Help please: upgraded system is not working :-(

Sparkycorp

Sparkycorp

Sparkycorp

Associate
Joined
2 Apr 2009
Posts
13
Location
London, UK
Dear Overclockers,

I am new to your community and as I have searched on this forum for answers and not found them, I am posting here. My apologies if the answers are on this site somewhere and I will be very grateful for any help. Some background:

A mate built my old system in 2006, which we've had problems upgrading:

Case: Generics 9980 with 450W PSU (claimed output).
MB: Asrock 939-SLI32-eSATA2.
CPU: Single core Athlon 64, 3700+ (OCed to 2.45GHz with stock fan).
GPU: Gigabyte 7600 GT (NX76T256D-RH rev. 1).
RAM: 2 x Major Brand 512Mb DDR400 PC3200.
HD: 200GB Maxtor DiamondMax 10, SATA 2.
(plus 2 cheap case fans, CPU fan, modem, DVD R and DVD R/W and floppy)
(dual booting with XP Prof. on both of Work (e.g. no Office) and Game setups)

I've added these new parts [Edit: "to the remains of the above"]:

MB: Gigabyte P43-S3L (rev. 1).
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E7400.
CPU fan: Akasa AK-965 (added as an 'edit' on 050409 at 22:00 GMT)
RAM: 2 x 2GB OCZ PC2 8500, DDR2, 1066MHz.
Fan: A cheap one for the front of the case.
(BIOS and drivers for the MB (chipset & audio) and GPU have been updated)
(I've been careful about static and avoided touching electrical contacts)

I have experienced several problems, which I would very much appreciate your thoughts on:
---------------
1) THe PC will not boot with both of the new RAM sticks in.

2) The PC will not boot with a RAM stick in the 1st [of 4] slots on the MB but it will with it in the 2nd slot.

3) The PC will only boot through to the desktop (normal or safe mode) with the [simpler] Game setup. Even then it freezes (screen looks normal but keyboard and mouse stop working) after a period of a 5-15 minutes.

It took a long time to get that far and coincidently, as I thought lack of power could be an issue, I had disconnected the floppy, case fans (I have a desk fan cooling the system) and a DVD drive.

Before freezing, the Game setup works OK: For example, Gothic 3 loaded when I tried it once but it froze a few seconds into gameplay (not unusual on the old system! LoL ...but on the old system it would freeze differently due to low RAM and then unfreeze) and Super PI demonstrated a 38% [single core] improvement in calculating Pi to 4 million decimals over the previous CPU.

4) The Work profile (normal, safe mode or 'last settings that worked') briefly goes to the blue screen of death immediately after or just as the Windows loading screen appears before resetting.
---------------
Thankyou for taking the time to read this long post and thanks in advance for any help.

Please don't assume I have listed all the relevant points as I am not expert: Feel free to ask as simple questions as you like of me in case i missed something useful to solving the issue!

Regards,
Sparky
 
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Chances are that you have a cheap unbranded (unknown brand) PSU in there, which is probably the cause of the issues. Buy a new one from a well known brand (500W+ should do you) and try that out. Otherwise you may have a dodgy motherboard with a dodgy RAM slot.

Don't think this is relevant, but what graphics card are you using?
 
Dear LinktoInsanity,

Thanks for your quick reply. It's true that the PSU is cheap and I'm pretty sure it's built into the case. I'll be able to look for possible brands tonight and get back to you but I expect it will be 'unbranded'.

I am still using the old graphics card from the old system (Gigabyte 7600 GT), which I've seen quotes for power consumption at about 37W.

Cheers again,
Sparky
 
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Sounds like a faulty memory controller on the mobo.

Try one stick of working RAM in each slot/bank and record how far it gets in memtest86 over a set period (say 5 minutes). Make sure you make notes. If any of the test fail or record one being considerably slower than the rest, then it's RMA time for the mobo.
 
Thanks for the idea for testing the memory slots Admiral.

I'll give v3.5 of Memtest86 a go this evening although as I've not used it before, I'll steer clear of the experimental multi-core options.

Thanks,
Sparky
 
Have you run the recent updates for your bios?

I had this problem with RAM on my build and once I updated the bios it all worked fine!

Dont think you will find a problem with the RAM but the PSU sounds like it is on its way out.

dP
 
Hi dP - Do you mean BIOS updates for the MB and GPU?

