Extremely mysterious pc issuse! got any ideas?

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Wow... that reminds me of some trouble i had with a new build a few years ago.... but my problem wasnt the psu... anyhow, glad to see its sorted after all that! (hopefully , let us know ? :p).... and moral of the story = overspec your psu, make sure its a good brand and always suspect the ******* ^^
 
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Easy to say that now Rick :) Glad it's sorted JoshZ. I'd have plumped for the Corsair HX520/620 myself!

I hope you punch you mate in the face for costing you LOADs of time (and a bit of cash). If we'd known his power supply wasn't 600 then that might have helped! :D
 
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righto! lol this is a turn up for the books!..
the reboots are still happening!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.. this time the psu is definitley fine .. brand new! unless ive been unlucky enough to get a second dud.. ive just reinstalled xp man.. this is killing me! i have now tested every possibility apart perhaps from sacrificing an animal!

arghhhhh!!! what the hell i dont understand.. ive even forked out for a brand new surge protector just to be safe! :(
 
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one thing i can say now for sure thanks to the lovely blue glow is that the psu doesnt turn off during these reboots
 
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Ok, I've read through the whole thread twice now to make sure I'm not going to repeat anything that's already been suggested. That said, forgive me if I do repeat anything...I'm actually quite shattered!

First off, have you tried installing windows with ALL intergrated peripherals on the motherboard disabled? i.e. LAN, USB, Sound even the FDD Controller and possibly just using all IDE so you can turn off SATA too....pretty much everything disabled, including any extra board options (like fan control, temp shutdown, etc.) and just using what you need (CD/DVD, PS2 Keyboard, GFX but ideally not the 8800...just a standard PCi if you have one spare!).

i snatched out my power hungry video card and ran it off the onboard vga with his power supply and bingo it works.. the video was drawing a bit too much for us to see the results properly without removing the 8800..

I take it this was in a different motherboard, or does yours have on-board graphics (I couldn't see it in the spec?). Also, if this was using a different motherboard did it restart with the 8800 installed, and when you switched to on-board it was definitely fine? The reason I ask this is because...

righto! lol this is a turn up for the books!..
the reboots are still happening!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.. this time the psu is definitley fine .. (

...is the above with the 8800 installed on your board, or your mates? Or is it not the 8800 and actually the on-board GFX?


As it sits in Bios fine and by the sounds of things it works in Safe-Mode too, I'd perhaps lean towards a driver error. You should IMO start slip-streaming your own drivers using WindowsXP32 (for stability purposes I chose this o/s), with the newest nVidia drivers for your board and especially for the 8800. Or take away these drivers so Windows is forced to install generic...unless it already does. I mean, you've said that it seems to be more stable (well, it gets further) in 32bit XP than Vista/XP 64bit, so different O/S is making a different but definitely not solving the problem.

I'm not terribly convined that the GFX has been ruled out. I know you've said that you have tried a different graphics card, but was that a case of installing Windows with the 8800 installed, FORMATTING, and then installing another graphics card and reinstalling Windows? I'd be reinstalling after every change, just to definitely rule it out.

What RAM did you test on your mobo apart from the OCZ lot? Did you try some that's off the compatability list of Gigabytes?

But anyway, sorry if I've repeated anything or insulted your intelligence in any way. If you've done all this or thought about it and ruled it out, then fair do's....ignore my post! :)
 
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ok cheers for that post man .. im thinking it through.. well here goes.. ive now made sure all unnessesarys are turned off and it throws up the same problem.. last night after i realised this psu hadnt solved it i immediatley turned to the graphics card i switched it with a mates 7600 (no this cheap ass board doesnt have onboard vga :S youd think nvidia with their lan controller and god knows what else would include a rudimentary vga port.. no the want you to payy! lol.. anyway. it rebooted again
i put this psu in a mates and my graphics card and it works ok.

last night i reset the cmos and booted into safe mode and then into normal and it worked for ages.. a long time in hl 2.. i came out installed stalker and tried that but right after the intro it decided to flake out.. now it seems i have a pattern again.. i boot into safemode then shut down then boot into normal.. itll last for a while.. i just had HL2 episode1 on full for almost an hour now and its been totally solid.. i even left it on pause had a phone call and came back to it.. anyway it just rebooted again....:S // if i dont boot into safemode after these reboots it will just go into a reboot loop at the windows loading screen..

oh and i left it on last night to 'burn in' i just left a firefox window open ..(which has been known to insite a reboot before) and it was still running this morning .. until i did something..its so annoying becuaes i really want vista on there now.. after seeing it in action but i cant even get it to install with this psu in there.. lol the hiper ws doing a better job at that..
 
