Help! - New PC messed up

[mofirouz]

Hello all.

I bought a pc from OcUK on 25th June with the following specs:

i7 930 2.80
Evga nVidia GTX 465 1GB GRR5
3x2GB Corsair XMS3 DDR3
Antec 650W TruePower New Modular
Titan CPU Cooler

and some other accessories (like cd rom and etc)....

OS: Win7 x64 Pro + Ubuntu 9.10

--

Now my problem is this:

I have had intermittent problems with the computer under both operating systems. I have reseated the graphics card and the ram modules, but the problem still presists. The problem is as follows:

1) Blue Screen of Death: 0x00000116
2) Computer freezes - no mouse or keyboard interaction, monitor does not update, however there is still sound/music being played prefectly, and this is not due to buffers, since new music files gets loaded from the playlist.
3) BIOS crash + boot crash + POST crash - I am booting using Grub2 and it crashes during displaying the background image. BIOS crash is at random times. POST check stops just before checking for available RAM in the system.
4) Whissing noise from the graphics module - when case is open, a high-sound whissing noise keeps coming out, and its not the sound of the fan running, since it stops and restarts.
5) Graphics component crashes in a way that there is no feed to the monitor and the whizzing noise stops. The computer is still running, just there isn't any input or output. The caps-lock on the keyboard doesn't turn on or off. I think this is caused by another RAM problem.

It *seems* like it is a graphics problem, but as far as my knowledge goes, graphics card is not at all used during POST, display of BIOS or display of primary stuff (Like memtest86+). So why am I getting a frozen display there? BIOS froze, Post froze just before displaying the max RAM, and memtest froze in the middle of testing RAM.

I've checked the temperatures and im running 40C for i7 930 (which is VERY cold for an i7 chip). The voltages are good - just a tiny bit over the limit (like 12v is 12.09V).

The problem seem to get worse and worse, since in the first few weeks, I only encountered this problem once or twice and it wasn't a boot/bios issue, and now it is getting worse and worse....

So what is really making this mess? Graphics card, ram modules, or motherboard (pls no motherboard!)...

REALLY apperciate your help.
Mo

 

[bremen1874]

Did you buy a built PC, or the components to assemble one yourself? If it came built then your first port of call should definitely be OcUK tech support.

With the symptoms described I'd be looking at the memory as the most likely culprit. The graphics behaviour sounds normal for a PC that’s locked up.

Double check you’re using the correct memory slots, and that the memory settings in the BIOS are correct. Then try with one stick of memory at a time and see if you can isolate the problem.

 

[DavidUK84]

This sounds way out of my depth, but have you overclocked your components? If so try returning them to their defaults. From the sound of things that will be far from a full solution, but it might help.

 

[mofirouz]

Hi all,

thanks for the reply.

No I bought the components myself and built it from scratch.

I've ran memtest86+ on each ram stick and they all came out green. Now I'm running it on all three sticks. Ram sticks are put as 0-2-4 because, 1-3-5 can't be done (slot 5 is underneath the cpu fan).

what do you mean a PC thats locked up? So is my graphics card ok, or...?

The thing is, if the RAM is messed up, the graphics card won't have anything to display. So there is not gonna be any input to the graphics card, but then again, there is no obvious ram problem.

so am i back to sq 1?

Mo