niggling 'lag spikes' as they were.

3.) well aside from my fps problems, which seem long in the past thanks to these new ones i don't have a flash drive and i don't know how to make a bootable cd so that EZflash can read it properely, so i'll pick up my floppy drive from home in the weekend.

4.) I've updated all my mobo and chipset drivers, and i can't really find where to change the channel of my soundcard but i'll keep looking.

5.) Yes, my bios IS choosing everything, i thought that would be okay? I knew my memory timings should be something else, i'll look into changing that, but my mobo voltage needs to change?

6.) *EDIT* In response to what you said over how ASUS boards seemingly 'do that' as in they turn on and off momentarily, well , if i turn it ON the fans whir for that split second, then it turns itself off. AFTER that, i press the ON button and it won't turn on, it won't function after that split 'on/off' moment. I then have to proceed with unplugging from the mains, turning the psu off, waiting a minute, then plugging it all back in for it to boot up as normal. Its not really a case of turning itself off and then on again. Could it be short circuiting off the case?

7.)I'll try memtest aswell and get back to you.

What is PEBKAC?!

Once again I can't express how grateful I am for the help im receiving,

Many thanks,

chris

 

[jdkick]

I'd be a little concerned until you can get the BIOS flashed successfully and without error. Before that happens, who knows what's going on with the board.

Originally posted by: nreo
1.)Jterrel, I've ordered myself a PSU tester and it'll be here in the morning - just to clarify, if all everything 'passes' i'll presume the PSU is then 100% not faulty?

Provided you can boot your PC and access the BIOS, how do the voltages look in the h/w monitor (note, this info relates to what your power supply is providing)? Too much of a +/- variance is a bad thing... .5V either way would at least get my attention.

Originally posted by: nreo
If i put things into perspective, I play everything on low ( it helps you see better and i play rather competitively), and the fps i'm getting is around 200 constant. But while its moving, it fluctuates slightly from time to time - so it drops from 200 to 180 or 170 even,then flies back up to 200 within that second. The fluctuation is so great that it becomes visible on screen.

IMO, the drop in FPS (from 200 to 170) would not correlate to the stuttering you're experiencing in-game - 170 FPS is still mad fast. If there is a visible reduction in game performance even tho your FPS is as high as you say it is, then I would look to things like network latency, hard disk access, temperatures, faulty RAM, etc. How exactly are you measuring your FPS?

Originally posted by: nreo
4.) I've updated all my mobo and chipset drivers, and i can't really find where to change the channel of my soundcard but i'll keep looking.

You should be able to configure the sound card/speakers either via the utilities installed with the drivers (note, these utilities can be buggy) or via the Windows sound/speaker control panel.

Originally posted by: nreo
5.) Yes, my bios IS choosing everything, i thought that would be okay? I knew my memory timings should be something else, i'll look into changing that, but my mobo voltage needs to change?

Just make sure everything is on "auto" for starters to be sure you haven't accidentally set the voltage too high for the CPU, memory, etc. As for the memory, what are the factory timings/voltage for your DDR2-800? For troubleshooting purposes, you could try manually setting the timings/voltages for your memory to make sure the timings are not being set too tight and that the memory is not being under/overvolted.

Originally posted by: nreo
6.) *EDIT* In response to what you said over how ASUS boards seemingly 'do that' as in they turn on and off momentarily, well , if i turn it ON the fans whir for that split second, then it turns itself off. AFTER that, i press the ON button and it won't turn on, it won't function after that split 'on/off' moment. I then have to proceed with unplugging from the mains, turning the psu off, waiting a minute, then plugging it all back in for it to boot up as normal. Its not really a case of turning itself off and then on again. Could it be short circuiting off the case?

It's possible. If you'd like, you take everything out of the case and reassemble it on the bench (non-conductive surface of course). Plug in only the basics you need to boot/test.

Originally posted by: nreo
7.)I'll try memtest aswell and get back to you.

Memtest is good. Let it run for a bit... several passes, not just one or two.

Originally posted by: nreo
What is PEBKAC?!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PEBKAC

Try not to take offense. We all have our moments.

 

[imported_wired247]

to answer your question, most game installs are anything but clean, and a good defrag before and after installing a new game is one way to ensure maximum performance.

When I used to play WoW I have had lower framerates before defragging compared to after defragging. This may sound unlikely, but I assure you, it is true, and in any case it only takes a couple hours at MOST (10-15 minutes for me usually) and it is free to try.

I don't really trust the vista defrag option (and haven't been all that impressed with XP defrag either) so that's why I recommended perfect disk

and yeah don't take offense at PEBKAC it's just some light humor

 

[0roo0roo]

pebcak happens a lot when someone doesn't know enough and is very fuzzy on details tries to trouble shoot or build things..and tends to make things worse, or blames wrong components.

you did restore to default factory settings option after the flash right?

