I am so sick of my pathetic computer

Man of Honour
Joined
17 Oct 2002
Posts
160,126
I upgraded my PC in March to a super cool uber rig. Since then, it's been more or less totally crap. I'm sick of it. I am literally close to bundling the whole lot into the bin and buying new.

Lets start this boring tale from the beginning.

Upgraded my previously rock solid (12 week uptimes despite gaming) DFI Lanparty Ultra-D, X850XT PE and Athlon64 3500+ to a nice shiney new Core2Duo system. I replaced EVERYTHING.

My new spec...

Gigabyte DS3 - becuase everyone here said it was 'the dogs'
Core2Duo E4300 - the new bargain overclocker
2Gb of OCZ Platinum - amazing stuff, apparently
8800GTS 320Mb - probably the only part of my system thats actually any good
320Gb WD AAKS 16mb cache SATA HDD.

To start with, it was mostly fine, except it would BSOD every week or so and my favourite game - Armed Assault - ran like a complete dog.

I'd play for 10 minutes, perfectly, with no issues, then suddenly the whole thing would go to pot. 3-4 fps, max, all audio totally distorted, and Teamspeak, distorted. Basically what you'd expect if you tried to run the game on a 486 - a totally overwhelmed PC. The Audio issues were presumably as a result of the machine not really having the remaining capacity to handle the sound properly, hence it even affecting Teamspeak.

Posted on here, lots of suggestions but most people blamed ArmA. I know its a buggy game but it worked fine on the old system. So, I blamed ArmA as well and stopped playing it.

Then the next saga. The BSOD's got worse until they were more or less totally constant.

Posted it all in this thread: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17745141

Eventually I cured this problem by...

Ceasing to use ANY of the PCI Slots in my motherboard. Fantastic. But at least it doesn't BSOD every 30 seconds. Shame I now cannot use a decent soundcard, or have a wireless network. But there we go.

Tried ArmA again last week. new patch. Ran perfectly. Hurrah! Everything maxed out, had hours of fun every night all week. Yay.

Except last night, when completely out of the blue, my crap machine decided I'd had enough fun and bang - the old ArmA problem came back. Play for 5-10 minutes then the whole thing turns into a slideshow.

I give up. I really do. I mean what prompted THAT problem to come back? I've done NOTHING to the machine, ive installed nothing, ive played with nothing, ive fiddled with NOTHING. Yet its back. Infact actually it did reboot itself for no reason whatsoever prior to the ArmA problems returning so its probably related.

I've renistalled Windows so many times I now have to call Microsoft to activate every time I install it. I've tried more driver versions than any other person on this forum.

I am left with no real alternative other than there is some sort of hardware fault thats been present ever since I bought all this kit. And here lies the problem.

I have NO idea what hardware is faulty. Furthermore, even if I did, I've no real way of proving its faulty. It wont show up in testing at the supplier as its intermittant, so there is pretty much nothing I can do with it.

I genuinelly have considered simply taking the motherboard, CPU and memory, popping them in the recycle bin, and buying something completely different.

What else can I do? Personally I think the motherboard is faulty and has been faulty ever since I got it - why else would the PCI Bus be rubbish - but how can I prove this and get a replacement? Infact even if I could prove its of no help to me at all becuase turning my PC off for 3 weeks whilst I send a mobo back for testing and replacement is hardly a realistic solution.

It's certainly not related to any overclocks becuase I've barely had enough time to even try something as fun as overclocking whilst I've been wrestling with the constant problems at stock speed.
 
Wow, sounds pretty serious. As you say though, it's most probably one piece of hardware causing the problems. Is there any chance you could use a mates PC and swap parts between the two until the problem is discovered?
 
I have a gut feeling its the motherboard. Might buy something else and see if it fixes it. If so, I guess I can RMA the board and get.. another DS3 I dont want.

Grrrr. Had it too long for a refund if its faulty I guess.
 
Recycle bin you say... I'll recycle the RAM and CPU :p


Personally I would try and find someone with a C2D system and test your components with their system if possible. RAM, CPU and PSU really wouldn't take long to test.

As you say it's most likely the motherboard, try contacting Gigabyte about it; on some rare occasions companies will be helpful and send out a replacement prior to receiving the broken item if you explain the problem to them. I had this happen with an amp I killed, explained what had happened and got a replacement from the US 2 days later without having to send anything back.

Just a quick question though, have you set the RAM voltage to +0.3v in the BIOS? There were some issues with faster ram because the default voltage on the DS3 board was a bit low for them.
 
Had similiar problems with a lot of LGA775 platform hardware :S after years of completely smooth upgrades... almost always due to the motherboard - I've just got a Gigabyte P35 DS3R to play with tho and it seems to be 100% stable and bug free tho your mileage may vary heh...

I never had any joy at all with numerous 965 and 975 boards and the Asus P5N32-E SLI I just got is giving me random BSODs :(
 
Swap ya? I have a full stable AM2 system. :p :D

In seriousness though, that's really rather worrying, I was planning on getting a C2D system after the 22nd of the month, and I really can't be doing with running problems like that.

As for the actual problems, I have to say, what PSU do you have Fox?

I know my Hiper Type-R does seem to like my collection of bits inside mine...I can't run writing of two dvds at once.

InvG
 
In all seriousness mate, get a better one. my PC shouldn't be drawing more than 580W, and yet it seems to max out on the power front. - and I can't afford a new one. Something like the Corsair 520 or something like that is much better...also costs a bomb :(

The PSU really is something you should check up on.

InvG
 
[TW]Fox said:
Funnily enough it is a Hiper Type R.

I remember an IT Sales place I worked at and they had a rep from Hiper telling us about the new Type R & above PSU's.

All the bloke could talk about was the really great box they come in that you could use as a tool box :confused:
 
Wiggins said:
All the bloke could talk about was the really great box they come in that you could use as a tool box :confused:

I have to say, the box is really helpful, I do infact keep all my PC tools in it...as for the actual PSU, yes it's pants according to everyone...but I just loved the way the modular cables connect. :D

InvG
 
InvaderGIR said:
I have to say, the box is really helpful, I do infact keep all my PC tools in it...as for the actual PSU, yes it's pants according to everyone...but I just loved the way the modular cables connect. :D

InvG

It does have that coolness about it and several other manufacturers have followed suit with Hiper when it comes to looks and craftsmanship of the modulars.
 
I don't personally have the kb936357 update - gonna chuck it on now - but I never had a problem with the previous motherboards I had in this rig and its the only thing thats changed...
 
Yea, I bought the Type R when it was the OcUK forums BEST PSU EVAR ZOMG or whatever. Oh well.

Did Memtest86 last night. No errors.
 
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