New Build Failing Horribly, Help Please

shmacks

shmacks

shmacks

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OK i need some help, my new build seems to have gone completely **** up. Setup is as follows:
Intel Core i7 920 OEM (not overclocked)
Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R REV1.0
OCZ Gold 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C8
Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB x 2
Enermax Noisetaker 600W (from previous build, no issues with it)
Sapphire Radeon 4670 (from previous build, no issues with it and soon to be changed)
Microsoft Windows 7 64bit versioin

Everything was going smoothly until the first windows 7 installation which was stopped by a BSOD. Believing it was something to do with the RAID0 I had just setup and was using for the fresh install i decided to get rid of it and go with a standard install. The second install of windows finished and i was going through the process of installing all my programs and applications and it decided to blue screen on me again.. I've updated the BIOS and all the motherboard drivers (gigabyte website/s are in shambles) thinking it might have been a compatibility issue but still the same stuff.

I loaded up CPU-Z to see if that would be any help and it showed the RAM to be set at 7-7-7-19 timings which seemed a bit off. Thinking i had found the problem i went into the bios and changed it manually to 8-8-8-24 as specified and upped the voltage from 1.5V to 1.58V. About 2 hours later i got another BSOD... I've got no idea what the problem could be now as i know it's not a graphics card issue so i'm thinking some compatibility issue between the mobo/ram and cpu. This is what CPU-Z shows now after i changed the ram timings, maybe one of you guys can spot something.

CPU-Z.jpg


Other things to note that may be of use are that:
Windows 7 updates install with about 50% success rate and it just says the rest failed to install so i've had to keep repeating the process to get them all installed. Firefox lasts anywhere between 1second to 30min before deciding to crash and apologise to me so i switched to chrome but this is doing the same.

One last thing is i've just tried to install directx and ATI CCC and they just error out at the end...

Any advice is appreciated as i have no idea what the problem could be and not very happy at the way this has turned out at the moment.
 
try reseating all the memory....also voltage should be 1.65 for a 1600 speeds
make sure all your cables are in fully
reset bios to optimised default....and see if that helps......get it stable then set the memory correctly
 
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I would guess the memory is undervolted and unstable, or actually faulty.

The memory is rated for 1.65v so I'd probably whack it up to that and see what happens, download memtest maybe and run it at current voltage, see if you get lots of memory errors, up the voltage and see if the dissappear. If the memory does stop erroring I would reinstall windows just to be sure you had a fresh install without errors.

It certainly seems unstable somewhere though, the chance of a faulty cpu are, well, none, check hardware monitoring in windows if you can get a monitoring app installed, run something like superpi and see what happens. Is the voltage dropping to far under load, is superpi erroring out(which is normally memory problems).

Don't go above 1.65v for the memory though, not used an i7 but last I checked it was the max "safe" voltage to use.

Have you checked cpu temps in bios/windows, maybe its just the heatsink not working well, too much/little paste, fan not working, fan to slow, temps way to high?

If memory does error out in superpi and memtest and raising voltage doesn't work, try just one stick, see if its one particular stick thats causing problems. If its some faulty memory, well, its rare to get 3 bad sticks, one or maybe 2 would be more likely.
 
If this is the RAM you have then you should be running it at 1.65V, perhaps the lower voltage is causing stability problems. Also, you may want to run it a command rate of 2T.

Out of interest, how are the CPU temperatures? You can find them using coretemp. To find the maximum temperature you will need to put the CPU under load - I use this stress tester.
 
My hunch would be it is a problem with (OCZ Gold 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C8). At such low speeds, it would seem that at least one stick is faulty as even horribly binned ram chips usually have no problem running at such low speeds. At stock speeds (1066Mhz) the memory should run fine on 1.5~1.55 volts, so stability should not be a settings issue.

Did you follow instructions/guide/previous knowledge for installing the i7 chip itself into the motherboard socket?
 
