My pc is broken, mystery problem

Strife212 · 22 Sep 2008 at 18:19

My PC has been working fine, 100% stable for ages.

About 20 minutes ago I was browsing these forums when the PC totally froze. The song I was listening to stopped playing, and the screen froze. No BSOD, lag, errors, just complete stop to everything, no response to any commands, couldn't move the mouse. Shut down the PC, thought "thats weird" and booted it up again. 5 Minutes later, it happened again. Shut the PC down again, and tried reducing my overclock to stock speeds. Tried loading windows - Now it wont boot anymore. It gets as far as loading windows then the screen just stays black.

POST works fine, no corruption displayed on screen. All lights on in case as normal.

Specs:

Core 2 Duo E6600 @ 3.2Ghz
4GB RAM
SLI GTX 280
nForce 680i Motherboard
Raptor X C: Drive
Corsair HX1000 1kw PSU
Windows Vista Ultimate x64

Pilky01 · 22 Sep 2008 at 18:23

Download ultimate boot cd and run some of the diagnostics on there.

Happy · 22 Sep 2008 at 18:24

Does event viewer show anything weird?

Strife212 · 22 Sep 2008 at 18:25

Can't check as I cant get into windows anymore

This boot disk sounds like a good idea - I'll try and make one. Unfortunately my main PC is the only one with a CD-R

I'll have to use a friends one.

Sleepery · 22 Sep 2008 at 18:37

Can you use F8 while windows is booting to get you into safe mode?

sir-les-mp · 22 Sep 2008 at 20:09

you might want to test the mem by using memtest it at least boots from a floppy

Happy · 22 Sep 2008 at 20:50

Strife212 said:
Can't check as I cant get into windows anymore

Forgot that small point

*face palm

Mattus · 22 Sep 2008 at 22:41

Sounds like RAM or hard drive to me.

Try your sticks of RAM one at a time. Try Memtest. If Memtest's clear, try booting from a live CD or using a different HD.

Strife212 · 24 Sep 2008 at 15:10

Memory checks out ok and so does scandisk on C: drive.

Infact I'm on the PC now on my usual windows install :confused:

Yesterday the C: drive totally stopped showing up in the BIOS. Turned it off for a few hours then it worked - but crashed after 10 mins. Today I turned it on and straight into windows. It will crash again soon though.

I can't think of whats wrong. Motherboard problem?

brakeinup · 24 Sep 2008 at 15:15

Overheating? Is your cooling in order?

esK` · 24 Sep 2008 at 15:23

sounds like HDD failure

UKDTweak · 24 Sep 2008 at 15:31

Sounds like your HDD is overheating and failing. Backup all you can now!
If you can ghost the drive you could then swap to a new drive with no loss.

EsaT · 24 Sep 2008 at 18:08

Strife212 said:
I can't think of whats wrong. Motherboard problem?

Well, Nvidi'as SATA controllers aren't exactly known from top reliability.

Also Nvidia chipsets are hungry power wasters so something might be "baking up"...
That total stopping kinda hints to problem in some very important component.