Windows XP Pro is crashing :|

[The Internal]

Greetings,

I built a new system in the last week or so and immediately began encountering problems.

Specs:

AMD Athlon 64 3200+ socket 754
Soltek QBIC SFF Barebone (the model recommended by Anandtech) w/250 watt power supply
1 GB Crucial Ballistix DDR400 RAM
Pioneer 16 x DVR-108 DVD-RW
Maxtor Maxline III 300 GB SATA HD (Primary)
Western Digital 120 GB Special Edition ATA 133 HD (Secondary)
ATI 9600 XT AIW
Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro

I found out my RAM is bad after running the MS RAM diagnostic tool, called up Crucial, and they're shipping me two new sticks (gotta love Crucial...). Except for the Western Digital, everything else is brand new.

What I'd like to know is if bad RAM will cause my system to crash frequently, and cause windows to say it had a problem with a device driver. Is there something more to it than just the RAM, or will I have to wait and see? Will I need to get ready to do more RMAs? Any feedback would be appreciated.

 

[Somniferum]

A 250-watt PSU seems way underpowered for that setup. Your components need more juice. I'd swap it out for a quality 400-watt PSU or better -- Antec, Enermax, etc.

 

[The Internal]

It's a small form factor case. If you can tell me a PSU that's 400 watts that will fit, I'd love to.
However, what reason do you have to believe inadequate power is the culprite? If I didn't have the power, I don't think it'd boot.
I already contact Soltek about my concerns with power, and they said the PSU could handle dual optical drives, dual hard drives, a ATI X800 XT All in Wonder, and a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS. I was skepticle. Please elaborate on why power would cause Windows to say I had a unknwown device driver error.

 

[The Internal]

OH FOR THE LOVE OH GOD!!! HELP MEEEEeeeee!!!

(bumpity. So, other than the known RAM problem, what else would cause the crashing, blue screen, "device driver error" problems? Inadequate power? Heat? The wombat residing in my case?)

 

[Somniferum]

Originally posted by: The Internal
It's a small form factor case. If you can tell me a PSU that's 400 watts that will fit, I'd love to.
However, what reason do you have to believe inadequate power is the culprite? If I didn't have the power, I don't think it'd boot.
I already contact Soltek about my concerns with power, and they said the PSU could handle dual optical drives, dual hard drives, a ATI X800 XT All in Wonder, and a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS. I was skepticle. Please elaborate on why power would cause Windows to say I had a unknwown device driver error.

Just because you can boot the system doesn't necessarily mean power consumption is not an issue. Power usage will fluctuate based on what you are doing. With all those drives in your system, the amount of power needed at any given time will vary considerably. If the power demands exceed what your PSU is capable of producing at any given time, it could cause the system to crash.

It's the crashes I was referring to more than the "unknown device driver error". Are all your drivers up-to-date? Do you have the latest drivers for your chipset?

If you have access to a higher-wattage PSU, I'd try it out just as a test. If it doesn't fit in your case, you can just set it on top of the case temporarily and hook it up that way. If it solves your problem then you can start looking for a PSU that fits, or new case+PSU combo. If it doesn't fix the crashes, then you can rule out the PSU as the culprit.

 

[oldman420]

You will not get enough power from that PS to correctly run a 64 bit CPU.
That PS is prob rated at say 125 watts nominal and peak 250, so the CPU uses 50-60 watts the MB uses 5-10 watts the sound blaster uses power the drives etc use power and that VGA card uses at least 40-50 watts.
if you do the math you will see it is the PS.
try to under clock and use only one drive and see if that stabilizes things.
If not heres a link to a matx 320 watter.
http://store.yahoo.com/directron/ap320w.html

 

[The Internal]

k. I tried to find wattage numbers for all my components, but could not find the info ANYWHERE :|. All drivers are current. So, is pretty much everyone convinced that the power is the issue? Should I just send back the Soltek SFF and get a "real" case, or does someone make a good AMD 64 SFF with adequate power?
Oh... another weird thing. My MAC address changes now and again. I've NEVER seen such a thing. It alternates between two numbers for no obvious reason. Currently, it the funky one (it starts with "00-00-00").
Is that power too? I'm seeing some really weird behavior with this rig, and I'm trying to nail it down so I can RMA components that are screwy. Also, I can't get my SATA Maxtor Maxline III to boot anymore. Some random ass NVIDIA Raid detection pops up on bootup if I try to run the drive. Maybe I should make a new post about this....

 

[mechBgon]

Personally, I'm all for "real" cases, but before you throw in the towel, bring your memory up to 2.8 volts and see what effect that has (of course, your WinXP install could be corrupted enough by this point that it'll take a reinstallation to be certain). Also, please stick to your one thread, it's appreciated 🙂

 

[avatar976]

In fact 250W is almost the most powerful PSU broadly available for miniATX form factor. Shuttle barebones use 240w PSUs too and run flawlessly. So some of the largest barebone manufacturers can't be selling underpowered system ready to crash; moreover the 320w mATX psu on yahoo looks quite cheap and (with only 6A on the +12V rail) could make no real difference; last but not least messing up with the PSU could void the warranty for the barebone. I would check the motherboard, try to update the BIOS and eventually ask for RMA for the whole barebone (the MAC address stuff is quite weird). Before that you may find useful testing your CPU on anoter system. BTW is CPU temp OK?

