4800 X2 Issues?

[TheDean]

Hi all,

Put my rig together on the weekend and am having a few issues which may cause me to kick the living daylights out of the flipping Pc!

Shuttle SN25P
4800 X2
36GB Raptor (Clicking - see in Hard Drive section)
Corsair 2GB DDR XMS3200C2PT TwinX (2x1GB)
Leadtek GeForce 7900 GS 256MB

Windows loads fine but when double clicking an icon on the desktop to run a program it refuses to load!

If I can get BF 2142 to load it will crash within 5 minutes.
CPU-Z Reports the RAM and CPU fine and I was under the impression if the RAM was in trouble the system wouldn't post - Is that right?

What should I do?

 

[TheDean]

Can you run memtest from DVD? That would be perfect as I don't have a FDD currently installed.

Once I download that presumably I boot the system from the CD in question?!

The Shuttle SN25P has a 350W PSU

 

[TheDean]

Well apparently my Graphics card requires a 350W PSU, so there should be no problems there. It just seems as if whenever I put the pc under any kind of stress it resets....worrying times

I will try and run Memtest and Prime95 later tonight and post the results.

EDIT - Just thinking. Could it be anything to do with thermal Paste? When I installed the CPU intself I used some thermal paste when came with the shuttle and smeared it around the CPU as instructed. Well I thought I did.....I am getting paranoid now!

 

[TheDean]

i suppose it would be useful to take the psu out of the equasion, but I just dont think that is an issue...

I've seen Shuttle setups much more demanding!

 

[TheDean]

Ok all,

We may have found the problem.

I ran Memtest from a CD and it had found over 1 million errors?!?! Presumably this means the RAM is suitably ill for an RMA?!?! I bought it 2nd hand, but I thought any error within memtest means something is not quite right...

Results are as follows:

AMD Athlon 64 2421Mhz
L1 Cache: 128 19771MB/s
L2 Cache: 1624 4912MB/s

Memory: 2048M 2355MB/s
Chipset:


WallTime - 2:38:28
Cached: 2048MB
RsudsMem: 276
MemMap: e820-std
Cache: On
ECC: Off
Test: Std
Pass: 1
Errors: Over 1 Million
ECC Errs: 0

Your thoughts please.....

 

[TheDean]

after doing a bit of research on the corsair website/forums it may well be the timings.

I will mess around with the bios tonight and see what I can come up with.

Thanks for everyone's help and support so far!

 

[TheDean]

Just so I know - WHat timings should I give the RAM to make it feel more like working?

 

[TheDean]

i set it to auto last night, but there is an option to set it manually. Do you reccomend I do that or leave it at auto?

Cheers

 

[TheDean]

Great News!

After a bit of reading I downloaded Nvidia nTune and what a difference it made!

I ran a 3 hour complete system stress test with it and my rig passed with flying colours! The RAM timings (and I assume voltage) were dictated by nTune and were gradually lowered to get the best from the RAM while not making the system unstable. The voltage was not mentioned however - but after Memtest for 10hrs, see below, I assume it is fine?!?!

After this I ran Memtest overnight to see if it had worked - It was on for nearly 10 hours...and Yes, you guessed it - ZERO ERRORS

Thank you all for your help in this matter. Especially to Big Wayne who stopped me from kicking perfectly good hardware into touch!

EDIT - After looking on the Corsair website they say the timings of the RAM are 2-3-3-6 and 2.75V.

 

[TheDean]

I will - It's very handy that a Windows program is able to modify the Bios! I'm just happy it doesn't have to be RMA'ed

I'll have a quick look in the bios later on tonight and see what's been set. Also - Would the settings made by nTune change if I were to shut the system off at the back?

 

[TheDean]

As far as I know nTune only changes things in that Windows session

If that were the case surely Memtest would have failed again would it not? Once I rebooted to load memtest from a CD the settings should have gone back to normal...I'll have a look tonight and see what the crack is

 

[TheDean]

nTune found here