Fustrated and need help.

gtxstan

Specs

P4S800D-X ASUS X series Motherboard.
480W PSU
1x 1G OCZ stick of Ram along with a 512 Kingston value ram.
6800 GS AGP Video Card.
Western Digitial Harddrive.
3.2 Intel Processor hyperthreading enabled.
Along with Stock Fan.

My problem is basically that the monitor turns off, Green light turns orange. After this the computer seems to have crashed, cause all music stops playing " If i were playing music. " This afternoon i tried to fix the problem and completely took apart my machine. Bit by bit i had put each piece back together and wouldnt turn on if i had a keyboard jacked into the USB port. In due time the PC booted up even with a keyboard connected. Slowly but surely i had things going again. The Machine still crashes the way i described but randomly and at different times. I honestly do not know what to do, also i did clean the drivers with Driver Cleaner and reinstalled the latest Nvidia driver cause the other ones kept giving me video problems.

Any tips?

ChaosMinionX

My questions....

-When did this start?
-What did you change about your system? hardware/software anything
-How old is your system?



What it sounds like.....

-Videocard problem
-Thermal problem (CPU/GFX/etc overheating)
-Mobo and/or CPU is dying


Does windows just reset when this happens? or can you get a BSOD with stop codes?

If it just resets do the following....


Goto Start/ControlPanel/System/Advanced Tab/Start Up and Recovery

A window will now be before you, DONT touch anything but these.

Checkmark the "Write an event to the system log"

And uncheck "Automatically restart"

As well as under "write debugging information"
If your running 32bit XP it will be a 64KB (Small Memory Dump)
On 64bit XP it is 128KB (Small Memory Dump)

Now hit ok and Apply the new settings.


If and when your computer crashes again you should get a BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) with a bunch of numbers, just to be safe..... Copy down the stop codes

it will read like this.....



Not that problem specifically, but you will want to record the stuff after the

*** STOP: 0x0000000A (########## ########### ############ #######)

Then post it here, that should help us to troubleshoot further if it is a hardware malfunction.

EDIT: To further help the situation, it doesnt sound like your mobo or a PSU problem. More so a RAM failure, CPU voltage problem or dying, or bad video card....

I have only seen those sorts of problems really when a video card is OCd and it unloads drivers, and it gets too hot so it starts to act funny, especially if you have a GPU Crash recovery enabled.

RAM problems necessarily wouldnt cause this...you would get a BSOD or reset depending on whether you enabled and deactived what I told you in the control panel..
CPU problems will look similar to RAM problems, so its best to goto google and look for 2 programs.

1 is Memtest 86+ v1.7 - this is a program to test the ram for errors, excellent program and you just rip it to a disc as an iso image (if you need help ask) and put it in your drive at startup, if you have to select the boot sequence to get startup discs to work that can be done from the bios.

and the other is Orthos or Prime95 25.3 either of those are stress test programs for CPU/Ram stability, further can select what is getting stressed the most from various options.

Also pickup a copy of CoreTemp .95 or .94 and give us a rundown of your temps.

gtxstan

Thanks for taking time in looking at this Thread.

As to the problem - This currently started to happen this morning after the machine was booted then proceeded to occur during the evening.

I didnt change any hardware, but i did install Nvidia drivers which gave me problems and ended up reinstalling them due to this situation.

My machine, i'd say is about two to three years, custom built of course.

I believe it might be a Video Card issue, maybe its dying as some suggested but im not too sure. One of these days i will run a Mem test to determine if its a Memory issue though like you explained i turned on the options in System and then the PC crashed again and nothing came up, no error message or blue screen.

But take notice that Windows does not reboot it just hangs there while the Monitors light turns from Light green to Orange determing a plug in issue with the Video Card.

The Video card has never been overclocked as long as i've had it...

Hope this helps.

ChaosMinionX

well if theres no BSOD, its a videocard and driver problem. Which ran through my head as a scenario, get driverheaven drivercleaner and run the Nvidia driver cleaner stuff.

kris23

my first guess is driver problems.... they can be nasty.... use Drivercleaner very recommended, if not then i believe there are things wrong with the mobo

Dyre Straits

What Power Supply do you have in the system? What is it's Wattage and, more importantly, what is the +12V A rating?

gtxstan

At the moment i've exchanged my 6800 gs for the 5500 fx located in my mothers computer. Right now i'm testing if its the video card itself since once before it burned out on me and had to get a new one from BFG. As for the motherboard idea i did think about that but then again everyone seems to be running nice and smoothly as i'm writing this.

The powersuppy is 480W and i do not anything about PSU

ChaosMinionX

It could be a PSU problem, burned out card, and now the new one is having problems....

gtxstan

Good news!

So as i've explained i exchanged the 6800 GS AGP card for my FX 5500 and now the Machine is operating smoothly. I've been able to chat and do all sorts of things for a long period of time without having the monitor crash and the machine dying all at once.

