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What's wrong with my PC?

U

uclaLabrat

Diamond Member
A few days ago my PC started acting up. It locked up when I was playing BF3, completely locked up. Had to basically turn it off at the PSU and reboot it, wouldn't post unless I did. Had to go into BIOS and save all values before it would go into windows, then it works just fine, unless I stress it. Play a game, it works for a bit, then same thing. I thought it might be bad RAM, so I ran Memtest, worked about 5 minutes (to 16% completion) and locked up again.

I am right about the RAM being the culprit? It's a 5 year old system (stock i7 920 on an EVGA X58) and it runs ok up to a point, so I don't know what else to suspect.
 
uclaLabrat said:
Could be the MB, it's a PC P&C PSU, so I thought it would last forever.
Click to expand...

Everything lasts until it doesn't. A psu would be easy to check if you have a spare. For the mb, make sure there aren't any bulging caps, and check the temps. Ram's easy to check too. Pull out all the dimms, and run memtest one by one.
 
I'd check the RAM first, that's the probable culprit. Assuming you have 2 sticks take out one and repeat tests. Then use just the other and repeat tests. If you have one stick turn down the timings/voltage and see what happens. If the RAM passes then check the PSU.
 
Well, took out one stick of RAM, passed windows memory diagnostic. Ran BF about 10 minutes just fine, running Memtest now, maybe got lucky on the first try.
 
Take out all sticks of ram. Try one at a time with memtest. It's unlikely they've all failed, but it's not unheard of... If it's the MB, you'd have to swap motherboards to find out if it was that. :/

Clean out your PSU with an air compressor and preferably the rest of your system. I've had some really low voltages on my PSU, cleaned the fuck out of it with one of these from work ( http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/cont...G&A=details&Q= ). All my voltages went way up after that and back to acceptable levels. Wish I owned one of those, but I can't justify the cost at this time. (Just one more thing I'd have to sell in 7-8 months for a big loss) It's needing another cleaning.
 
Well, I took out one stick from the far right slot (I have three sticks in triple channel) and it passed all tests and registered 4GB. I removed the middle stick and replaced it with the stick I removed first, and it passed all tests but only registered 2GB. WTF? I replaced all sticks in their original slots, it reads 6GB and runs fine. Played BF4 for a half hour, no problems.

I don't understand computers.
 
Like any high speed circuit, it is very sensitive about impedence mismatches. If a tiny speck of aluminum comes to rest in just the right spot, it can effect the impedence in just such a way that it can throw off your memory timings and ultimately crash your computer when a key piece of kernel data gets corrupted. The process of simply taking the memory out and putting it back in again fixes that sort of problem. I've had it happen many times. The computer I'm using right now, which is 6 years old, had a problem with crashing like that. I reseated the RAM and it's been pretty solid the last few years.
 
My old 920/x58 system recently bit the dust. The motherboard's SATA controllers went bad. Those old boards had overheating PCH controllers, so it wasn't a big surprise to me. Sounds like you might have a similar problem. Intermittent crashes during games, failure to boot, etc.
 
the cpu could of also been misalligned from the pins during transport, or accidental kick.

i would also resocket the cpu and reapply thermal paste...

if its 5 yrs old, you would want to reapply the thermal paste anyhow, and give ur air sink a air bath with compressed air.
 
uclaLabrat said:
Well, I took out one stick from the far right slot (I have three sticks in triple channel) and it passed all tests and registered 4GB. I removed the middle stick and replaced it with the stick I removed first, and it passed all tests but only registered 2GB. WTF? I replaced all sticks in their original slots, it reads 6GB and runs fine. Played BF4 for a half hour, no problems.

I don't understand computers.
Click to expand...

That's a pretty old machine, so I wouldn't be surprised if the DIMMs had crept out of their sockets a little and/or become slightly corroded. Reseating will solve both. 🙂
 
mfenn said:
That's a pretty old machine, so I wouldn't be surprised if the DIMMs had crept out of their sockets a little and/or become slightly corroded. Reseating will solve both. 🙂
Click to expand...
Probably, it has survived two cross-country trips in the back of a moving van :biggrin:
 
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