Diagnostics advice please.

Hey. Having some trouble with my computer. I've been updating this as I go along, to keep things clear in my mind as much as to ask for help. It's become quite long, hopefully it's sensibly formatted now. Testing method is now listed at the bottom, under subheading 'attempts'.

I have a working amd system, 7750be, ecs board, 1gb ddr2. I have a broken intel system, q9550, new p5q premium, 2x2gb ocz reaper. Each are using a pc p&c 860W. Excellent psu.

I believe one psu to be partially damaged. The other I assume is fine as it has suffered through no trauma.
I believe both sets of ram to be fine, as the suspect one passes memtest. I will test at 1066 when I can.
I assume both motherboards are fine, as one has given no problems and the other is new.
The graphics card is known to be working, tested on the amd system. Similarly the monitor works.
I think the q9550 is dead, and am running out of ideas for how to test this.

Background
This is after an rma of the motherboard, the previous one died with a burning electrical smell. I wanted to send the processor and ram along with it for rma, as burning electrics suggested to me that other components may have died. The supplier declined this request. I hope that the P5Q is not DOA, I'm reasonably sure it won't be.

Conclusions
I'm getting there, but very slowly. Mostly ruled out ram, as it runs fine at 800 at least. Gfx checked. Can't test cpu or motherboard. One psu known good, the other has a broken 8 pin line.
I think the processor is dead, but would like to test further before rma'ing it. Anyone sent one back direct to intel? Bought october last year, retail, so warranty should be good. Not lapped thankfully.

Thus far I have not managed to get the machine to post, the closest I've come is fans spinning and a pump working off a molex connector. No beeps at any point either, and the speaker is connected.

Attempt 1
Leds on motherboard are lit up as they should be
When pressing power, nothing occurs. No beeps, neither psu nor cpu fan spin.
This is with processor, ram, heatsink, psu, motherboard.
If ram is removed, no beeps.
If psu is started using a wire, psu fan spins.
Next, I've tried it with 1gb of generic ram, and it does better. Fans spin, no post. This points at the ram being faulty. However, I am currently running said 'faulty' ram in the machine I took the 1gb stick from. It passes half an hour of memtest at 800mhz (rated at 1066) and I can't test it at the higher speed in this box.

Attempt 2
This differs from the previous in that I'm using known-good ram, have connected a graphics card and a monitor.
All fans spin and lights as appropriate. No image on the screen. After 5 seconds approx the fans turn off briefly then spin up again, I think this is an oddity of my graphics card though as I've seen it before. No beeps.
Removed the ram. Still no beeps.

Attempt 3
Changed monitor cable. Fans no longer spin at all, but I'm certain I didn't change anything else. Removed card, and removed ram, no change. Computer is now back to doing nothing whatsoever when plugged in.

Attempt 4
Attached graphics card to secondary computer. Bit of a mission as it's water cooled and the amd computer isn't. Typing on the result now, so I'm going to rule out damaged graphics card. Again this is using the better/possibly damaged set of ram.

Attempt 5
Swapped psus over. My amd machine is now running quite happily, apparently it will run on either psu with no ill effects. Neither will run the intel system, but in different ways.This is with the known good ram.
PSU 1/ No life when power is pushed whatsoever. PSU 2/Lights on, fans spin, pump works, no post/beeps/life on screen. Propose that part of my power supply burnt out when the system died, and the amd system does not use this part. This is supported by the 4+4 pin cable working fine with the intel system, and either half of it working fine with the amd, but the 8 pin cable not working with the intel system. Credit to pc p&c, part of their psu is dead and the rest has kept right on going.

appendix
Q9550 [no means of testing]
Asus P5Q [just back from rma]
4gb ocz reaper [passed 30 mins memtest and normal use in secondary machine]
PC P&C 860W [one working fine, second has a broken 8 pin cable but otherwise looks good]
8800gt [tested and working in secondary machine]

What can I test further/what conclusions may I draw?

