System lock up/freeze

[Yossarian1]

Hello,

I just recently finished building a system for my father in law, and he's telling me the rig keeps locking up. I haven't ever witnessed the lock up, but it sounds hardware related. Control over the system is completely lost, and no error message is displayed by windows. I haven't found anything in event log either. This is the first modern system I've built, and it works great except for the intermittent lock ups.

Core 2 Quad Q6600
4 GB Patriot DDR3
XFX 790I MOBO
EVGA GeForce 9600GT
650W BMG Tech PSU
750 Samsung SATA HDD
Windows XP Pro 32-bit

The system temp seems to be fine, as I have ample fans and a beefy copper heatsink installed. All of the components are brand new.

Y

 

[robisbell]

you'll need to see these lockups, and do a debug boot to locate where it's locking up at, first.

 

[daveybrat]

You need to go into the bios and make sure that your ram is running at the right voltage. Yours needs either 1.7 or 1.9V depending on what model of Patriot DDR3 you have. A lot of motherboards set the voltage wrong or undervolt it. If it doesn't get the right voltage you'll have lots of lockups and problems.

 

[Yossarian1]

I checked the voltage settings for the memory and it specifies 1.5 volts, which is what the bios detected. It seems like if that is the specified voltage, then that shouldn't be the problem.

Y

 

[Yossarian1]

I had a technician advise me to increase the ram timings, but that didn't resolve the issue. Actually when I upped the ram voltage, I didn't have a freeze for several hours, and when I decreased the voltage I had a freeze again. But, if the ram manufacturer says 1.5v I don't know if that 2/10 of a volt could do damage.

 

[Pulsar]

Just because the bios says you're setting it at a voltage doesn't mean it's true. Do a google and download some software that will tell you actual voltages. It DOES sound like a ram undervolting issue.