Failing Win 7 Boot Up Issue - Suspect Hardware

Using CPUID(Core temps) and Hot CPU I can see that even when under 100% test on all 4 cores the voltage is on at 1.25v. I currently have the CPU voltage set to 1.35v.
 
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I'll do that tonight. Good thing is I checked the mobo warranty and I still have 6 months left on it.
 
Thats good news :)

If it fails on stock, I would probably quickly look at the gfx cards drivers. Are they uptodate? Or have they been updated by you or your son and it's caused some problems. I had no end of hassle with my ati GPU and the catalyst drivers.

I'm still leaning towards the mobo just want you to be sure you've checked everything before sending the mobo off. Nothing worse than RMA'ing a part for them to send it back saying it's A OK!
 
Yes the Grfx drivers are upto date and the 8800GTX and the 280GTX in mine and my sons PC use the same NVidia Geforce. I'm leaning towards the Mobo myself as well, maybe an issue with the North Bridge chipset. One last thing I will try is to put the 8800 in my system again and run the 3DMark06 and if the same problem happens its defo not the Grfx card. But I'll do the same in his system as well. And yes I update both systems as he's only 10! But a hacker in the making :)
 
OK all, the saga continues and I thought I'd found the problem.

Friday night I found out my son had played all do on Team Fortress 2 and the system had not crashed.

So I ran 3DMark06 and it crashed after 1 minute. I thought maybe the AV (Norton 360) was bringing a popup up that I can't see. So I disabled it and it still crashed.

I downloaded SiSoft Sandra Professional and ran a diag test and all passed.

I loaded HOT CPU Pro and Core Temps and ran SiSoft Sandra on a benchmark test and the cores ran at 100% all through the tests and the temps never got above 65 degrees.

I ran 3DMark again ad it crashed. Now bear in mind that this is a 280GTX OC'd with 1gb DDR3 RAM and I run all my games at 1680x1280, the free version of only allows 1024x768 resolution. It ran and it craches. So I played COD MW2 Friday night and all worked fine.

Saturday morning I made sure all the latest Win7 and latest grfx drivers loaded and ran 3DMark, it crashed.....:(

So, now not completed conviced it isn't the grfx card I took my son 8800GTX and put it into mine and set up high res, ran 3DMark and it all passed no crashes...Yippee! after all that it's deffinitely the grfx card.

So I took my 280GTX put it back in my system and configured it up, no changes in BIOS between 8800 and the 280 booted up and ran 3DMark to make 100% sure the system would crash again........

Ran 3DMark as before...................it passed!!!!!!

I then ran it 4 more times and it passed every time!!!!!!

So I'm more confused now than ever!!!!!

Only thing I can put it down to is a dirty connector or a dirty track on the grfx card...:(
 
I still think the mobo is flakey. The gfx card can't reset your bios settings ;) You have changed the gfx card over before so it wasnt the card creeping out of the slot and i'm doubtful it was a dirty connection.

It possible its an intermitant fault with the mobo (the worst fault to have). I'm happy you seem to have it working now but as i said from the get go I'm leaning towards the mobo (we've eliminate the gfxs now). Any more probs I would just change/upgrade the mobo etc.
 
Any suggestions on a mobo swap? I still like the ASUS mobo's and do a lot of gaming. I have RAID0 and 4 x SATAII drives. I also have the IBIS SSD to install. I'll order a new mobo and just RMA the other.
 
Oh id forgotten about the RMA...sorry.

Top tip...... your son is 10! steal his while you wait for your mobo to come back =P You'll struggle to find a new mobo for your cpu now it's such "old tech". It's a waste of money in my opinion trying to replace it patience is a virtue so they say
 
I'll look into the i5/i7 series stuff and see if I can flog the other gear off. Shame though I love my Q6600 its been a good cpu. Bye old friend ......sniff.......sniff :(
 
Ok, I've found the problem, its the damn grfx card. I couldn't get the 280GTX to fail then suddenly it started to fail on COD MW2 so I swapped the cards in my sons system and mine and and ran his and it was all fine. Ran COD MW2 on his system with my card in it and after 30 minutes it crashed! Kept trying it and it crashed again. So now I need to RMA the card. Only to find out that BFG went into liquidation and if the warranty is over 2 years I'm stuffed which it is,so the lifetime warranty is not worth diddly!