It's been a long night playing with this. I've sent ocuk a webnote to see what they suggest wrt rma.

Sorry, this is going to be a brief reply as i’ve got a monumental hangover and i’m a fanatical F1 fan – and it’s 12.55... (So, apologies in advance if i’ve misread anything/misunderstood.)

Reading your troubleshooting log, with one eye on Martin Brundle’s grid walk, this one sentence seems to stick out when comparing it to all your other results (Unless i've misunderstood the paragraph...):

JonJ678 said:

Next, I've tried it with 1gb of generic ram, and it appears to boot fine. This points at the ram being faulty. However, I am currently running said 'faulty' ram in the machine I took the 1gb stick from. It passes half an hour of memtest at 800mhz (rated at 1066) and I can't test it at the higher speed in this box.

Click to expand...

With the lack of another MB or CPU to test the above aberration would be the focus of my attention, for now. I would test this anomaly more - as you suspect the CPU i would stress test it accordingly. I would reinstall the generic memory and really punish the cpu/system with prime95 and IBT and others and see if it buckles (if you haven’t done so already.).

Having experienced a few DOA MB’s (even returned rma's) and not one corrupt CPU (even with PSU’s blowing and MB’s dying) - I would say the odds that you have received a flaky MB to that of having a faulty CPU, even if said CPU has been exposed to a corrupt MB, are comparable. I wouldn’t rule one out over the other – as clearly you haven’t.

Good luck with it sounds a sod of a problem - i'll look in later when i'm more lucid and less distracted...

Additional: I haven’t replied yet to your Linux/Ubuntu post yet – but thanks for the comprehensive reply.

Sorry, i've just reread your thread and realise that the above is not possible when coupled with 'Attempt 2'. Coincidently, i had this realisation when the Grand Prix finished.

I still would be staring very hard at the MB as well as the CPU but I can understand why you suspect the CPU.

Reading your forum BIO - is there any chance that a fellow student would let you try a compatible CPU in the MB?

It, obviously, doesn't have to be a like for like chip - and one of your mates may have one laying around doing nothing after an upgrade - perhaps a request through the 'student forums' (if you have one) and offer to pay for the p&p?

Unfortunately students with desktops instead of laptops are rare, and students who haven't vanished home for the summer are rarer still. I'm trying to track down an available 775 processor but not having enormous luck so far. It's probably possible to pick up a 775 pentium for very little money if borrowing fails.

I'm fairly confident that it's narrowed down to either motherboard or cpu, the ram may also be faulty but as I'm currently using a different set I'm ignoring this. Reassuring to hear you've reached the same conclusion as to where to place blame.

Difficult. Cpus very rarely die, but the cpu power cable on the psu is the dead one and the motherboard is a new one. What should a motherboard be expected to do with a dead cpu?

tbh if you havent overclocked i very do doubt it is the CPU

sounds like the motherboard it should still post will no cpu or at least beep

send the motherboard bk tbh

JonJ678 said:

Difficult. Cpus very rarely die, but the cpu power cable on the psu is the dead one and the motherboard is a new one. What should a motherboard be expected to do with a dead cpu?

Click to expand...

Unfortunately, I have no experience of having had faulty cpu but I have done troubleshooting in the past assuming that I may have one – and this usually coincided with me doubting the MB’s integrity at the same time – very much like yourself.

From the research I did it seems that both give out very similar symptoms – making the troubleshooting process almost impossible to decipher unless you can replace one or the other for comparison. I have always played the odds and plumbed for the mobo – and so far I’ve always guessed right - they’ve been educated guesses but guesses all the same.

Usually, the cpu is beyond suspicion and you're normally looking at either the memory or the MB – but because of your previous problem it makes sense to keep the cpu in the picture – especially as the symptoms are still ambiguous. (I still wouldn’t rule out memory incompatibly as a long shot - as memory is a b*stard and if it can rock the boat it usually will find a way.)