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hmm
i have just noticed something weird.. can someone with an nforce chipset check something out for me please!!! my sata controller and my High def Audio controller seeem to be sharing the same IRQ.. now i was having a weird irq problem in vista.... i have no idea if this is normal or not? doesnt seem right to me.. just a feeling

infact i notice there are two SATA controller entries one on irq21 (sharing with the highdef audio) and the other on irq22...............................UPDATE ... ok its not that.. it seems to be a little more stable since i last adjusted the bios.. ill keep running it and see how i go...
 
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Hi Joshz - couple of things to try-

1. Please confirm if you have the Ram voltage at 2.1 OCZ needs this and will not work correctly until you have it at that setting.

2. Is your motherboard firmware upto the latest update as Ram issues with certain makes are often fixed by BIOS updates.

3 To find the part at fault-
i) To your motherboard attach a friends gfx card - 1x1gb stick of standard RAM
and old IDE drive, an old reliable IDE CDROM, Keybord Mouse, your PSU and nothing else
If possible an alternate CPU /Fan
Ideally all the parts should have been used in the past and nown to be working 100%
ii) Install a fresh copy of Windows
iii) Run Prime95 for 24 hours
iv) If this works you know the motherboard and leads are ok
v) Add your CPU / Fan
vi) Reinstall Windows
vii) Run Prime95 24hrs
Continue to do this with each part until you experience the problem.

I cannot stress enough how vital it is to update the BIOS though.
I have an Abit board and eventhough old there are very regular updates for it to fix
issues with it.
 
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ive been through all those steps :( and i updated the bios in the early weeks to that latest version...

well its more stable
i can play wow and hl2.. for some time.. sometimes 30 mins.. sometimes 10 .. somtimes 2.5 hours.. theres no pattern anymore.. all my voltages are set now.. im just wondering.. the only one i didnt chage was my cpu.. its default at 1.3 can anyone tell me what the ideal voltage for the q6600 is or is 1.3 correct?
 
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Similar issue from nvidea forums

Hi Joshz

I found someone having a similar issue with the same mobi/RAM and it has a solution -:)

The following was taken from :
http://forums.nvidia.com/lofiversion/index.php?t59723.html

ParoFeb 13 2008, 11:29 PM
Ok so, I just built my new PC (using the SAME 880gts as in my last build) Full specs

OS - Windows Vista Ultimate X64
GPU - Geforece 8800GTS (G80) 640mb (550/850)
MotherBoard - Gigabyte GA-N650SLI DS4L
Memory - 4GB PC26400 OCZ Gold (5-5-5-18-2t)
PSU - OCZ GameXStream 700W

Every hour of gaming or so, My computer freezes, and I get the message "Display driver stopped responding" I've tried uninstalling old drivers in safe mode and using Driver cleaner pro, but after trying like 4-5 different drivers, I am starting to lose hope. What can I do to fix this?
Dostoyevsky77Feb 14 2008, 04:47 AM
This was a common problem in the past. New Nvidia drivers and/or Windows Updates have, for the most part, eliminated it. In your case, an older and corrupt driver file might be to blame. Sometimes, just reinstalling the driver is insufficient to purge legacy driver files. Follow this method to rule-out that possibility:

Download the latest driver. Navigate to ..\windows\system32\drivers and note the date on the nvlddmkm.sys file. Open device manager, and find your display adapter, right-click on it and select uninstall; choose delete when prompted. Allow the computer to restart, but enter safe mode; let the standard VGA driver install. Open an explorer window, hit ALT+T, go into options, and and choose to show all files, including hidden/system files. Navigate to ..\windows\system32\drivers and delete any nv* files that share the date of nvlddmkm.sys you noted earlier. Navigate to ..\windows\system32, doing the same. Finally (for x64 only), navigate to ..\windows\wow64\ and repeat. Restart into regular mode, but don't allow Windows to automatically install the video card. Install the driver you downloaded in the first step.

From what I've seen, this procedure works for 90% of people still experiencing this problem. Some other sources of the nvlddmkm TDR include RAM problems and too aggressive an overclock on the video card.


I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Jennidc
 
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Joshz

Just thought of something easy to try incase of a bad memory stick - take out all but 1 of your sticks of RAM and boot with that. If it boots and runs prime for an hour - shutdown and do the same with each stick.

If you do have bad RAM I would suspect Windows to give you an error on at least one if it is the only stick being used.

Jennidc
 
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hmm ok im having alook for this nvidia fix and the .sys file thats mentioned doesnt exist?

well i tried it anyway.. it doesnt work .. i just had to end up repairing my windows install :S
 
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