New Rig - Constant BSOD and Hardware Reset :(

nintenjo

nintenjo

nintenjo

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Joined
29 Nov 2002
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Midlands. UK
I have just built my dad a new PC.. only about 3 weeks back (only a simple box for his office) Trouble is it keeps BSOD and randomly resets.. its happened about 5 times today.

I have tried a complete format and fresh install of windows with all the drivers of provided discs but still it continues to happen.

Its running XP Home SP3.

Hardware is:

XFX Mobo NVIDIA 630i / 7100 (using onboard grfx and sound chipset)
Corsair PC6400 2x1GB
320GB Seagate HDD SATA II
AMD AM2 4200+ 2.2ghz DualCore
350W Silverstone ST35F Silent PSU


I tried getting some XFX drivers incase they were bugged but XFX dont let you download from there site without the serial number off the board !! (wtf is up with that) and i dont have the box..

I tried getting the latest driver from NVIDIA but they killed windows completely by stoping the mouse and keyboard working in windows so had to format.. (plus i had to force VGA mode to even get the display to work)

*moved this thread from windows as i think its more hardware / driver related.

Any advice welcome.
 
The only issue i have is its difficult to replicate it? Is there a mem stress test or somthign i could try that would cause it to die in its current setup so i can try them on there own..

And dosnt DDR2 have to be in pairs? So i might struggle to test it on its own.
 
Have a look in your system event log to see what's causing the BSOD. There may be reference to a mini dump.
 
Id go for testing the ram first. just try one stick on its own, and then the other to see if you get issues.

DDR2 does not have to be fitted in pairs.

i built an AM2 machine a few years ago that would randomly BSOD, and it ended up being the ram not liking to be run in dual channel mode, so i left the ram in the appropriate slots to keep the system in single channel mode, and all has been fine since
 
OK an update..

Firstly i got the PC slightly wrong :) Its an intel system E2200 but the rest is correct.

I have been running Prime95 memory streess test and its throughing up some errors..

FATAL ERROR: Rounding was 0.5 expected less than 0.4
HaRDWARE faillure detected, consult stress.txt

So it looks like there is a hardware fault in there somewhere.. I assume this could be one of the memory modules having a wobbly.. So i'll try again with only 1 chip in.
 
I am getting some strange results..

I have tried both ram chips in both ram slots invidually.. When i run a Prime95 stress test Windows freezes up forcing a haardware reset. This happens identically on all configurations.

I have checked XFX for mobo updates but there arnt any as i have latest bios and drivers etc.

So getting a bit short on ideas now unless i have some silly BIOS options on causing this.. trying again now with fail safe setup loaded.
 
what are you BIOS settings ... CPU voltage, Ram voltage etc

What clock settings FSB, Ram etc?

What does CPU-Z say you memory timings are

Have you tried Core temp to check CPU temps
 
As above. Run memtest; avoid using Prime95 as it runs in windows and therefore will give errors if there are any driver issues.
 
Ok will get memtest and run that... I have noticed when the bios boots it says running in single channel mode but i cant find any options for dual channel mode in the bios.
 
nintenjo said:
Ok will get memtest and run that... I have noticed when the bios boots it says running in single channel mode but i cant find any options for dual channel mode in the bios.
Click to expand...

Dual chan is the way the sticks are put into the board, its not an option. Like the RAM slots being bank 1,2,3,4. say for example 1+3 (the green ones)= dual channel. Obviously will change per board. Also this wont or well shouldn't cause you crashes.
 
Well the mother only has 2 slots.. both with 1 1GB stick in each.. But still says Single Channel.. (anyway thats for another topic)

I have Run a MEMTEST86+ and got some results..

1st Stick completed 100% test with No ERRORS..

2nd Stick Had 8 Errors on TEST #6 ..

So i then removed the faulty stick and discarded it. I have only got the 1 good stick in the machine, fired it up and seemed to work ok, but after about 10 mins playing around in windows and opening and closing some basic apps like (word, firefox etc)

POP it freezes out again... No error just a compelte system freeze with the image stuck on screen forcing me to power-cycle.

So now i am confused as i am running out of options.. This stick seems ok but windows still isnt happy :( What else can i try?
 




Here is the system information from CPU-Z with all the timings etc.. if its any help :) I am getting the memory replaced as well just in case.
 
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