OK, hope this is the correct forum here...not sure if it should have gone into the SW forum...
Anyway, i built a new PC
- amd64 x2 3800
- epox 9npa+ ultra nforce 4ultra mobo - now using latest 6.70 nvidia drivers
- ati x800xl pci express video
- 1 gig corsair value RAM (2 x 512MB sticks) - slots 1 and 2
- 250G seagate sata 1 hdd
- 250G (older) IDE seagate hdd
- Win XP Pro SP2
Antec Sonata II case, Zalman CPU Cooler.
So, seemingly a pretty nice unit, mid-ish range, but should do me for a while!
Case runs at the low to mid 30's (C) and CPU at mid to hig 30's, sometimes low 40's. Although the rooms are cooler now in the midwest, so i am sure it would get hotter in the summer.
Problems seen intermittently so far:
- leave PC on for quite a while - return to see it still running, but monitor turned off - hit space bar etc, move mouse - PC does not wake up
- used a external hdd on a usb2.0 interface to copy a large amount of backed up music to my new hdd - PC hung several times attempting this - had to eventually do it in small chunks by hand (was copying data from the external drive to the IDE drive above)
- PC freezes when doing minor things such as browsing, moving a few files etc.
** Above problems seen previous versions of nvidia nforce drivers. I have only run 6.70 for 1 day now so will report if i see the above bad behaviour more.
I have not had this PC long (a week) so have not yet run any great stressing programs or even run benchmarking, stress testing, burn in programs etc on it. So, it is distressing that the PC is already showing a lack of stability under such minimal usage.
I have checked the seatings of all HW, checked cables etc and i am sure the temperature is not a problem at this stage.
Can anyone recommend:
- what i might focus on as potential cause(s) here? Does anyone have a similar configuration and know of a valid sw/driver setup that is stable?
- what would be the quickest and most reliable method of trouble shooting this? At this point i don't even know if it is HW or SW, but i expect SW. I don't have a lot to back this up. However, after installing windows and before installing the nvidia drivers and some of my other SW, i don't recall seeing any problems...I probably should have ran it in this 'fresh/clean' state longer to get a good benchmark...will do this on my next re-install!
- what programs would be best to use to burn in the hw, stress it and benchmark it?
thanks,
Brett
Anyway, i built a new PC
- amd64 x2 3800
- epox 9npa+ ultra nforce 4ultra mobo - now using latest 6.70 nvidia drivers
- ati x800xl pci express video
- 1 gig corsair value RAM (2 x 512MB sticks) - slots 1 and 2
- 250G seagate sata 1 hdd
- 250G (older) IDE seagate hdd
- Win XP Pro SP2
Antec Sonata II case, Zalman CPU Cooler.
So, seemingly a pretty nice unit, mid-ish range, but should do me for a while!
Case runs at the low to mid 30's (C) and CPU at mid to hig 30's, sometimes low 40's. Although the rooms are cooler now in the midwest, so i am sure it would get hotter in the summer.
Problems seen intermittently so far:
- leave PC on for quite a while - return to see it still running, but monitor turned off - hit space bar etc, move mouse - PC does not wake up
- used a external hdd on a usb2.0 interface to copy a large amount of backed up music to my new hdd - PC hung several times attempting this - had to eventually do it in small chunks by hand (was copying data from the external drive to the IDE drive above)
- PC freezes when doing minor things such as browsing, moving a few files etc.
** Above problems seen previous versions of nvidia nforce drivers. I have only run 6.70 for 1 day now so will report if i see the above bad behaviour more.
I have not had this PC long (a week) so have not yet run any great stressing programs or even run benchmarking, stress testing, burn in programs etc on it. So, it is distressing that the PC is already showing a lack of stability under such minimal usage.
I have checked the seatings of all HW, checked cables etc and i am sure the temperature is not a problem at this stage.
Can anyone recommend:
- what i might focus on as potential cause(s) here? Does anyone have a similar configuration and know of a valid sw/driver setup that is stable?
- what would be the quickest and most reliable method of trouble shooting this? At this point i don't even know if it is HW or SW, but i expect SW. I don't have a lot to back this up. However, after installing windows and before installing the nvidia drivers and some of my other SW, i don't recall seeing any problems...I probably should have ran it in this 'fresh/clean' state longer to get a good benchmark...will do this on my next re-install!
- what programs would be best to use to burn in the hw, stress it and benchmark it?
thanks,
Brett
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