My desktop is barely functional

[alevasseur14]

Usually I'm pretty good at solving the little issues that come up from time to time with my machine. This must be a big issue, though, as I can't seem to nail it down. This is going to be a really long post so I'm going to thank everyone in advance for toughing through it!

About 2 months ago, I upgraded to 4GB memory and installed Vista 64. After negotiating around the 3GB install limit on nVidia chipsets (what a joke!) I was on my way. Things were great until I upgraded from my 20" widescreen monitor with a secondary 17" monitor to a 24" widescreen with the 20" now acting as the secondary. They both run through DVI. I shut everything down, hooked up the new monitors, and couldn't get the thing to boot up. Finally I unhooked the 20", got it started, and then hooked the 20" back up.

Things were great except I started getting these weird bluescreens that pointed to improper SCSI device removal. I also couldn't play movies in any player anymore, as they all skipped every couple seconds. Last but not least, I'd occasionally have problems getting the machine to wake up out of hibernation. I'd bluescreen and restart immediately. If I went into safe mode and then restarted, I'd be fine. For some reason, my SATA DVD drives show up in the device manager as SCSI devices so I disabled them and things were good for about 2 weeks.

Now, I can't even get the machine to start up 80 percent of the time and when I do, it completely freezes about 10-20 minutes later. Now, there are a couple things happening that I can't quite piece together. When I'm having problems getting it started, my monitors behave strangely. They will both come on until it bluescreens, then the 24" will go into standby but the 20" just stays on until I manually turn it off. Also, when the POST screen comes up, usually it just flashes really quickly. However, when the computer won't start, it'll come up with the BIOS version and whatnot and then it just stops. It doesn't show the CPU installed, the amount of memory, or the drives attached.

Like I said, this is a really long post and I appreciate everyone reading this. I just need to get a feel for what component is going bad. Full system specs below.

MB: EVGA 680i SLI
CPU: Intel E6600
Video: EVGA 8800 GTS KO edition
Memory: 4x1GB Crucial Ballistix
DVD drives: 2 Lite On SATA burners
PSU: Seasonic 500 watt (about 3 years old)
Monitors: Dell 2408 WS and 2005 WS

If I forgot anything, let me know and I'll add it to the post. Thanks again!

 

[RadiclDreamer]

Have you tried removing the memory or testing it to make sure it isnt a bad stick?

 

[alevasseur14]

I did forget to add the fact that I let Memtest+ 86 run all day yesterday while I was at work. It finished 15 passes with no errors.

 

[robisbell]

just 15 passes? were you gone a couple of hours? I'd manually test the PSU, and install PC Wizard to monitor power when the system is up and running. I think it's the fact the video card is either does not have enough oomph, or needs more power to run dual monitors.
try setting the resolution on both to something like 800x600 or 1024x768.

 

[alevasseur14]

I thought 15 was quite a few passes. It ran for 12 hours or so.

I'll try changing the resolution and see if that keeps it more stable.

Thanks!

 

[alevasseur14]

I know it's not long enough to know for sure, but I unhooked my second monitor completely and haven't had a bluescreen or reboot yet. It's only been a day but so far so good.

Now, if this keeps up, is this more of a power supply issue or a video card issue? As much as I'd like to be forced to get a newer video card, doing so would probably necessitate a new power supply anyways. Haha. What do you guys think?

 

[robisbell]

need to know the make and model of PSU, and also the rsults of manually testing the PSU with and without a load on it.

 

[cubby1223]

(1) 15 passes of memtest is good enough. Unless I really suspect a problem, I give memtest not even a full pass before declaring the memory good.

(2) An 8800 GTS is more than capable of handling dual monitors, if there's a problem, it is something gone bad, not that it is incapable. Power supply should be sufficient. Monitors do not draw power from the PSU, they have the plug that goes directly to a wall outlet. Any extra power drawn from the video card is minimal at best.

I'd look for a bios update. Then I'd search around google, I seem to notice a higher number of unexplained issues around here involving people with eVGA motherboards.

 

[alevasseur14]

Like I said, it's a Seasonic 500 watt. I believe the model number is S12. I know the monitors don't draw power from the video card, I just thought that maybe having two high res monitors was stressing it out more, thus making the video card draw more power from the powersupply.

I've looked for BIOS updates but eVGA hasn't issued one since January... I'll see if I can borrow a multimeter from work.

 

[robisbell]

since it's power related, and the system only errors out when the unit tries booting with 2 monitors connected, and the only way to run 2 monitors is with proper amount of power and proper hardware. therefore, the 1st step is to test the PSU, once it has been 100% cleared of the issue, then look at the video card, then the OS. the 1st rule is to always make sure you have more than enough power, and that it is functioning 100%. power, power,power, a old tech back in the day taught me, and it still holds true, since without proper or dependable power, a computer is a paperweight.

 

[alevasseur14]

I appreciate all your help, robisbell, and everyone else. Although, I'm a bit disappointed again. When I was home between jobs today, I reenabled my DVD drives. All was well. Just for giggles I restarted to see what would happen. Bluescreen and trouble getting it running again, that's what. I have no idea whats going on....

 

[alevasseur14]

I've got good news to report back with. I ordered a 650 watt SeaSonic, spent a day tearing out the old one and rewiring the new one and haven't had a problem since. Boots up, stays running, hibernates, games, burns DVDs with no problems.

It was down so long I forgot how much I loved using it!

Edit: thanks to everyone for hashing this out with me. Power supply problems are super frusterating!