Problem with pc... may be northbridge?

KillerCars

KillerCars

KillerCars

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Joined
16 Jul 2005
Posts
83
Hi,

I've had a problem for quite a while now where my PC just restarts whilst i'm playing games. It reminds me of an overheating issue, like something is overheating and then the pc restarts but i've checked my temps and they're all less than 50C. I bought lots of new cooling stuff and put it in and now my temps are all below 40C even when playing games.. had the side off with a desktop fan blowing in to the case putting the temps around 30C and it still did it.

I noticed when I changed the heatsink on the northbridge that it had a couple of burn marks/holes in it like it had seriously overheated in the past... could this be causing the issue? I've been trying to play titan quest and I have to put all the graphical details and everything on low to stop it from restarting like this. The internet is also slightly affected. Seems to stop loading pages sometimes, I thought maybe this was linked to the northbridge too?

I've tried to rule out other parts, processor seems fine (3500+ venice), the graphics card stays around 40C so I can't see it being that, ran memtest overnight and had no fails. Anyone have any idea what it might be?

Thanks
 
I'm trying to play the game now and it's enfuriating me as it keeps crashing. Does anyone think it is the motherboard? I wanted to make sure before I spend my money on a new motherboard.
 
I have the processor overclocked 200 MHz, but it should be able to handle it... When I bought them it was specifically because they could overclock, the DFI board was supposedly the best at the time and the venice core processors were supposed to overclock much more than 10%....

It could be that, but now if it's damaged the northbridge it could be too late?
 
Whats your system spec them all components? what settings have got in the bios and what have you changed?

sounds like its crashing when under load so you might need to bump a voltage setting up a notch

have you tried running Orthos on your system for a couple of hours to see if it falls over or locks up ?
 
Well I just tried putting it all back down to defaults, no overclock or anything and it played for a while but then it still crashed. It can't be temps, they're all like 30-35C even whilst playing the game. My specs are all high quality stuff I'm pretty sure:

AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Venice
DFI LanParty UT NF4 Ultra-D (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard
OCZ 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 Dual Channel Gold VX EL-DDR CAS2.0
ATI Radeon X850 XT PE 256MB DDR3 (PCI-Express)
OcUK Huntkey 550W PSU
Western Digital Caviar Special Edition 250GB SATA-II 16MB Cache
Plextor PX-716A Dual Layer 16x4x DVD±RW ReWriter

And I have all expensive third party cooling on everything from Zalman, etc.

I'm stumped...
 
i had overheating problems on my nf4 ultra too but it didnt just reset.....caused lag/slow down then locked up when it got too hot.
 
KillerCars said:
Hi,

I noticed when I changed the heatsink on the northbridge that it had a couple of burn marks/holes in it like it had seriously overheated in the past... could this be causing the issue?
Click to expand...

this is more than likely the problem. see if you can get a super cheap mb and see if the problem still happens. As said could be psu aswell. What are your 5,12 volts like ??
 
The 5V and 12V rail readings could be irrelivent as a dip during load would be undetectable and therefore impossible to measure.

Testing on a different motherboard is well worth doing as the burn marks sound a bit dodgy, but from what you say, and from what you've already tested, the PSU sounds the most likely culprit to me.
 
I think the rails are running perfectly fine when idle... i've checked them before and they're all pretty close, like the 5V was 4.99V and stuff. I was gonna try getting a cheap mobo to test with but s939 mobos seem to have disappeared?! Is there any way I can test the PSU just to rule it out? I would like to narrow it down as much as possible before I start spending money trying to fix it.
 
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