BIG problem doing my head in.

eracer2006 · 22 Dec 2006 at 23:48

my pc keeps freezing, its only a week old, built by myself (and it didnt work) then built by a professional who had to do things such as dremelling the TT120 to make it fit the cpu :rolleyes:

Now it keeps freezing, freezing to the point of rebooting at which point it wont POST just sits there for xxx amount of hours with all the fans on full, the only way to get it working is to clear the CMOS.

now thats ok, apart from i have to take out the gfx card to get to the cmos.

so its annoying that its doing this every 6 hours or so, ive had it a week and only been able to play it 4 days!

it doesnt matter if its standard (slow) or a moderate overclock or full overclock, it still does the same thing.

It only does it when your not playing a game, when the screensaver comes on, when you leave it idle, or when your doing menial tasks such as unzipping small files. it NEVER does it in a game.

Im so wound up by it my old rubbish computer was far more reliable.

specs

ocz gamestream 600w psu
TT120
Conroe e6300
gigabyte 965P S3
antec 900
2gb of GeiL pc6400
radeon 1950 xt

note when it boots the display doesnt come on. none of the keyboard lights light up, but wierdly this time one of them has done, the pc is turned off yet the keyboard light is STILL on :confused:

any help would be greatly appreciated before i ebay all the parts waste 500 quid and start again!

eracer2006 · 23 Dec 2006 at 00:03

would it possibly be the fact my motherboard is on F4 version of the bios ?

if i flash it to F7 will all my problems go away ?

Trigger · 23 Dec 2006 at 00:12

eracer2006 said:
would it possibly be the fact my motherboard is on F4 version of the bios ?

if i flash it to F7 will all my problems go away ?

No harm in trying- at least it is something you can rule out

Bananadude · 23 Dec 2006 at 01:44

Yes they are, email me if you have a problem with it.
(So bizarre it's funny. And i'm puzzled why reference to them remains in first post)
:confused:

I doubt it's the bios on F4 thing. Would be nice if it was that simple though. I would say it's something far more serious. Have you tried a complete reformat of drive, and a removal of all components and repositioning of all?

eracer2006 · 23 Dec 2006 at 03:57

yup, not reformatted drive though.

cant see how it can be a windows problem already ? though that would explain why msn wont work and i cant click links.

EffBee · 23 Dec 2006 at 08:58

Are you using windows based overclocking s/w or clock tweaking s/w. I have seen people reporting symptoms not unlike yours if this windows based s/w screws up.

Trigger · 23 Dec 2006 at 09:02

Bananadude said:
I doubt it's the bios on F4 thing. Would be nice if it was that simple though. I would say it's something far more serious. Have you tried a complete reformat of drive, and a removal of all components and repositioning of all?

Don't under-estimate what a dodgy BIOS can do. A while ago, I had a Intel Celeron D machine which would boot intermittantly and sometimes only with a CMOS reset and in the end an updated BIOS fixed it. I tried everything I could think of before that- different hard drives, different RAM, different CPU, different PSU etc but it was the BIOS update which fixed it.

In short, try the updated BIOS

wellibob · 23 Dec 2006 at 09:26

Check yer roms and drives, if using ide, or both, make sure all drives, ide are on cable select. DS3 dont like master slave etc on ide. SATa makes no odds, but check connections.

trojan698 · 23 Dec 2006 at 10:07

Run memtest 1.65 (the bootable cd version) on your ram for a few hours. If it fires out errors, RMA it, problem solved.

Can also try using a HD diagnostic tool on your HD to check it. Also consider a full (not quick) ntfs format of your HD followed by fresh install of XP, it's possible that windows or your filing system has been corrupted at some point.

I'd update the bios first though

artaxerxes · 23 Dec 2006 at 12:34

If you paid this professional to buld it. Have them trouble shoot it!

Do a virus check with Grisoft's AVG Free for me too.

eracer2006 · 23 Dec 2006 at 16:15

patching the mb to the DS3 F7 bios........ hope it works cos i only have an S3...

eracer2006 · 23 Dec 2006 at 16:29

ok now running DS3 F7.

I have 1 sata hdd and one IDE DVDRW. So i think i can rule that out!

Im going to leave it as standard fsb and standard clock speed for now.

eracer2006 · 23 Dec 2006 at 17:42

i was to tempted to oc it.

same problem :mad:

so reset cmos and now running at 2.1ghz which i suppose is better than 1.8.

thinking it might be a bad install, as it only does it when loading windows or in windows, and not when playing games etc.

bit concerned where people state a c2d xp setup takes under 20 mins, mine took over 2 hours!

Trigger · 23 Dec 2006 at 17:45

Are you now running it at stock speeds then?

eracer2006 · 23 Dec 2006 at 19:15

i wasnt, i am now cos ive just reset the bios agian.

found out the screw holding the soundcard in was threaded, so it kept falling out a little bit. i pushed it back in to test what happens and guess what, it locked up and needed cmos reset!

so moved it to another slot and it locked up again! my fault this time, forgot to plug in the cpu fan :mad:

seems ok so far now.

question: why if i reset the cmos by taking the battery out, does it ONLY WORK if i take out the graphics card at the same time ?

trojan698 · 23 Dec 2006 at 19:20

trojan698 said:
Can also try using a HD diagnostic tool on your HD to check it. Also consider a full (not quick) ntfs format of your HD followed by fresh install of XP, it's possible that windows or your filing system has been corrupted at some point.

And dont overclock till you've got it stable at stock speeds

eracer2006 · 23 Dec 2006 at 19:46

ok ive got only one more thing i can try, reinstall windows. with full reformat.

cos i got it working, stable, stock speeds, started playing farcry, got as far as when he pics up his first gun and it crashed, with the subwoofer making pulsing noises :confused:

reset and guess what, now have to reset cmos, i really dont understand why it wont just reboot normally after a GAME locks up ?

nor do i understand why if i reset the cmos without taking out the gfx card, it does the same thing when i boot it up :confused:

anyway ive unplugged it and im going to ebay it all and buy an xbox 360 i think.

Trigger · 23 Dec 2006 at 19:55

eracer2006 said:
anyway ive unplugged it and im going to ebay it all and buy an xbox 360 i think.

Thats not the answer though is it. From what you just said, it sounds like dodgy IRQ management from motherboard. You need to try installing windows with the very bare minimum- motherboard, cpu, cooler, RAM, graphics card, hard disk and ONE optical drive- nothing more and see how that goes. In short, reset the CMOS one last time before install, check your temps and voltages are stable in BIOS, DO NOT OVERCLOCK IT, also don't put the sound card anywhere near the system until windows is installed and you've checked its stable

See how you get on with that

eracer2006 · 23 Dec 2006 at 20:00

the pc wont post without the soundcard in.

ive reset the cmos and if the same soundcard isnt in a slot it just wont post :confused:

so i dont have much choice there do i!

the temps are stable both in bios and on TAT.

A2Z · 23 Dec 2006 at 20:08

maybe swap some components around with friends components or something so you can isolate the problem? then RMA the dodgy stuff?