Help with new machine...

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2 Apr 2011
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Wales
Hey guys, im in some serious need of help on getting a new rig.

Im tomorrow sending back my "Ultima Tyrannosaur" system for a refund to OcUK and I need to get a new system.

Basically the main dilemma is as follows:

I bought the "Ultima Tyrannosaur" on 23rd February this year and since ive had it ive suffered from constant random reboots. The reboots have always happened whilst im gaming and never when im doing anything else. Ive sent the machine back to OcUK twice for repair and still I suffer from the reboots.

The most stable ive managed to get the system is when running on stock settings to which it didn't restart at all for a whole week until one day whilst surfing the web one of the GeForce 580's fried (I have the SLI). This was seriously strange to me as I was literally only using google chrome to watch some reviews on youtube.

Im not sure exactly what OcUK have done on both occassions with my PC as the second turn didn't produce a report on what had been fixed. The first however they changed the mobo for a newer revision.

The one suggestion that seems to be the only option left is that Sandybridge systems rely on a constant stable source of power and apparantly Scottland and Wales have poor sources to power (I live in Cardiff so I assumed this wouldn't be an issue being a capital city and all...).

The other is an issue with overheating (the graphics card frying).

The only real tests ive done myself are memtest with 1 pass which was fine and 2 simultanious heaven dx11 benchmark tests (was trying to see if the graphics card was overheating, it got to 85-90 and stayed there).

Im really stuck on what to get now. I really do like the machine I have but its just not working out.

If its an issue with heating I could get the Ultima Plesiosaur which is basically the same setup but with watercooling otherwise ill have to get another build altogether.

Ive done some research into what could be the problem and apparantly at the beginning of the year the sandybridge chips were known to be crap and were apparantly recalled. Could I be suffering from a bad sandybridge processor?

Any help is very much appreciated!

Thanks in advance!
 
If your PC was using an early ASUS p67 motherboard? then these were well know to suck in general.

The major issue that was about wasnt the CPU itself but early P67 chipsets used by manufactures had a flaw with some of the SATA6gb/sec ports, so these were replaced by the B3 revision you see now.

The mobo that I was given as a replacement was a P67 B3 revision.
 
Its probably worth adding that on stock settings the PC would reboot on every start up after about 5 seconds.

Im just worried that I can't use sandybridge systems due to power source being poop.
 
Thats classic cold boot syndrome, usually caused by the board/bad overclock.

If your worried about a bad mains supply you can always try a UPS/surge protector.

I have my PC on a surge protector anyway. The tech support said something about us having poor power quality in Wales which can cause instability and thus high-end sandybridge systems to have issues as they are so dependant on persistant, quality power sources.

Cold boot syndrome? Is this something that can only occur from a bad mobo then?
 
Yes its an Asus P8P67 Deluxe B3 revised edition.

Do you have a huge hatred towards Asus mobo's or are they really that bad?
 
Even if there is an issue with the mobo, I dont see how it could connect burning my graphics card out.

This system has been a seriously stressful venture. I figured instead of upgrading bit by bit like i normally did id just go out and buy a nice advanced piece of kit so that it would last me long enough so I could save up for a new house. Its just proven incredibly stressful as its never worked properly since ive had it.

Ive never had any of these issues with any other PC's on this same power source. Very frustrating!
 
Yes thats the one...

They have changed a few things since I bought it.

The Mobo I have is the one I mentioned above.
The case is an antec 1200.
The PSU is a 1KW Gold coolermaster silent pro.
The cooler is a Corsair H70 (I think!).

Perhaps they made the changes for a reason?
 
I can build them myself no problem and my brother works in IT but I was hoping on just getting a pre-built, plug and play system without the hassle.

This has turned out far more hassle than doing it myself would have been haha.

And yea im returning the system for a refund. Its just not working. I can't play games which is what I bought it for. I play a game like Brink (It HATES Brink) for around 30 mins and it will reboot. Sometimes it might run for a little longer but it will always reboot somewhere.

If I run it on stock settings I dont get the issue. I just get the constant reboot when I start up the system. And of course my graphics card frying while watching comicon reviews on youtube was the last straw.
 
Dont bother getting prebuilt system (well,at least its my advise) get parts you want and build your own,dont miss that exiting time and smell of fresh pc parts :D
also you save some good money on that..

Very true...

My concerns however still remain.

If I had all these problems with the system ive just sent back then whats to say I don't get it again with another sandybridge system.
 
Thanks for the info on that Weston.

A quickfire question though. Im planning on getting a high-end rig with GeForce 580 GTX SLI cards (2). Is it worth me investing in watercooling or not?
 
Thanks for the feedback so far guys youve been great.

Ive run up a quick items list for a gaming rig (my budget goes up to around £2500). Can any of you suggest any improvements on this rig or is it fine as is?

Anyway here it is:

- Corsair Professional Series AX1200 High Performance 1200W Modular '80 Plus Gold' Power Supply (CMPSU-1200AXUK)
- Asus Xonar D2X 7.1 PCI-E Sound Card
- OcUK Premium Aluminium 4GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive.
- LG BH10LS30 10x BluRay-RW / 16 x DVD±RW Drive - Black (OEM)
- Seagate Barracuda Green 2TB SATA 6Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM (ST2000DL003)
- OCZ Vertex 2E Bigfoot 120GB 3.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive
- OcUK GeForce GTX 580 1536MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
- OcUK GeForce GTX 580 1536MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
- Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C8 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMZ8GX3M2A1600C8)
- Gigabyte Z68X-UD7 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard
- Corsair Hydro H80 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366/LGA2011/AM2/AM3)
- Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM
- Corsair Obsidian 800D (6GB/s) Full Tower Case - Black
 
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