Upgrade problem

[Dark Mantis]

I have just upgraded my computer with the following:

Asus P5Q3 LGA 775 deluxe motherboard
Core 2 Quad core 9300 2.5Mgz
Gigabyte Radeon 4850 512Mb PCIE graphics card
OCZ DDR3 Platinum dual channel memory kit x2
Zalman CNPS7700-Cu heatsink and fan
Zalman ZM750-HP heatpipe cooled 750W modular PSU

added to my older DVD RW, SATA hard drives etc. The problem is the setup is not stable and freezes often. I have used the default motherboard bios settings and everything is standard. I have even resorted to cutting back to minimum setup but still same problems. Please can anyone throw any light on this annoying problem?

 

[Lemon law]

For a guess, something is under volted in your set up. Try a small voltage boost in the bios for both memory and Vcore. Research max setting for either and do not exceed. That or try longer memory wait states. Any of the three may get system stability.

 

[daveybrat]

Your OCZ DDR3 ram requires 1.9V.

A lot of motherboards undervolt it by default to 1.5V.

Set the voltage to 1.9V in the bios and see if that fixes it.

 

[Dark Mantis]

Thanks to both of you for your help, your answers were along the same lines as I was thinking, I wasn't sure about the voltage for the ram but I will try that next as mine is set to auto in the bios and so could well be a problem.

 

[Dark Mantis]

I have now tried setting the memory voltage in the bios to 1.9v and even manually set the Vcore setting for the chip but it all made no difference. I tried installing windows(xp) but only got freezes and a couple of BSOD without any helpfull messages.

 

[Lemon law]

Next step should be memtest86, which will run on either a floppy or an iso bootable Cd. With both sticks of ram in, your computer should be able to run all eight tests with no errors, but if you get errors, one or both sticks of ram are likely defective. To find out which, run each stick one at a time.

If nothing else, it should rule ram in or out as a casual factor.

 

[Dark Mantis]

I have run Memtest86 thoroughly with no problems, so it proves the ram is fine. I guess that means that the troubles are with the motherboard.

 

[Old Hippie]

added to my older DVD RW, SATA hard drives etc.

Did you do a repair or new install of the OS when you changed MBs?

If you moved to a different chipset, that may cause problems.

 

[Dark Mantis]

I completely partitioned and formatted the disk before trying a clean install(several times!) In the end I did manage to get windows XP installed but the machine is still as unstable as hell and just freezes anytime even if I am not running anything except windows.