My new system is unstable!

[lozina]

Ok so I just finished building my new PC, the components are as follows:

ASUS A8N-SLI
AMD Athlon 64 3200+
Alpha PAL 8150 HS w/ 80mm Delta fan
2x Crucial 512 Mb DDR PC3200 RAM
Enermax 535W Whisper 2
Seagate Cheetah 36Gb X15 Ultra160 SCSI HD
Adaptec 29160 Ultra160 SCSI controller
Plextor PX-716 DVD Burner (SATA interface)
XFX GeForce 6800 GT
SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS

The HD/controller was from an older system, I popped it into my new system as it was and booted using the Windows CD, I let windows delete the partition and reformat it. Once the format was done it started to copy file- and something wierd happened- it couldn't copy some win*something*.sys file. This must have been an omen of things to come.. I clicked retry and it continued with no more problems...

Installation completes and I start installing motherboard drivers from the CD. Then I do my first reboot. The windows bootup screen (with the progress bar) completes in about 5 seconds then it goes to a black screen. I expect the logon screen to appear any minute now.... any minute now.. .it never shows up. After 5 minutes I shut it down and reboot.

It boots up fast this time, and now I pop in the CD for the audio drivers, waiting for Autorun to kick in... waiting... nothing happens. I try to move the mouse. WTF- it's frozen. I hit CTRL + ALT + DEL- nothing!

I try rebooting again, windows finishes it's progress bar screen and then again the black screen before logon just hangs there! Ugh...

What a disappointment. Any ideas what can be going on? My first thought it maybe bad RAM. The RAM was a bit more tricky than the older PCs I built, it has dual channel so I had to put the pair in certain slots according to the mobo. Think I should runa mem tester? I never ran one, would you kindly suggest one for me? Do I just let them run and it does all the work or do I have to know how to analyze it's results?


Cliff Notes: bought new parts, installed windows and I'm getting strange bootup hangs and system freeze. Help me diagnose the problem

edit: I should also mention, I have not touched a single overclocking feature, and as I've monitored the temps it's been between 37 and 40 degrees celcius (40 right after installing windows)

 

[lozina]

Update:

2 more reboots I got the black screen hang befor windows logon
next reboot I got to the screen that says 'Welcome' but then it froze

now it finally rebooted into windows and I got a message that may indicate what's going on:

"The NVIDIA System Sentinel is reporting that the NVIDIA-powered graphics card is not receiving sufficient power

...

the graphics processor has lowered its performance to a level that allows continued safe operations."

click on troubleshoot and it says to make sure the supplemental power is plugged in.

I know I've connected all 3 power connections on the motherboard... the big 24-pin main power plug, the 6-pin 12v connector which says is supposed to provide "stable current to your graphics card" and a 4-pin connector that you usually use for pre-SATA devices

 

[lozina]

Another update..

I think I know what it is now..


In regards to the previous post- I actually did not know about the extra power connector directly on the video card But that doesn't seem to have anything to do with the problem I'm having, as shortly thereafter as I popped in the audo cd to install dirvers it froze again.

Well it looks like it's that DVD rom drive actually. It is very consistent... if a CD is in the drive when I boot up, I tend to get that black screen hang. And just about everytime I pop in a CD while it is booted, it freezes. It could be with the way I plugged in the device come to think of it... I now remember I plugged the drive into the SATA2 connection thinking I had a SATA hard drive to put into the 1st slot... and later I never realized I had no other SATA devices... could this be the problem? Gonna switch it now... (praying)

 

[Melchior]

Unplug the 6 pin, its only for SLI setups.
So your saying you DO have a powercord running directly to yoru 6800GT correct?

Go into your BIOS and check your rails, specifically the 12V. And try switching to antoher PS.

Do you get a blue screen of death? or just a black screen?

I remember when I used to get the Bluescreens when accessing the CD from almost teh same setup, and it is most definately the memory that was causing it.

 

[CheesePoofs]

Run memtest86 on the ram. It goes onto a floppy, and you just pop in the floppy and let it run. If you get a bunch of errors, try one stick at a time; one of them may be bad.

 

[lozina]

Yeah I plugged in the 6-pin now, because of that message that NVIDIA Sentinel gave me. You're saying I should not have it plugged in?