If you can’t get your hands on a cpu via any of your student colleagues, and unfortunately I don’t have a spare I can offer, I would try getting hold of a 4-Pin Power Supply to 8-Pin ATX motherboard adapter just so you can stop switching PSU’s over to run a tests. At least it will save you some aggravation when testing.

I’m hoping you may get lucky and a friendly forum member may have spare 775 cpu laying around and may offer it services if you pay their p&p – it happens sometimes and it’s usually just a process of keeping the thread alive long enough so that someone, who has one spare, notices your predicament…

What does your gut tell you that the problem is? You probably suspect one component more than another, even if you can’t explain why…

siumatfung said:

sounds like the motherboard it should still post will no cpu or at least beep

Click to expand...

Are you sure on this one? I'm struggling to find anything on it. If a motherboard with no cpu in should beep and mine doesn't, that's a strong hint that its the board that's down which would be the first piece of evidence either way. My motherboards manual says, for error codes,

one beep, all good
continuous then two short, repeated, no memory
continuous then three short, repeated, no gfx card
continuous then four short, repeated, 'hardware failure'

Which suggests it has no way of telling if the cpu is absent. I'll try this later, worth a shot. If it beeps without the cpu but not with it, we have our first real piece of evidence.

Plec said:

I still wouldn’t rule out memory incompatibly as a long shot - as memory is a b*stard and if it can rock the boat it usually will find a way.

Click to expand...

It is OCZ with Asus, which has a bad rep. The memory was fully compatible with its predecessor, but may be now faulty and can't be trusted. The 1gb stick of Kingston is unlikely to be incompatible though, would be very bad luck if one set is damaged in a way such as to become incompatible and the other just doesn't work out of the box.
I liked your turn of phrase here, it made a stressed man smile.

Plec said:

If you can’t get your hands on a cpu via any of your student colleagues, I would try getting hold of a 4-Pin Power Supply to 8-Pin ATX motherboard adapter just so you can stop switching PSU’s over to run a tests.

Click to expand...

I'm moved to using the known good psu with the Intel machine largely for this reason, the maimed one is running the amd system as, to be honest, I have no idea how damaged it is and I'd rather it killed the £120 amd system. I'll open it up and look for signs of damage in a bit. Hopefully members market will loan me a cpu for a fee, Ive put a note up there in case.

Plec said:

What does your gut tell you that the problem is? You probably suspect one component more than another, even if you can’t explain why…

Click to expand...

Processor. The 8 pin cable burning out is the only hint I've got either way; I consider it a fairly firm one. The board shorted near the top end of the ram slots, towards the cpu, and the 8 pin cable largely powers the cpu. That suggests it briefly had to cope with enough voltage to burn out a fuse/cable in the psu which could easily knock the processor flat.

I wish I was good enough at electronics to trace the region of failure back to which components it connected, ram to cpu is based only on physical location and the one patch of damage I could see. I'm quite surprised the ram is working at all really, let alone passing memtest at 800 5-5-5-15. All 4gb recognised too.


Cheers for the responses guys. I'll see if something comes up on MM, otherwise I'm leaning towards rma with a note saying "I'm sorry if this processor isn't dead, however I'll be livid if you replaced my dead motherboard with another dead motherboard", though more sensibly worded. It's likely to take a similar length of time to tracking down a processor or motherboard anyway, and I think ocuk will waive the tenner fee if I rma a working component under the circumstances.



p.s. The processor was clocked at 3.6ish a while ago, but was actually down to stock when this occurred. Was just planning to have another attempt at this, I think the limit was my refusal to go over 1.35V or use load line calibration rather than anything else but I had hoped not.

JonJ678 said:

Are you sure on this one? I'm struggling to find anything on it. If a motherboard with no cpu in should beep and mine doesn't, that's a strong hint that its the board that's down which would be the first piece of evidence either way.

Click to expand...

Yes, this is an odd one – and very little useful information is given up via searches.