I ran the latest updates for those a about a week ago (I was away and off-line for a while so I waited until now to post here).
 
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Most OCZ ram loves volts. DDR2 defaults at 1.8V, OCZ is often only stable at 1.9v (and sometimes even higher).

9/10 timers there are memory issues with OCZ ram the solution is to go to bios and increase voltage to 1.9v. (higher volts is rarely needed) It should also resolve the "wont boot with 2 sticks problem".

Some OCZ ram is designed for use at 2.1V!!! but it will still default to 1.8. Check on the OCZ website to see what the default, and maximum voltages are for your sticks and have a play. OCZ's DDR2 PC8500 Platium for example is 2.1V rated, and will often need the full voltage to be stable even on the best motherboards. (Not always, but its very common to need the volts)

PS Cheap PSU's are bad, but 500W is overkill for a low powered budget system with a single GPU. A good branded 500W PSU will run a single Nvidia GTX285 without even breaking a sweat. I would look to upgrade your PSU to a better brand, but dont get to hung up on ooh must be 500...650...1000watts. I've yet to see my main PC with an overclocked Quad, and 8800GTX (overclocked) reach 300W at the mains (with an 80% efficient PSU, the componants are only drawing around 240W of power, and thats only for brief periods at full load).

Im not saying a 240W PSU is a good buy.. just no need to spend megabucks on the biggest PSU's :)
 
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The RAM voltage was indeed set at 1.8V (!) and whilst I was in the BIOS I noticed that the CPU clock multiplier was at 9x rather than 10x.

As I have Reaper version of the OCZ PC2 8500 RAM and "2.2V" is written on them, I adjusted the RAM voltage up through to 2.2V as well as upping the multiplier to 10x to get the CPU to 2.8GHz.

Results:

1) The system boots through to the Game desktop with both RAM sticks.
2) The computer has frozen again after a period of time but that duration is much longer. For example, 3DMark06 successfully completed and the system is still running after doing point 3) below and after 20 more minutes.
3) The adjusted CPU speed calculated 2 million decimals of Pi in 44 secs, which is 86% faster than the old system :)

So...

The system still crashes at times. Any ideas very welcome although I'm not keen on raising the RAM voltage any further. Could the cheap PSU be not providing a stable voltage/current?

Many thanks,
Sparky
 
LinktoInsanity - The PSU is removable and made by WinPower...I've since looked over this forum and I see that WinPower is almost universally disliked/feared!

Admiral - Ive ran Memtest86 but instead of the expected progress bars in the upper right side of the screen I had a stream of 5 or 6 digit numbers scrolling down the left for 30 mins...I probably wasn't leaving it long enough so will try again later.

Looking over the OCZ forum, I see that similar problems have been posted for the same RAM by several people who have ended up being asked to ship their sticks back to OCZ for replacement although perhaps this is a coincidence.

I just noticed that the RAM timings within BIOS were not the same as recommended for the RAM so I have switched them to 5-5-5-18. Going to see if this leads to greater stability.

I will report back but any thoughts always welcome - all your kind posts are helping me make progress!

Sparky
 
OCZ recomended I go with 5-5-5-15 and auto for other RAM settings though many advanced were not auto but were as the following when I first found them:

tRRD 4 by default
tWTR 4 by default
tWR 8 by default
tRFC 72 by default
tRTP 4 by default

Does anyone have any suggestions for a more stable settup?

I don't want to overclock at this stage - I just want the system to stop resetting or locking up while in desktop or games.

Many thanks,
Sparky
PS I have swapped my stock CPU cooler for a Akasa one (AK-965) this afternoon as the CPU was a little warm under load and I wanted to rule that in or out as a reason for instability. Unfortunately, while the CPU is much cooler (~40oC while doing Super Pi), the problems I have reported have persisted.
 
Hi there,

Having noted that some OCZ2RPR10664GK users on the OCZ forum reported a stable system when the RAM was at 800Mhz I have tried this and I can confirm that my system is stable when my 1066MHz RAM operates at 800MHz.

As my CPU and MB are both compatible with 1066MHz RAM I guess that the fault could, for example, be to do with either with the BIOS settings or the hardware.

Grateful for any further help/suggestions.

Regards,
Sparky
 
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