Scratch the SATA slot idea... changed my DVD drive to slot 1, popped in CD and again it freezes.

What exactly should I look for in the BIOS in regards to the 12V, make sure the voltage is correct?

I still have the PS that came with my case, I think a 320W from Antec. Should I try that?

 

[lozina]

Originally posted by: CheesePoofs
Run memtest86 on the ram. It goes onto a floppy, and you just pop in the floppy and let it run. If you get a bunch of errors, try one stick at a time; one of them may be bad.

Doh, it only runs on floppy? I didn't get a floppy for this computer- figured I'd never need 'em again Can I burn it onto a bootable CD at least? That will be quicker than swapping a floppy from another PC

 

[lozina]

I haven't had any problems when I keep the DVD rom tray open hence nothing for it to read... Do you think it's possible a faulty DVD rom could cause my system to freeze?

the only problem is.. i used the cdrom to install windows AND the motherboard drivers.. but no cd has worked since then.

 

[lozina]

Ok, I burned the memtester on cdrom and have been running it now for 20 minutes, it went through 1 pass by now which had 0 errors. Does it keep going or does it do a certain # of passes then stop?

Also, about the voltage- my BIOS says the 12V is actually 11.77. the 6v is 5.99

 

[Melchior]

First, what is happening when your comp locks? Blue screen or black screen? Blue screen is usually memory. Black screen might mean something else.

 

[lozina]

well, if I'm in Windows, the windows graphics remains. Everything though is frozen- mouse wont move, clicking windows keys or trying to use hotkeys does nothing, CTRL + ALT + DEL nothing... everything frozen.

the other case was when booting up, there's normally this brief black screen between the screen that has the windows bootup progress bar and the login screen- sometimes it sits on that black screen indefinitely.

The final case was when it started loading the logon screen, with the blue background and says "Welcome" but no user accounts displayed yet and it just froze there... but this happened only once.

The only consistent thing I can see is that every time it froze, there was either a CD in the tray inside the DVDROM (when booting up and getting the black screen frozen) or when I just put a CD into the tray and closed the tray waiting for autorun.

 

[jose]

go to the motherboard forum, read my post close to the end of the 2 threads:
Official A8N-SLI dlx & Are you happy w/ your A8n-sli

I fought for 3-4 weeks w/ that mobo. check my sig, my 3rd system is the one w/ the a8n. I now am getting a Ultra-D..
In my second system my Ultra-D has been working for over 3 weeks w/ zero problems in XPsp2 & RH 3.0 Linux.

Good Luck,
Regards,
Jose

 

[lozina]

Well, I don't think it's fair for me to blame the motherboard yet, as so far everything seems fine as long as I don't fiddle around the with DVDROM, which is a shame because I'm a die-hard Plextor fan. I will give them a call tomorrow and see what they say.

I just installed EVE online and played it for an hour. No problems. And I've never gotten one of those freezes when there was no CD in the DVDROM...

but then again this could mean something is up with the SATA interface which would be a part of the motherboard...

I'm kinda lost at what to try now except call Plextor and ASUS tomorrow for some help

 

[Nocturnal]

Man, your setup is very similar to what's coming in the mail. I kinda had a feeling to pick up the DFI but for some reason I went with the normal, ASUS. I'm hoping I made the right decision and won't be without a computer for very long.

 

[lozina]

You know what, after stopping and thinking about everything and reviewing my notes- it was only after I installed windows and then popped in the cd that came with motherboard to install their drivers when I started having these lockups. Ever since then everytime I put a CD into the DVDROM it locks up. I bet those drivers I installed are f'ed up. When I get a chance to tinker with the system again I'll see what drivers are available from the ASUS web site.

 

[lozina]

Update:

I have been running apps on my computer for almost a week now with no problems as long as I don't touch the CDROM. Finally I decided to try and fix the problem so I called ASUS and the tech support guy told me to download the latest nForce drivers off nVidia's web site (I was looking on the ASUS web site). I did that and now everything is fine... can pop in a CD and it won't freeze my OS!

So if anyone else out there has a SATA drive with this motherboard I highly recommend immediately downloading nVidia's newest nForce drivers!

And I love this new PC, boot time is incredible and it runs very smooth. Maybe later I will try overclocking a bit.