The only thing I can add is that I used to own of those annoying ASUS MBs that had the annoying ‘voice post’ feature. It was poorly integrated over the normal post beep codes and so a lot of boards would give out erroneous voice errors and then go on to quite happily boot up the system.

The reason I mention this is that before I gagged mine, via the BIOS, I used to sometimes get the message ‘No CPU Installed’ - which leads me to believe that, some, boards must be able to identify if a CPU is not installed. So you may well have your first bit if hard evidence.

I would drop a web note to OC’s about this and even approach Asus – although be warned, Asus make great products but their customer service department seems to operate somewhere beyond the ‘Orion Nebula’ – so you may have to wait a while for a reply – you may have better luck with their forums?

However, there is always a flip side – this would point to the MB rather than the CPU which isn’t your favoured choice and after your last post I’m fully inclined to agree with your stomach’s rumblings on the matter.

The worst case scenario is that you have a DOA MB and you have a corrupt CPU that you have yet to identify due to lack of known working components to test it in. All coupled with the added doubt of memory incompatibility. Christ that is a depressing paragraph… :/

Before you start looking for a rope and the nearest cupboard - hopefully, you’ll get some luck via the MM – there’s usually some kind soul who pops up. I tend to judge these things by ppls past posts – so your prospects of getting a loan cpu should be good.

JonJ678 said:

It is OCZ with Asus, which has a bad rep. The memory was fully compatible with its predecessor, but may be now faulty and can't be trusted. The 1gb stick of Kingston is unlikely to be incompatible though, would be very bad luck if one set is damaged in a way such as to become incompatible and the other just doesn't work out of the box.
I liked your turn of phrase here, it made a stressed man smile.

Click to expand...

Perhaps I should explain – I have a ‘hate hate’ relationship with memory.

I distrust the stuff when installing it into a system and will continue to do so even if it appears to work flawlessly. The only time that I will give it any credit is if it manages to keep my system stable for the duration of its usefulness. But, if I had to use the very same memory in a different machine – it would have to prove itself all over again. Memory and I have a difficult history that doesn’t seem to be changing any time soon…

Ah well. Taking the cpu out didn't change anything, but had to be worth a try. At least it's being very consistent, if given a working psu it will light up. If power is pressed, fans will spin. It will do nothing else, whatever is attached or missing

I asked ocuk, and received:

1) Clear the CMOS on the motherboard (This can be found in the motherboard manual)

2) Strip the machine back to the minimal components needed to boot the system.
The Motherboard, CPU, PSU, GFX card & 1 stick of memory (in slot 1)

3) Rotate the memory stick through slots 1 - 4 until you have a picture. If still nothing then change to a different memory module.

In fairness I hadn't reset the cmos. Didn't help mind, but still. I love the optimism of 'until you have a picture'. So ocuk are also inclined to blame the memory. Hopefully they'll have further ideas.

Plec said:

The worst case scenario is that you have a DOA MB and you have a corrupt CPU that you have yet to identify due to lack of known working components to test it in. All coupled with the added doubt of memory incompatibility. Christ that is a depressing paragraph… :/

Click to expand...

Thanks, that's a much nicer way of looking at it. It is indeed possible that all of it is dead, still. Don't know whether to laugh or cry.

I think we all have our pet hates. I mistrust hard drives, but then memory hasn't been too cruel to me yet. I just don't understand how a file can sit on a hard drive for months then be corrupt when I try to open it. At least with a cd you can blame the scratches in the surface when it inexplicably no longer works.

I'm certainly learning things, and that's always good. An ek bolt down kit works well with a true, but you can no longer fit a fan. A motherboard, my one at least, doesn't beep to complain of a missing cpu but will object to a missing gpu. Power supplies can burn out in part when the rest keeps on working. All good general knowledge, we shall see where this leads. Perhaps I'll become one of the elite few to have a cpu die at stock settings.