I assume since i've had the GPU burned out on the 6800 GS that it might be the problem again. So i'm going to contact BFG and send it back for repairs and see if my Lifetime warrenty is still valid.

Dyre Straits

This could also be an indication that your PSU isn't powerful enough for the newer card. If you've now had two of them burn out, I'd be very suspicious about that PSU.

Here's the reason: If the PSU is just 'bordeline' capable, that means the GPU isn't getting sufficient volts/amperage and it's causing it to overheat. Overheating is just as much a problem due to undervoltage as it is with overclocking.

So, take out that PSU and check the label on it for the +12V rail. If it's less than 20A, you'll likely burn up the new/replacement GPU, too.

gtxstan

Ok er... You mean the light orange sorta red tab that can be pushed up or down? Cause i see a 115V atm.


Also, question would you guys help me pick out a decent power supply if i provide ya links?

Dyre Straits

NO, NO!! That switch changes the PSU from 110-120V Power to 210-230V!!! You don't want to touch that switch!!

What you want to do is take the PSU out of the case and look for the label that gives the Specifications.....if you can't see this label easily with just the side cover off.

So far, we haven't determined if the PSU you have is at fault. It's just one of the many things to be considered. So, let's wait until you provide the model and specifications of the one you have now, OK?

gtxstan

Ok the label... Mhmmm... From what i read! I see DC OUTPUT with the following numbers - +3.3v +5v +12v -12v -5v and the last one i cant quite make out.

Dyre Straits

OK...with that +12V what is the A or AMPs output? It could be anything from 14A/14 Amps on up to something else.

gtxstan

Well underneath those numbers they also have a set of numbers that goes as follows - 28A 38A 17A 0.8A 0.5A 2A

Dyre Straits

If those numbers are in the same sequence as the ones you posted previously, it looks like you have a +12V rail with 17A.

This very, VERY likely is the culprit. You need to get a PSU with at least 24A on the +12V rail. The higher that rating, the better. Many would say to go for at least 28A. But, your card likely doesn't need that much power.

It does somewhat verify my suspicion that, when you went from the older card to the newer one, and burned out (possibly) two of the newer cards, the card simply wasn't getting enough power.

Now, before we 'confirm' this information, is there anyway you can take a snapshot of that label and post it? You can use some free image hosting sites to do so. Imageshack or PhotoBucket either one are recommended. You can just upload images here to DH as we don't do image hosting.

EDIT: I have to leave for work now and won't be back online for several hours.

gtxstan

BIG PROBLEM DRYE!!!

Ok, while on the computer i got a Stop error with the current FX 5500 currently installed which read

Stop: 0x0000000AC0xFFBFEA20,0x000000*1or L*C )

But now the machine wont even fully boot up...
I get the ASUS screen right as the machine is being booted up then turns into a black screen in which the green light turns to orange. Sometimes it'll get the BSOD and sometimes it'll stay black. Right now i'm using the living room computer and i'm confused if the 6800 gs wasnt burned or not.

gtxstan

Another post.

So i'm able to log into Safe mode with Networking perfectly and no problems here.

Now to find what exactly is causing this to happen, from what it seems, it might be software issues but who knows

Dyre Straits

Take out one stick of RAM, preferably the Kingston for now, and try booting into normal Windows again. Regardless of whether it works or not, exchange the two sticks with only the Kingston in this time and try again.

Then, try both again, but, switch the slots they were in originally and see if you can get back into Windows.

If so, download memtest86 and run it over night. Follow the instructions to create a boot disk and use it.

www.memtest86.com

Good luck!

gtxstan

I've abandoned all hope. I dont think it's the stick of ram that was the problem, i dont think it was either of em. I was able to boot into safe mode as described but not into windows which kept given me multiply errors... One of which was PNF_LIST_CURRUPT.

Even as i kept rebooting and booting and taking out random parts to see if that was the issue i touched the heatsink and ram chips, they were sizziling hot, including the harddrive and motherboard and video card as well... My guess its the PSU but it fells as if the harddrive just simply died or is slowly.

gtxstan

Er... So i did what you asked, turns out the kingston ram didnt wanna boot up with the machine... I believe that the heat killed that stick of ram due to not having a heatsink like the OCZ which still works and functions properly.

I'll do more testing, i'll try to shove the kingston back in and take out the OCZ to make sure thats the case.

gtxstan

A third post thus far, just for the note now the Kingston alone is booting up normally... I dont know what to think of this so im going to go try Memest, also i opened up the case and placed a small fan which blew some air towards the exposed case to lower the tempature some, which it did, so either its bad ram issues or just overheating issues with the PSU.

Anywho i'll keep in touch and i will proceed with the test asap.

H3X4D3C1M4L

You can replace your OCZ stick on lifetime warranty I believe... do so and see if it helps at all.