Please help diagnose my PC

[Tifababy]

I built a (mostly) new computer in January and yesterday it would no longer boot.

The parts are:

Intel e6750
2gb Crucial DDR2 pc6400
Abit IP35-E mobo
8800 GT 512mb
WD 250gb SATA
old 120gb PATA drive
old Sony DVD-RW drive
Antec True430 Power supply

I originally RMA'ed the ram when I first got it because I was getting BSOD. Then everything was great for about a month. Then the BSOD started to pop up again. I ran memtest86 yesterday and one of the ram sticks was showing millions of errors. So I thought I'd try booting with just the good stick of ram. When I did this, the computer would no longer boot. The power supply and cpu fan spin for about 2 seconds, then shut off. This cycles over and over until I turn off the power supply.

I'm thinking that the problem is that my PSU is dead or isn't powerful enough. But I thought I'd get some more opinions before I try to convince my wife that I need a new PSU.

Moved from General Hardware
General Hardware Moderator -- MarcVenice

 

[Tifababy]

I reset the BIOS and now the computer booted, but I'll have to wait and see how stable it is. Hopefully it's still running when I get home from work.

 

[Tifababy]

The computer ran fine all day. I got home and started watching a DVD on my computer. About 3/4 of the way through I got a BSOD. I rebooted and watched the end of the movie. A couple hours later I went back to my computer and instead of being at the desktop like I left it, it was at the console asking me if I wanted to start windows normally or use my last known good configuration. I tried start windows normally and while booting windows, a BSOD flashed real quick and then the computer rebooted. Since then I have not been able to boot back to windows. I did some searching on google and found some info on the ard forums saying that the antec TruePower 430W is a piece of junk. I knew it was old, so today I bit the bullet and bought a PC Power & Cooling 610W PSU from newegg.

Since I bought the parts to this computer in Dec it's been nothing but trouble. Hopefully the PSU was the root cause of everything and this will fix it.

 

[Muse]

My Antec True430 died a week ago, fried by the mobo, evidently. It did no such thing to my other PSU, a Corsair HX520w, which says something for the Corsair. I too have heard some negative things about that Antec PSU.

You could test the PSU to at least see what the voltages are using a multimeter.

What OS are you running?


Here's a good site to help you test your PSU

 

[Tifababy]

I installed the PC Power & Cooling PSU last night and this morning was the first time in 2-3 weeks that my computer did not crash while I was sleeping. I'm going to give it a few more days before I call it fixed, but I think the aging Antec PSU was the problem.

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: Tifababy
I installed the PC Power & Cooling PSU last night and this morning was the first time in 2-3 weeks that my computer did not crash while I was sleeping. I'm going to give it a few more days before I call it fixed, but I think the aging Antec PSU was the problem.

When you finally figure out what was wrong it's like coming out the other side of a completely dark tunnel. It appears now that the root cause of my losing my MB, two video cards and one PSU two weeks ago was an unruly MB. A replacement (not RMA, but an ebay purchase) should arrive any day.

 

[Tifababy]

Unfortunately, my PC was continuing to give me BSOD over the weekend despite the new PSU. So I went ahead and wiped the HDD clean and formatted. Since Saturday morning everything has been much better. I think the windows installation was really screwed up after constantly crashing over the last couple weeks. Now I'm pretty confident that the PC is finally running smooth again!

 

[Muse]

A fresh install of Windows has solved many problems.

 

[bruceb]

It could still be bad memory, bad video card / drivers
or maybe, just a flaky cmos battery. Also possibly,
since you built it yourself, the cpu heatsink / fan was
not properly mounted and thermal paste properly applied.

Also if you are overclocking, then set everything back
to defaults & see if it stays stable.

 

[Tifababy]

It's better, but still not perfect. Last night I got the BSOD again and it automatically rebooted and when it tried to load windows, a BSOD flashed real quick and rebooted again. I flipped the power switch on the PSU and this morning it booted fine. If I have time, I'm going to run memtest86 overnight tonight to see if that finds any problems. I've been reading online and it seems that Crucial has had quite a few defective ram sticks lately.

I never thought about a bad CMOS battery. Could random BSOD becaused by a cmos battery? I would expect a bad cmos battery would cause the bios to randomly reset.

I'm not overclocking right now, the only thing I've changed in the BIOS is the boot order and to adjust the voltage on my ram from the default of 1.8v to 2.2v as recommended by crucial.

 

[Tifababy]

I've been on vacation, but I got back a couple days ago and my computer is again not happy. I ran memtest and after 100 million errors on 1 stick of ram (slot 1, 3 errors on slot 0). I was frustrated, so I turned off the computer and watched tv for a while. A couple hours later I came back and switched the slots the two sticks of ram were in. I ran memtest86 and it made it through the first pass with no errors. I thought everything was going to be fine now. The computer worked fine for the rest of the day. I woke up the next morning with the windows splash screen frozen. I ran memtest again and right away errors started to add up on slot 0. So I now figured that the one stick of ram was bad. I took that one out and tried running with 1gb. Everything was ok for a couple hours and now it's consistently crashing after a couple hours.

Could it be that the ram is overheating? I'm 95% sure that this is a ram problem, but I guess it could be a motherboard problem, but I hope that isn't the case. I sent an email to crucial asking about cross shipping to RMA the ram so that I'm not without a computer for 3 weeks like I was when I RMAed the ram the first time to newegg.

 

[RadiclDreamer]

It could be overheating, but then again it could be power supply related

 

[Tifababy]

Originally posted by: RadiclDreamer
It could be overheating, but then again it could be power supply related

I just bought a brand new 610W PC Power & Cooling PSU a few weeks ago, so I don't think it's related to the power supply.

 

[Tifababy]

Problem solved! Got RMA'ed the second set of ram and got a third. Now my PC has been rock solid for a week with no crashes. I always though crucial was a highly recommended company when it came to RAM, but maybe I was wrong. I did notice a lot of bad reviews and RMAs when I was searching to determine the problem with my PC.

 

[TeeJay1952]

Originally posted by: Tifababy
Problem solved! Got RMA'ed the second set of ram and got a third. Now my PC has been rock solid for a week with no crashes. I always though crucial was a highly recommended company when it came to RAM, but maybe I was wrong. I did notice a lot of bad reviews and RMAs when I was searching to determine the problem with my PC.

They stood by their product. You needed 2 swaps but they got it right eventually which is all you can hope for. You were saying that you had a new PS so you were sort of positive it wasn't that. But as seen by the memory that needed 2 exchanges you can't rule anything out. You just have to chase symptoms.
Tee Jay