It sounds like the cpu to me, given you are now saying the fans will reliably start up with a known working psu connected. From what you say about the psu damage it seems to have propagated from there and taken out the cpu. If the cpu was ok then it should at least give you the ram beeps with no ram sticks. If no one offers you a test cpu then you could always ask if anyone is willing to test your cpu in their test rig if they have one. There must be someone kicking about with a test rig. Assuming you got if from ocuk, I reckon if you presonnaly asked that ocuk guy, rjkoneill I think his name is, and explained the situation he would do it for you, he seems fairly keen to sort things out like this.

Happy to hear another vote for cpu. Not heard anything back from ocuk and its the end of the working day, so I'll see what tomorrow brings. Asking rjkoneill is a good suggestion. I'll drop him an email tomorrow. Too late for me to write coherently now.

Cheers guys

JonJ678 said:

Don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Click to expand...

I find glaring at the system from across the room, while trying to think of ever more elaborate ways, of trashing it into assorted sized pieces, with a crate of cold beer to hand works best for me. If my wife walks in it's easily explained as a period of quiet contemplation while i consider my options…

Aaaaaanway, any progress?

I'm guessing you're at an impasse until you can get your hands on a cpu - or get it tested in someone’s test rig?

It's probably getting close to justifying the risk of a £10 penalty and letting OC's run the test on the CPU?

I realise you're a student, so I’m guessing money is a bit of a novelty, but it may be worth the expense just so you can resolve the issue and get your main system back up and running.

Any luck on the MM forum?

EDIT: I’ve just noticed your reply on your other thread link – I’ll reply later when I have more time to do it justice – but would just like to express my thanks at your very comprehensive reply. You really went the whole 9 yards, plus an extra 1, it's very much appreciated!

Plec

You're encouraging me towards windows 7, I'm encouraging you towards ubuntu. Fair exchange, we'll both learn from it

Fairly stuck. There's a processor on offer in the mm for 10 inc, if ocuk are prepared to offer to test & replace the cpu if faulty that remains the best option. It would also mean I'd have some form of computer working while intel take however long they see fit for the rma.

So far the retailer has offered me an rma on the new motherboard and refused me one on the cpu, I suspect I'm going to end up rma'ing it to intel and sulking. Both retailer and intel are pointing at the other guy and saying 'it's his problem' which is a bit rubbish, I may be going down the bleak road of legal advice.

Unemployed student about to spend a summer paying rent without a student loan. Poor does not start to cover it, tomorrow I'm going to spend a day in town offering to work as absolutely anything. A tenner on the credit card is a hit I can just about take but am not pleased about.


I suspected other components to be dead from the start (burning electrical smell and bare copper newly visible on the board...), and asked to send mb/cpu/ram all off to be tested. The retailer declined, and so all this started. What do people think about this? I understand opposing multiple item rmas, but equally it wouldn't take more than a couple of minutes longer to test the cpu as well once the components were on the bench, and it would have saved me many hours.
I feel they should have offered to test the cpu in the first place. Instead they're still declining to, and I'm confused and annoyed by this.

I dout your CPU is dead as most of the time they either work or they dont and if its powering up then imo its fine

It doesn't power up almighty15. Indeed it behaves exactly the same with the cpu removed as it does with it in place.

I've bought a pentium 4 for a tenner so shall see if the computer works with this. If it does, I'm going to find out how long a rma to intel takes, and learn to overclock pentium 4s in the mean time. Should be here in a couple of days.

I've decided to be rational about this. The entire rma process has been handled by a single guy, and it's unfair to assume the rest of the company behaves the same way. Considering future course of action, suspect I'm going to register an official complaint against said guy.

JonJ678 said:

So far the retailer has offered me an rma on the new motherboard and refused me one on the cpu,

Click to expand...

I’m confused by the e-tailers reluctance to test both the CPU and the MB because if one or both are found to be fit for purpose they stand to make £** plus p&p fees. Worst case scenario for them is both are at fault – but even this works out cheaper, through efficiency of time, as both components would be tested at the same time.

