Pick up the glove and try to help me!

[Battalion23]

Ok... I'm not kidding, this is the biggest problem I've ever encountered, and it's killing me, slowly.

It all started roughly two months ago, I installed SubtitleCreator , and it crashed my OS. I mean crashed... before it finished loading, my cursor stopped, the keyboard won't respond, and after a few presses I got one pc speaker beep. nothing else to do but a hard reset.

Tried the Subtitlecreator forum, and didn't help. I tried going back to .net framework 2, but it didn't work. heck, I gave up on SubtitleCreator.

a couple days later I installed VLC video player. Same thing... crashed on startup.

a couple of days later it happened with Quicktime.

Wierd things happened in safe mode, and some of the programs worked... then later in regular mode, some got farther along the way before crashing my os...

thought maybe one of the HDD's is problematic. one by one I formatted and reinstalled xp, and one by one they all crashed with the exact same symptom.

We (me and some forum helpers from different places) decided it's hardware. I played with the Ram sticks, tried only one, tried on in the other slot, tried the other, then in the other slot... crashed everytime. I checked temperatures and loads... all was ok. gave a hijackthis log file and turned out ok. uninstalled my protection, maybe one was crashing a curtein video component... didn't work.

I was looking for a replacement video card (express) and while I was examining my old one, I saw that 4 out of 10 capacitors on it are blown... well, it still worked, but in my mind I figured out that it's partially working, and crashing when it's under load...

Ordered a new one (9500gt, evga), just got it today, started over, new os, all the neccessary updates, all my programs... and... crash, boom, bang. tried subtitlecreator - crashed, same exact symptoms. tried to play a music file on vlc, crashed. tried video file, crashed.
right now it's playing a video file on Winamp, been doing it for 15 min... no problems...

I'm lost. seriously... anyone encoutered anything like this before? is it the mobo? is it the psu? is it the cpu? trust me, I don't have the time nor the money to replace them all, and even if I did, I think that if I do it and the problem stays... I'll jump out the window (second floor, but trust me, it'll hurt).

mobo: ecs pt-890A
cpu: e6400
psu: antec earthwatts 430w


HELP!

 

[WoodButcher]

I don't know, it seems you have followed the normal steps for troubleshooting but parts replacement is the only way I know of. You need a pc to test with. My first thought when I read your specs was mobo. I have never heard a good comment on ECS other than cheap.

 

[RebateMonger]

Speaking of capacitors. I recently looked at another ECS motherboard that was randomly crashing, and discovered bulged capacitors. Sometimes it'd boot, sometimes not. Sometimes it'd run for a while and then freeze or reboot itself in some random program.

I'd done extensive troubleshooting on that system (including memory, disk, and power supply), and hadn't found a cause up to that point.

 

[Blazer]

run the EXTENDED test on the os hard drive, and only use the hardware that is needed when running test.

run memtest86 on 1 stick at a time for atleast 2 hrs each.

if running xp as a os use cpu burn and max heat settings while speedfan is configured and running and watch temps do go over 70c for 2 hours.

 

[Battalion23]

wow, fast replies.

Thanks, first of all.


cheap... yeah, unfortunatly, against all logic, the worst part of my desktop is the mobo... fry's deal, and I wanted the cpu at that price...

after the video card capacitors I looked at all capacitors on the mobo... if it was that obvious, I thought I'll see it... didn't find any bloated or broken on the mobo.

what's the extended test on the hard drive? can hard drives really give such a "violent" crash, always on those kinds of programs?

I'll run memtest tonight.
thing is, the desktop has worked before and is now working non stop for... weeks, I'm not kidding. I can have it idling, downloading , or playing something on winamp... the minute I touch Subtitlecreator or vlc, crash.

I have speedfan, but I didn't quite figure out what you want me to do.

I don't have a stock heatsink&fan, I have a thermalright xp-90c, quite huge. maybe the connection got loose and thermal paste dry... and heat is shutting me down? wouldn't cpu heat problems restart the os?

Thanks for helping! (off to work)

 

[Blazer]

run memtest86 first, on each stick at a time, when testing pc hardware run all the test on 1 stick alone in the same slot during all troubleshooting.

all hard drive manufactures provide a testing utility for diagnostic work, its downloadable from thier website, there are basic and extended test, the extended test is what a harddrive must pass, in some cases it will find problems and fix em, sometimes it will issue a diagnostic code to be shared with the manufacture if its under warranty.

run checkdisk on the disk from windows boot and allow it to fix any errors present.

are you sure the problem programs are compatable with your os, fully updated.

speedfan correctly configured can provide a means to monitor the temps and fan speed.

while at the same time stressing the system with a utility like cpu burn in max temp mode to see if the system will crash from overheating.