So I'm going to try baking the card. Yes, its not a Jim Royale reference, its an actual way of backing the card in the oven to melt and reform the solder in case its a dry joint. See below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmzGn...eature=related
 
Guys, just an update on what happened last night. I followed the grfx card baking vid and plugged the card back in. I ran 3Dmark and it worked perfectly. I then ran the card with COD MW2 for 20 mins on highest res and it never crashed once. It has run for some time before it crashed before so I'm going to run it all over the weekend and will give a further update on Monday to let you know if there are any crashes.
 
OK all I said I'd give you and update and here's a possitive one:

Following the idea of the "Baking of the Grfx card" which I was suggested to do I backed it and friday night following the thursday night baking I play COD MW2 for 1.5 hours and no problems. Then on Saturday I played MW2 for a further 3 hours and no problems. Today I set my system a task of tests through 3DMark for 4 consecutiver runs and then played MW2 for 4 hours all afternoon plus 2 hours tonight and not an artifact sniffle, not a crashesedle, not even a pauseadiddley, in fact just pure endless game fun. Not sure the name of the dude who recommended the baking (other than Jim Rolaye) but I consider the grfx card fixed and you can shove you BFG lifetime warranty, thanks OcUK for this great forum. :)
 
Tha's great news you finally found the cause of your problem......im still confused about the bios resets though lol

I'm well aware of the fix you used. I don't favour the oven method, I have reflowed integrated GPUs on laptops by using a heatgun. Although I should mention as I have to everyone I have done the "fix" for ......it should be considered a temporary repair. Should it fail again atleast you now know what to replace :)
 
Yeh, the BIOS loss is still concerning so as it had the original 1201 BIOS from the time I bought it I've upgraded to the last version on ASUS from 2009 which is ver 2301. If it happens again I'll replace the battery.

BTW, told my mate about the baking and he's given me his ATI 4870 which has artifact problems so I'm going to bake that tonight as well and see how we get on with that.
 
Did you check what features the BIOS update added?

Good luck with the card. I would suggest you use the heatgun method as a "bodge job" rather than the oven. I'm sure you could borrow a heatgun, they are often used for stripping paint.

I'm sure you shield the card with foil but you are still heating those "hidden" components in the oven for longer than you need to. You use the heatgun for around 40 secs in a circular motion just around the GPU, I use a laser thermometer to judge the temp then allow the card to cool for 15 mins or so.

That fix is also MY last resort to fixing RROD xbox's, infact I seem to repair more xbox's than I do PCs these days lol
 
honosuseri said:
Did you check what features the BIOS update added?
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The majority of the BIOS updates are to do with system fans and memory and CPU types. Nothing to do with BIOS stability.

I'll just keep and eye on it and if needs be I'll replace the battery and see how I get on there for a while. Thanks for the assistance honosuseri. :D
 
I was just asking to be nosey lol

Your welcome, that's why we all flock here ;) I'll keep my fingers crossed that you get a new lease of life from the GPU. God bless Destroy It Yourself bodge jobs =P
 
Just one final update, my card is still running strong not errors. I also baked my mates card on Monday night which is an ATI 4870 as mentioned which had artifact and glitching problems in windows and DOS modes and he tested it last night in TF2 and COD MW2 and it works perfectly. So even if it lasts for another year same as mine its moth saved us spending a few hundred out now. Good old baking!
 
GodMac said:
Just one final update, my card is still running strong not errors. I also baked my mates card on Monday night which is an ATI 4870 as mentioned which had artifact and glitching problems in windows and DOS modes and he tested it last night in TF2 and COD MW2 and it works perfectly. So even if it lasts for another year same as mine its moth saved us spending a few hundred out now. Good old baking!
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OK final update. The baking of the above has also work and he's been running it for two days without issue. I have also had no further issues with my 280GTX.

Over and out!
 
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