I’m guessing that they have to factor in the amount of novice builders/buyers that purchase their components with the misguided idea that they’ll assemble like meccano and will operate, as advertised, once built.

I suspect this is why the onus is always on the customer to find the faulty part – otherwise they would be inundated with fault free components – most of which could be easily identified if a little research and aptitude was applied.

Obvioulsy, I’m not lumping you anywhere near this category but, unfortunately for you, their 'working model' for ‘component returns’ probably does. However, I would have thought that they would temporarily suspend their model when required – especially with regard to your current problem.

Have you tried speaking to them directly? I’ve written detailed web notes in the past to e-tailers and have come to the conclusion that the majority get scan read resulting in multiple e-mails and re-tests. I now resort to the phone where possible... :/

This large amount of correspondence and enforced retesting caused by the ‘disgruntled well informed’ contradicts the ‘returns model’ but I’m guessing the statistics still hold up for its continued use – both fiscally and operationally. (Statistics - now there is a branch of maths that I personally hate as there is always the ‘sod’s law’ principle that has to be conveniently ignored when it’s applied on mass – unfortunately, in this analogy, you’re representing ‘sod’s law’.)

JonJ678 said:

I've decided to be rational about this. The entire rma process has been handled by a single guy, and it's unfair to assume the rest of the company behaves the same way. Considering future course of action, suspect I'm going to register an official complaint against said guy.

Click to expand...

Edit: I’ve just read your last reply, (i meant to post the above garbled message last night) – is there only the one guy you can deal with? Could you request another person or, better still, his superior and just cite a clash of personalities to keep things civil until this is resolved?

It really is an odd stance for them/him to take when considering all of the above and your detailed correspondence explaining all your troubleshooting methods and findings.

Anyway - good luck with it and hopefully the P4 will resolve this mystery... well, actually, it has to - otherwise we'll be entering the twilight-zone...

I hope you had better luck with the job hunting? I can’t see you having difficulty getting a job for the summer as i suspect you interview very well... (obviously, that's if there are any jobs available... :/)

I wish to state clearly that this problem is not with OcUK.

Oh my. I have indeed got an update, new processor arrived today (cheers optitech, ill leave trust for you shortly). In short, the computer still does not work. I'll recap, for my own clarity as much as anything else.

I have a tested and known working graphics card, psu, ram, hard drive. Indeed I'm using these now with a fairly terrible amd system. I have a diagnosed faulty q9550 and p5q motherboard, and a known working pentium 4.

Motherboard + either processor = fans spin up, no post.
Mother board + q9550 - ram = fans spin up, no post
Motherboard + P4 -ram = fans spin up, motherboard beeps that it has no ram
Motherboard + either processor -graphics card = fans spin up, no post

Lack of graphics card should lead to beeps according to the manual. From this I conclude that the q9550 is more dead than the pentium 4. As the processor is known working, and as the board does not beep as it is supposed to without gfx card, I conclude that the board is faulty.

I therefore have a dead q9550 which has been repeatedly refused for rma. I also have a dead motherboard, despite being freshly back from rma. I am postponing my complaint as at present I think all I'd do is scream abuse down the phone. I'll register a formal complaint via the website complaints system, give it several hours then phone and try not to scream at them.

As an interesting example, here is the last exchange. Names removed, but to the letter how the exchange went.

8pm Thursday last week, I sent

--------------------------------------------------------

I do not believe the motherboard to be at fault.

I remind you that I first asked for the cpu to be tested alongside the motherboard and you declined. You therefore knew that I have reason to believe the cpu to be faulty. I cannot believe that *blanked out* would ship an untested motherboard to a customer under these circumstances, especially when this action required formal complaint to achieve.

I formally request to return an almost certainly dead Q9550 to you for you to test and replace if faulty. I am not interested in waiting for 2 weeks for you to test it.

