I've been building the box in my spec piece by piece for a few months, and had a few problems along the way that have been getting worse until now it's unusable.
It started a few months ago with random reboots, usually after the computer had been on most of the day - this wasn't a bluescreen, but seemed more like a thermal shutdown. The computer would then take a few goes of restarting before it would boot.
My wife complained about it, so I took it away, stripped it all down and cleaned it and reassembled it. It was then fine, so I overclocked it upto 3.6, tested it was Prime stable / memtested everything and fine.
It ran okay for a month, until I put the 4890 in which started triggering the reboots again. (Although it ran fine for a 10 hour session of Crysis at full whack).
Now it goes into the boot cycle within 20 seconds of being in the BIOS or doesn't even POST.
It behaved like this on a Seasonic S12 600W (known good) and BeQuiet 850W
It had this problem with the 8800GTS and 4890 - but it seems a bit worse with the 4890 (hotter?)
Unplugging extra hard disks doesn't help
Unplugging RAM doesn't help and memtest ran for 12 hours previously with no errors.
Cooling in the machine is fine, CPU is 40C idle 70C underload when overclocked. Northbridge etc creep upto 50-60C max. Volts and stuff are all sensible.
BIOS was the latest and had been stable for weeks.
The CPU handled Crysis fine for an extended session on the weekend, and was previously Prime stable.
I'm thinking it's some motherboard issue, and the hot cold cycles have loosened something - any other suggestions? I guess I should run it out of the case again to eliminate shorts.
It started a few months ago with random reboots, usually after the computer had been on most of the day - this wasn't a bluescreen, but seemed more like a thermal shutdown. The computer would then take a few goes of restarting before it would boot.
My wife complained about it, so I took it away, stripped it all down and cleaned it and reassembled it. It was then fine, so I overclocked it upto 3.6, tested it was Prime stable / memtested everything and fine.
It ran okay for a month, until I put the 4890 in which started triggering the reboots again. (Although it ran fine for a 10 hour session of Crysis at full whack).
Now it goes into the boot cycle within 20 seconds of being in the BIOS or doesn't even POST.
It behaved like this on a Seasonic S12 600W (known good) and BeQuiet 850W
It had this problem with the 8800GTS and 4890 - but it seems a bit worse with the 4890 (hotter?)
Unplugging extra hard disks doesn't help
Unplugging RAM doesn't help and memtest ran for 12 hours previously with no errors.
Cooling in the machine is fine, CPU is 40C idle 70C underload when overclocked. Northbridge etc creep upto 50-60C max. Volts and stuff are all sensible.
BIOS was the latest and had been stable for weeks.
The CPU handled Crysis fine for an extended session on the weekend, and was previously Prime stable.
I'm thinking it's some motherboard issue, and the hot cold cycles have loosened something - any other suggestions? I guess I should run it out of the case again to eliminate shorts.