Pretty sure the i7 installed properly as i've built quite a few systems in the last 8 or so years. I've used that coretemp to check the temps and the min / max for them is 32C & 40C which is normal i believe. Don't really to start stressing it with that as it seems to be failing at random just in windows.

Tomorrow morning i'll move the RAM around a bit and up the voltage to 1.65V as you guys have suggested. Is there anyway in windows to check the actual voltage that is getting through to the RAM?

BSODs vary, caught a glimpse of one that said something about IRQ i believe.

Unfortunately i don't have another PSU to try it with.

Going to catch some rest as this has burnt me out today :<
 
+1 regarding the psu, after all things tend to work fine until they don't xD

Although in your case it does seem more like a memory voltage issue. There are certain risks running voltages very high but 1.65V for the memory is well within the limits so try to either raise your voltage or lower your memory clocks

EDIT: IRQL_NOTsomethingorother BSOD's tends to be caused by memory, although I've just read that your memory sticks are 1066MHz... Which should be ok with 1.55V
 
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Ok i've upped the voltage to 1.66V and swapped the sticks around and it's still randomly crashing during games and internet browsing. The only hope i've got is that it has not actually BSOD and maybe its possible due to some corrupt install of windows? I'm not really sure so if it does not blue screen again i may just try a fresh install and see if that helps, not sure what do you guys think?

Only alternative i have now is to check each stick of ram individually or run memtest or something like that to see if the ram is erroring.

One thing of note is that as my PSU didn't have an 8 pin atx connection so i'm using a 2molex -> PCI - E connection and then a PCI - E -> 8 pin connection. The GC is still only a 4670 so there is close to no draw from that, and the CPU is not overclocked but i'm not sure if that could be an issue, what do you guys think?
 
It could well be a PSU issue,as covered in your previous post,your psu may be fine,but it is a 2005 spec unit.
Definatly make sense to run memtest first,and optimised defaults from the bios,and then maybe a fresh install.
 
Yeah i'm starting to lean towards the PSU also now ricky, i've just run prime95 which failed almost instantly.

New plan of action is to test each stick of RAM individually with prime95. If i can narrow it down to one stick then it's the RAM but if they all fail my guess is that it would be something else so i'll get a new PSU on Tuesday once ocuk open up again.

Wish me luck!
 
I wish you luck buddy,hope you get it all sorted soon.Makes sense to run memetest,and maybe fresh install,as both are free
 
I set it at 2t a while ago it did not really help. With one stick of RAM in i ran prime95 for 2hours and it was stable, but then i tried playing starcraft 2 and it crashed 10minutes into the game which just adds to the confusion.

Going to try the other sticks now to see what happens.
 
ok update:

I think the crashing in starcraft 2 is down to me just being special and copy pasting the game folder from my old system into the new one and expecting it to work so i'm ignoring that for now.

The first two sticks of RAM ran perfectly on prime95 individually for 2 hours each so i assumed them to be ok. However when i put in the last one windows loaded up saying it was in critical condition and would be shut down in 60seconds (weird). I then switched off the system and moved the ram to another slot on the motherboard thinking it might be a dodgy slot but this time it just blue screened on the windows load screen. Pretty certain thats a duff stick of RAM so i've taken it out and gone back to the original two which seem to be working.

I'll leave the system on overnight running prime95 with the 4gb of RAM and if it causes no problems i'm going to reinstall windows 7 again and change the RAM once ocuk opens up.

Fingers crossed it's now stable with this 4gb.
 
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CPU voltage is set to auto.

I tried each stick individually, the other 2 worked fine and the faulty one refused to work no matter what slot i put it in. I don't see the point of putting the faulty one in with one of the working ones?

System run fine for 8 hours on prime95 with no errors with the 2 working sticks.

Edit: With the working 4gb i've now set the bios back to optimized defaults and taken off the manual 8-8-8-24 2T timings @1.64V and will now rerun prime95.
 
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