Hello, everyone. I?m a computer technician at a locally owned repair shop and I?ve encountered a job that?s so mind-boggling, I?m turning to strangers for help. I?ll start by telling you exactly what it is I?m working on, and then I?ll detail the specifics of what I?ve done. If there?s a format I should be using (I didn?t see a sticky or anything), I?ll gladly update this to reflect that layout.
* Microsoft Windows Vista Business running XP Pro
* Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz 8M Processor
* 4GB PC6400 800MHz DDR2 Dual Channel Memory (1GB x 4)
* Intel DQ35JO S775 mATX Motherboard
* 500GB 7200RPM 3G SATA II Hard Drive
* GeForce 8600GT 512MB PCIE Video (1DVI / 1VGA)
* 350 Watt Power Supply
* 20X DVDRW Dual Layer + 16X DVD ROM Drive
* 9-in-1 USB Card Reader
The astute among you will notice the minuscule power supply. This is an Infotel built computer and while they?ve not been useless, they haven?t been able to help me pinpoint my current problem.
It first came in with the report of ?running too slowly.? And on first boot, I definitely agreed. XP took a good two minutes to fully load. Any basic explorer functions like opening a folder took approximately four to six seconds. Yikes. So, I began poking around in the BIOS and found that the RAM was set to nominal, 6-5-5-18. The correct timing is 5-5-5-12 for this particular RAM so once I set it, it began to behave completely normally. Except once games were loaded, it?d crash. Once I found out the power supply was only 350w and that 8600GTs require that as a minimum, not including the Intel Quad Core monster sitting a few inches above it in the case, I called Infotel and they very promptly shipped us a 500w power supply to install in the unit.
Once the new power supply was installed, the computer ran as expected: load times were excellent. And so we sent the computer home with him.
He calls back two weeks later and said, ?It was working fine for the first week, but now it?s just as slow as before.?
Sure enough, it was running like crap. I did a cursory examination of the software to make sure he hadn?t installed any malware or any crap. We had previously given him several preventative measures like AVG Free and Spybot S&D, and none of those reported any anomalies, nor were there any indication that he had used the machine much at all. Even BIOS was running slowly when I went in to make sure that the timing on the RAM was still correct. I updated video drivers from nvidia.com; flashed BIOS from intel.com; and I even regreased and remounted the processor. The Seagate hdd test and the Drive Fitness Test came back totally fine.
I removed one stick of RAM and booted the computer. Voila! Works totally fine. ?Easy enough,? I thought to myself. ?It?s just a bad slot or a bad stick.? Nope. Switching the RAM around yielded the same results. And when I put the 4th stick back in, it began running normally again. Seriously. I pulled it back out and began booting with random RAM sticks in random slots; everything worked fine with 2, 3, and 4 sticks of RAM in any combination of slots.
I spent two days running the computer with some serious loads from benchmarks (3D Mark, SANDRA) to iTunes, Windows Media Player with a DVD, and a game all running. I maintained this level of intensity for hours at a time with no overheating or lag issues. I attempted completely removing the paging file and then re-enabling it, and the performance difference was nil. It was running exactly like it should have.
I finally resigned myself to giving it back to the customer (who is very polite and patient) and telling him the moment sometime goes wrong to bring it right back to us. I was really disappointed I wasn?t able to ?break? it again to see where the problem was.
I was finishing up my paperwork and getting ready to carry the now-disconnected computer to the other room after I got off the phone with him, and my coworker asked me if I had re-enabled the paging file. I hadn?t, and to the best of my understanding, you don?t need to have a HUGE page file, and that approximately 100 or so megs minimum is plenty. I plugged it back in, and then it started running crappily again.
I turned the page file back on, restarted, and it kept running crappily. I turned it off, restarted, and it was still running crappily.
Every time I try to pin down exactly what?s going wrong with this, it avoids the variables I set up.
So, what do you all think?
* Microsoft Windows Vista Business running XP Pro
* Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz 8M Processor
* 4GB PC6400 800MHz DDR2 Dual Channel Memory (1GB x 4)
* Intel DQ35JO S775 mATX Motherboard
* 500GB 7200RPM 3G SATA II Hard Drive
* GeForce 8600GT 512MB PCIE Video (1DVI / 1VGA)
* 350 Watt Power Supply
* 20X DVDRW Dual Layer + 16X DVD ROM Drive
* 9-in-1 USB Card Reader
The astute among you will notice the minuscule power supply. This is an Infotel built computer and while they?ve not been useless, they haven?t been able to help me pinpoint my current problem.
It first came in with the report of ?running too slowly.? And on first boot, I definitely agreed. XP took a good two minutes to fully load. Any basic explorer functions like opening a folder took approximately four to six seconds. Yikes. So, I began poking around in the BIOS and found that the RAM was set to nominal, 6-5-5-18. The correct timing is 5-5-5-12 for this particular RAM so once I set it, it began to behave completely normally. Except once games were loaded, it?d crash. Once I found out the power supply was only 350w and that 8600GTs require that as a minimum, not including the Intel Quad Core monster sitting a few inches above it in the case, I called Infotel and they very promptly shipped us a 500w power supply to install in the unit.
Once the new power supply was installed, the computer ran as expected: load times were excellent. And so we sent the computer home with him.
He calls back two weeks later and said, ?It was working fine for the first week, but now it?s just as slow as before.?
Sure enough, it was running like crap. I did a cursory examination of the software to make sure he hadn?t installed any malware or any crap. We had previously given him several preventative measures like AVG Free and Spybot S&D, and none of those reported any anomalies, nor were there any indication that he had used the machine much at all. Even BIOS was running slowly when I went in to make sure that the timing on the RAM was still correct. I updated video drivers from nvidia.com; flashed BIOS from intel.com; and I even regreased and remounted the processor. The Seagate hdd test and the Drive Fitness Test came back totally fine.
I removed one stick of RAM and booted the computer. Voila! Works totally fine. ?Easy enough,? I thought to myself. ?It?s just a bad slot or a bad stick.? Nope. Switching the RAM around yielded the same results. And when I put the 4th stick back in, it began running normally again. Seriously. I pulled it back out and began booting with random RAM sticks in random slots; everything worked fine with 2, 3, and 4 sticks of RAM in any combination of slots.
I spent two days running the computer with some serious loads from benchmarks (3D Mark, SANDRA) to iTunes, Windows Media Player with a DVD, and a game all running. I maintained this level of intensity for hours at a time with no overheating or lag issues. I attempted completely removing the paging file and then re-enabling it, and the performance difference was nil. It was running exactly like it should have.
I finally resigned myself to giving it back to the customer (who is very polite and patient) and telling him the moment sometime goes wrong to bring it right back to us. I was really disappointed I wasn?t able to ?break? it again to see where the problem was.
I was finishing up my paperwork and getting ready to carry the now-disconnected computer to the other room after I got off the phone with him, and my coworker asked me if I had re-enabled the paging file. I hadn?t, and to the best of my understanding, you don?t need to have a HUGE page file, and that approximately 100 or so megs minimum is plenty. I plugged it back in, and then it started running crappily again.
I turned the page file back on, restarted, and it kept running crappily. I turned it off, restarted, and it was still running crappily.
Every time I try to pin down exactly what?s going wrong with this, it avoids the variables I set up.
So, what do you all think?
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