If i put things into perspective, I play everything on low ( it helps you see better and i play rather competitively), and the fps i'm getting is around 200 constant. But while its moving, it fluctuates slightly from time to time - so it drops from 200 to 180 or 170 even,then flies back up to 200 within that second. The fluctuation is so great that it becomes visible on screen. When in comparison to my brother, whose set up is as follows:
intel e6600
2gb corsair pc6400
ati 2900xtx

and he averages around 250 constant - all the time, without these niggling 'lag spikes' as they were.

dear god. you cannot tell the difference between 170 and 200 fps unless you are a different species other than human. even crt monitors don't refresh that fast. lcds refresh even slower..you'd be lucky to get 60 actual fully drawn frames per second on an lcd.

and reassemble outside case, make sure you aren't shorting anything on the case or whatever.

 

[Roguestar]

Use nTune to check your videocard temps. It might be overheating causing it to crap itself in games.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/ntune_5.05.54.00.html

 

[jterrell]

1. Definitely use the psu tester and insure you pass. The tester will hopefully test each line. You definitely want to test the power going to your vid card if the vid card seems flaky.

If you do pass on all lines then it is safe to boot.

2. Taking everything apart and troubleshooting piece by piece is good advice always on real nasty issues but if the issue is sporadic performance and not out and out failure it may be harder to apply this here.

My money is on a bad psu first and then on a flaky bios after the fact.
That first mobo going bad is a bad, bad sign for the psu imho.

The good news is you will probably learn a lot during this process. Most everyone learns this stuff the hard way.

Best of Luck!

 

[nreo]

Hey guys im back with a reply after heavy testing and pretty much doing everything you've asked.

1.) PSU tester,
tested it, all green lights, I have an Antec PSU tester and all it required was for my mobo 24pin connector to fly in there and following the instructions all looks good, passed with flying colours....but remember that problem with the 'fans whirring when turned on - for one second, then stopping ( and after that im unable to turn the pc on). Well that happened again, right after re-plugging in the mobo 24pin connector into the mobo. Really strange, so i tried something, i unplugged the 24pin and replugged it into the mobo (with everything else attached). And then tried turning it on... it worked?.. How is this possible? If the psu IS okay like the tester says it is, why does it randomly not turn on and give me the '1 second fan whir'. I thought if the mobo is shorting in the case then it wouldn't be able to boot at all, when in this case all i needed to do was replug in the 24pin power connector into the mobo...

So I tried reproducing the problem and I couldn't, i switched it on and off at will and it was fine. It seems to happen randomly... Stumped here. ALSO checked voltages in the bios and it reads as 5v =5v, 3.3v= 3.33v, 12v= 12.17v

2.) Okay after my earlier BIOS errors, set out and put the bios on a cd, inserted it and loaded up EZ flash, flashed absolutely fine, happy to have sorted that out.

3.)But okay aside from that, MEM Test, did 9 tests and all passed, 0 errors. So im guessing my xm2 corsair ram is fine.

4.) Perfectdisk, seems really good, defragged, but the FPS still drops occasionally, I'm pretty sure this shouldn't happen, something is wrong here.. if others have rock solid stable I should be getting it too, a friend has told me that maybe my cpu and heatsink have an air bubble or that my cpu zalman 9700 isn't seated correctly. I'm pretty sure I did, but i'm not sure about the airflow... I was wondering whether i've actually installed it the wrong way!

My setup looks like this (its not actually my pc, but looks exactly the same as i have a Tsunami Thermaltake case, even though this guy has a custom fan)

http://i2.photobucket.com/albu...Meister45/P7210081.jpg

For me the zalman 9700's fan blows INTO the direction of the case fan, instead of the other way (into the rest of the case? as shown in this pic) have I done it right? Both the case fan and Zalman blow the same way so i just figure the zalman blew its hot air straight out into the case fan which blows it straight out of the case... Or am i completely stupid (pebkac lol?). Not sure here, but it could be the reason why i'm having these lag frame rate spikes.

5.) Lastly, my friend read somewhere about bios flashes causing sound cards to die. i can safely say mine has died, its detected and installed fine, but despite me messing around for a good 2 hours with channels and disabling/enabling digital sound. I'll try it at home in a different PC but it looks bad.

6.) Right, this may be all PEBKAC for me then and I've screwed up my own soundcard.. thats fine. But I need all of you to confirm/help me with it all. Some mind boggling things for me:

If my Soundcard works in another PC, is it possible the bios error flash during asus update could have some how malfunctioned the PCI slots?

If the PSU is in fact dodgy despite passing the tests, could it have already potentially damaged the mobo and/or video card? Leaving my devices half defect?

A million thanks again,

Chris

 

[0roo0roo]

bios flashes do not cause soundcards to die btw.
it just doesn't work that way.
if your soundcard is dead in another pc its dead for its own reasons

as for the rest, you'll just have to stability test them part by part in another pc.
such is pc buid hell.
you have no dell to blame!

 

[nreo]

ah well the soundcard is dead, so i guess not through a bios flash.

i was wondering what your thoughts were on the other bits and pieces i mentioned. i hate bumping this but this is the only real place im getting real constructive answers from.

chris