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: avatar976
In fact 250W is almost the most powerful PSU broadly available for miniATX form factor. Shuttle barebones use 240w PSUs too and run flawlessly. So some of the largest barebone manufacturers can't be selling underpowered system ready to crash; moreover the 320w mATX psu on yahoo looks quite cheap and (with only 6A on the +12V rail) could make no real difference; last but not least messing up with the PSU could void the warranty for the barebone. I would check the motherboard, try to update the BIOS and eventually ask for RMA for the whole barebone (the MAC address stuff is quite weird). Before that you may find useful testing your CPU on anoter system. BTW is CPU temp OK?

For the record, Shuttle has introduced 350W units now.

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: The Internal
Greetings,

I built a new system in the last week or so and immediately began encountering problems.

Specs:

AMD Athlon 64 3200+ socket 754
Soltek QBIC SFF Barebone (the model recommended by Anandtech) w/250 watt power supply
1 GB Crucial Ballistix DDR400 RAM
Pioneer 16 x DVR-108 DVD-RW
Maxtor Maxline III 300 GB SATA HD (Primary)
Western Digital 120 GB Special Edition ATA 133 HD (Secondary)
ATI 9600 XT AIW
Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro

I found out my RAM is bad after running the MS RAM diagnostic tool, called up Crucial, and they're shipping me two new sticks (gotta love Crucial...). Except for the Western Digital, everything else is brand new.

What I'd like to know is if bad RAM will cause my system to crash frequently, and cause windows to say it had a problem with a device driver. Is there something more to it than just the RAM, or will I have to wait and see? Will I need to get ready to do more RMAs? Any feedback would be appreciated.

If you can provide details for what you mean by "Windows XP Pro is crashing" perhaps we can make some solid suggestions. For example, is the STOP code you get the same every time? If you look in the System log in Event Viewer, is the error the same every time? If your machine is generating a memory dump, we can read the memory dump and try to find out if it's a driver that's causing the problem.

When did this problem start? Did it start when you first installed XP, or after you installed a certain driver? If you pop out all extra hardware (by that I mean one memory stick and the sound card and the secondary hard drive), does anything change? What happens when you boot in safe mode?

What you have in the machine is a normal configuration for someone who buys a SFF PC. If SFF PCs couldn't support that power load, SFF PC manufacturers would be out of business due to customer returns. In other words, I don't think you have a power supply issue.

 

[The Internal]

k, I got new RAM, took off most of my clothes, grounded myself, sat on a hard floor while keeping myself grounded to the plugged in PSU and put the RAM in. It failed the exact same two memory diagnostics that I had with my previous sticks, and I also got a blue screen in WinXP and immediate reset. So, I think it's safe to say that the likelihood of Crucial's Balistix RAM being bad twice in a row considering the percautions I took, I don't think RAM is the culprit. what the hell else would cause a RAM test failure? CPU or mobo or both? With the magic changing MAC address, I wonder if it's the mobo, but since the FSB is on the Athlon 64, I don't know how to determine that. Should I just RMA the mobo and proc for a new one or could I be overlooking some rinky dink little thing?

 

[The Internal]

Oh, on the PSU thing, yeah, I agree with the notion that the manufacturers probably wouldn't be shipping those things with underpowered PSUs since they'd get to many sent back by angry customers... I could really use more input on this issue guys and gals.

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: dclive
If you can provide details for what you mean by "Windows XP Pro is crashing" perhaps we can make some solid suggestions. For example, is the STOP code you get the same every time? If you look in the System log in Event Viewer, is the error the same every time? If your machine is generating a memory dump, we can read the memory dump and try to find out if it's a driver that's causing the problem.

When did this problem start? Did it start when you first installed XP, or after you installed a certain driver? If you pop out all extra hardware (by that I mean one memory stick and the sound card and the secondary hard drive), does anything change? What happens when you boot in safe mode?

What you have in the machine is a normal configuration for someone who buys a SFF PC. If SFF PCs couldn't support that power load, SFF PC manufacturers would be out of business due to customer returns. In other words, I don't think you have a power supply issue.

Can you answer these questions? Also, if you install a parallel installation of WinXP to your hard drive, do the same issues appear? Can you successfully complete a parallel installation?

 

[The Internal]

I concluded after many hours and process of elimination that my problem evolved around the 250 watt PSU. Soltek flat out lied to me. Before purchasing the barebones system, I had asked Soltek if I would be able to run alot of high end components in the barebones system and they said yes. I ran only about half of what I had originally asked, and it couldn't take it. I no longer trust Soltek. They'd have to give me a free motherboard and badass proc if they wanted to win my trust, but considering that they would flat out lie to a customer, I doubt they will attempt repairations.

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: The Internal
I concluded after many hours and process of elimination that my problem evolved around the 250 watt PSU. Soltek flat out lied to me. Before purchasing the barebones system, I had asked Soltek if I would be able to run alot of high end components in the barebones system and they said yes. I ran only about half of what I had originally asked, and it couldn't take it. I no longer trust Soltek. They'd have to give me a free motherboard and badass proc if they wanted to win my trust, but considering that they would flat out lie to a customer, I doubt they will attempt repairations.

How did you determine the power supply was the problem?

 

[damonpip]

I wouldn't neccesarily blame it on the power supply. If the RAM is testing bad it is probably the result of incorrect BIOS settings or else the RAM is incompatible with your motherboard. I have had the same problem that you are having and it was because the brand of RAM I had was incompatible with my motherboard. By incompatible I don't mean in terms of specifications; I just mean that a certain model of RAM sometimes doesn't work in a particular motherboard. As for your original question, yes, all of your problems could be caused by a problem with the RAM.