Hey guys,
I built my first PC a little over 3 years ago, and am finally running into my first troubles with it. First, here's what's in it now:
MB: DFI LanParty LT P35
CPU: Q6600 @ 3.6 ghz
RAM: 2x2 GB G.SKill DDR2
Video: XFX Radeon 5850 1GB
PSU: Seasonic S12 650W
Sound: HT Omega Striker
DVD: an IDE Panasonic DVD-RW drive
HDD's: 4 different ones from WD & Seagate
Now, the symptoms (sorry this is very long, but this is the strangest set of symptoms I've seen in a PC):
First, the computer does power on every time and always gets through the BIOS and can begin starting Windows 7. Usually, what will happen is I'll be working on the computer and at some point the screen will either flash and then freeze, or just freeze. I'll be forced to restart and then the system will usually hang upon loading Windows. Sometimes it will hang before the windows animated logo with the 4 colors shows up, but most of the time it will just freeze while the windows logo is animating.
From there, if I continue to restart the computer it will continually hang there. If I shut it off for at least a few hours and then turn it on, it will usually startup successfully, only to lockup again anytime from within a few hours to up to a few days. Also, it is worth noting that the frequency of the lockups has increased over time. The first lockup was back in early January, and it didn't occur again until over a week later. At first, the lockups were only happening when I was playing youtube videos or a video game, but now it will also happen when playing music, and once happened when the PC was idle and I wasn't even there (I came back and the screen was just frozen on the desktop).
My first try at fixing it was to fully wipe the AMD video drivers and install the newest ones. After doing that, the lockups temporarily decreased in frequency (the PC was fine for a week), but over the past few days have become more frequent than ever.
Also, there are other strange symptoms that have occurred:
1) Sometimes after the computer locks, if I can get it to restart successfully then 80% of the time only my main (C🙂 drive will show up in windows, and the 3 slaves will be absent. Restarting the computer a 2nd time always fixes this though.
2) All of the icons on my desktop have disappeared after one lockup a few days ago, and have never returned. Looking at the contents of my desktop through the windows folder system shows that the files are still there though.
3) Upon restarting after a lockup on two occasions, the PC didn't hang while trying to start Windows, but instead Windows reported that it couldn't start because of an I/O error that it couldn't diagnose.
So my first guess is that I either have a failing PSU or motherboard, because the I/O error would seem to be the hard drive issue, and my guess is that either the PSU isn't feeding enough power to the hard drives some of the time, or the motherboard has a problem with the connection.
I have run Prime95 & Memtest86 stress tests, and haven't failed any. I ran a Furmark bench on the graphics card and never had an error. I checked the BIOS to see what the voltages were reading from the PSU, and all were within 10% of spec. The one that was furthest away from its target was the +5v line, which read 4.75v.
Disabling the overclock entirely after the computer hardlocks seems to have no effect on whether the computer will successfully start upon reboot. The only thing that seems to help is letting the computer sit for a while. I've open the case and checked all the connections, and all are fine. The fans seem to operate as they always have for all components, but I can't verify this because I never noticed how they operated when the computer was fine.
So anyway, what should I do from here to try to diagnose? Are these seemingly weird errors a textbook case of a specific type of hardware failure? My first guess is the PSU because after over 3 years of powering an overclocked Q6600 system that once also had a 4870X2 in it, maybe it can't provide enough power now? Whatever component that is failing seems to getting worse...
A friend is sending me a backup 8800GT that I can switch my 5850 out with. Originally I thought the 5850 was dying because the first lockups occurred only when doing something video related (usually youtube), but have since occurred often with sound or nothing at all happening. Also, would using the 8800GT tell me much if it stops locking up? The failing PSU (if it is indeed failing) might still be able to handle the lower power req's of the 8800GT.
I appreciate any help and suggestions.
I built my first PC a little over 3 years ago, and am finally running into my first troubles with it. First, here's what's in it now:
MB: DFI LanParty LT P35
CPU: Q6600 @ 3.6 ghz
RAM: 2x2 GB G.SKill DDR2
Video: XFX Radeon 5850 1GB
PSU: Seasonic S12 650W
Sound: HT Omega Striker
DVD: an IDE Panasonic DVD-RW drive
HDD's: 4 different ones from WD & Seagate
Now, the symptoms (sorry this is very long, but this is the strangest set of symptoms I've seen in a PC):
First, the computer does power on every time and always gets through the BIOS and can begin starting Windows 7. Usually, what will happen is I'll be working on the computer and at some point the screen will either flash and then freeze, or just freeze. I'll be forced to restart and then the system will usually hang upon loading Windows. Sometimes it will hang before the windows animated logo with the 4 colors shows up, but most of the time it will just freeze while the windows logo is animating.
From there, if I continue to restart the computer it will continually hang there. If I shut it off for at least a few hours and then turn it on, it will usually startup successfully, only to lockup again anytime from within a few hours to up to a few days. Also, it is worth noting that the frequency of the lockups has increased over time. The first lockup was back in early January, and it didn't occur again until over a week later. At first, the lockups were only happening when I was playing youtube videos or a video game, but now it will also happen when playing music, and once happened when the PC was idle and I wasn't even there (I came back and the screen was just frozen on the desktop).
My first try at fixing it was to fully wipe the AMD video drivers and install the newest ones. After doing that, the lockups temporarily decreased in frequency (the PC was fine for a week), but over the past few days have become more frequent than ever.
Also, there are other strange symptoms that have occurred:
1) Sometimes after the computer locks, if I can get it to restart successfully then 80% of the time only my main (C🙂 drive will show up in windows, and the 3 slaves will be absent. Restarting the computer a 2nd time always fixes this though.
2) All of the icons on my desktop have disappeared after one lockup a few days ago, and have never returned. Looking at the contents of my desktop through the windows folder system shows that the files are still there though.
3) Upon restarting after a lockup on two occasions, the PC didn't hang while trying to start Windows, but instead Windows reported that it couldn't start because of an I/O error that it couldn't diagnose.
So my first guess is that I either have a failing PSU or motherboard, because the I/O error would seem to be the hard drive issue, and my guess is that either the PSU isn't feeding enough power to the hard drives some of the time, or the motherboard has a problem with the connection.
I have run Prime95 & Memtest86 stress tests, and haven't failed any. I ran a Furmark bench on the graphics card and never had an error. I checked the BIOS to see what the voltages were reading from the PSU, and all were within 10% of spec. The one that was furthest away from its target was the +5v line, which read 4.75v.
Disabling the overclock entirely after the computer hardlocks seems to have no effect on whether the computer will successfully start upon reboot. The only thing that seems to help is letting the computer sit for a while. I've open the case and checked all the connections, and all are fine. The fans seem to operate as they always have for all components, but I can't verify this because I never noticed how they operated when the computer was fine.
So anyway, what should I do from here to try to diagnose? Are these seemingly weird errors a textbook case of a specific type of hardware failure? My first guess is the PSU because after over 3 years of powering an overclocked Q6600 system that once also had a 4870X2 in it, maybe it can't provide enough power now? Whatever component that is failing seems to getting worse...
A friend is sending me a backup 8800GT that I can switch my 5850 out with. Originally I thought the 5850 was dying because the first lockups occurred only when doing something video related (usually youtube), but have since occurred often with sound or nothing at all happening. Also, would using the 8800GT tell me much if it stops locking up? The failing PSU (if it is indeed failing) might still be able to handle the lower power req's of the 8800GT.
I appreciate any help and suggestions.