Intel are prepared to accept a direct rma if the retailer sees fit to shirk this duty.

Regards.

--------------------------------------------------------

This was not friendly, but given this is now over a month on I consider it reasonable. Here, astonishingly, is the response I got at 5pm today. Monday.

--------------------------------------------------------

Thank you for your webnote, I apologise for any inconvenience caused by this. and im sorry for not been able to accept both items back at the same time for testing together sir. this is something we are looking into benn able to do in the very near futher.

--------------------------------------------------------

I kid you not, that is word for word the response I received today. Spelling mistakes and all.

siumatfung said:

tbh if you havent overclocked i very do doubt it is the CPU

sounds like the motherboard it should still post will no cpu or at least beep

send the motherboard bk tbh

Click to expand...

that was my thinking, if the cpu was dead surely it would post check or beep accordingly

Again, note we're are not talking about OcUK!

I can’t say I’m surprised that you received a DOA MB as a replacement (i’ve had a couple) – I don't mind receiveing re-conditioned components if i'm over the 28 day period as long as they're tested first – but from experience some companies never do.

It appears your butting heads with someone with a substantially thicker skull than yours (and is clearly a d*ck) and as such he/she will probably continue to trip you up.

Could you not try what i suggested in my above post:

Plec said:

is there only the one guy you can deal with? Could you request/expect to deal with another person or, better still, his superior and just cite a clash of personalities to keep things civil until this is resolved?

Click to expand...

Also, I hate to add your troubles but there is one other major downside to all this...

I still wouldn’t be a 100% convinced that the q9550 is dead as the motherboard may not be able to recognise that particular CPU as part of its quirk/fault. Until you have a known working MB you’ll never be totally sure... :/

Again, before you start looking for a rope and the nearest cupboard – at least you have a known working CPU to keep you going once you get a working MB. Plus, it does point towards the CPU being dead - it's just not totally conclusive yet.

Good luck with it.

Additional: I didn't get the time i was hoping over the weekend to install ubuntu - i'm hoping i'll get some time later this week/weekend. Then i'll respond to the other thread - but i have noted your advice, thanks.

Ah curses. I was sure diagnositcs were finished, but you're quite right. The cpu may still be working, though the evidence that it isn't is starting to stack up somewhat. I think I draw the line at buying a new motherboard for diagnostics however. I'm distracting myself by watercooling the 'temporary' amd mb/ram/cpu in the meantime, it's slow but it's definitely quiet. I remain astonished that they didn't test the board before shipping it.

I've dealt with two people so far, the first was well spoken but didn't resolve anything, the second is quoted above. There was also a formal complaint dealt with by management which lead to sending me a new board the next day, fair play for that. Shame they sent me a dead one though.

Previously I've had no problems with the company at all, indeed a question I asked last week about which heatsinks were on their current batch of reaper was quickly and professionally answered. The fellow actually checked the stock in the warehouse for me. Bizarre.

I've submitted a complaint which should be dealt with by management, as keeping everything written spares me recording phone calls. No word yet, but they've only had it for half a working day. On the bright side my girlfriend is very excited by all this as she's training to be a lawyer, and I haven't seen her show interest in my computer since I built it. I'm pretty confident small claims will back me on this, but I like the company and still don't really want to cease trading with them.

A final complication is that the P5Q premium which I'm still very fond of is just starting to be difficult to find, the retailer don't stock it anymore. Quite exciting though, it might finally all be resolved this afternoon.

Cheers for all your help Plec, very grateful for it.


edit: The potentially suspect ram causes my amd machine to shut down under prime 95 blend, stock settings except for ram running slower than stock. So that's not looking good either.
Close of business today, no response.

Amd machine now refuses to post with the ocz ram, and then refused to post with the 1gb stick. Scared the hell out of me, gone back to using the 1gb stick it came with after a cmos reset and trying to post with no ram. I'm not putting the ocz ram near another computer, it just isn't worth it.