Computer Help!

[Karma Supra]

This is doing my head in!

I have just built myself a new PC, all in all it works fine, but I noticed in some intense 3D games the whole system hangs, num lock not responding proper crashed!

It is annoying but I thought I'd deal with it later.. Its just done in when watching a vid on media player too! In all instances the sound repeats itself for about 5 seconds then goes quiet.

Specs are as follows:

AMD Phenom X4 9850 Black Edition

Asus M3A32-MVP Deluxe Motherboard (latest Bios)

Corsair Dominator RAM - 4gb (2x 2gb) PC2-8500 DDR2

Corsair HX 520W PSU

2X 500 gb Sata 2 Barracuda drives in Raid 0

Geforce 8500 GT graphics card

Vista Ultimate 64 bit

Anyone got any ideas??? Its not overheating, the power supply is steady and reletively understrained.

There is no auxillary power card on the graphics card that I have missed, and its not over clocked or anythng. - Everything has the latest drivers.

[Leeky]

I replied to your same thread on tribe dude ;)

[Jinxed]

sounds like memory/timing/voltage issue to me.

first be sure you know the exact correct memory timing settings ac the manufacturer and make sure they set in bios

if timing is ok, the default voltage settings for some pieces of memory are not appropriate for stable performance. u need a small program called memtest. dl this, read the instructions, put it on a floppy and run it ac instructions. as it soak tests ur mem if lots of errors come up then try stepping up the voltage to your memory 1 notch in bios(DO NOT ramp it up loads as this may fry stuff). Then memtest again and compare the number of errors... if it goes down then great stuff, up the voltage until no more errors and then stop. best to use memtest for the same amount of runs each time so u gt comparative results every notch and let it complete full passes, all of its tests as some tests are more hardcore than the first one.

[Karma Supra]

Trying Memtest now!

Edit: well over 100% Cycled, no Errors...

[Jinxed]

hmmmm, im tempted to say up the voltage to mem a notch regardless of no reported errors but what sound card, or are you using onboard?

[bigshark]

what game u playin?

[cfc1]

Dodgy Nvidia driver... quite normal for nvidia drivers to cause some problems.. either update or get an older one.

[Jinxed]

Dodgy Nvidia driver... quite normal for nvidia drivers to cause some problems.. either update or get an older one.

Assuming its not just dodgy programming of the particular games your trying to play.... if theres a game that always crashes very quickly during first lil bit of playing use this as your standard software to test with when trying to eliminate things.

The current release nvidia drivers seem pretty decent to me with new and old games

Corsair Dominator RAM - 4gb (2x 2gb) PC2-8500 DDR2

Im thinking that this piece is a performance part(soz didnt go looking). If the bios is set to default auto voltage

for memory then this may be causing problems when the rig is put under significant load. For example with the corsair memory im using, the default bios settings arent enough and I have to run it at 2 notches higher to get stability. At auto defaults memtest passes it but start playing games and all hell breaks loose with random BSOD's.

Another thing to check would be paging file.... read about corrupt page files before now and the suggested way to ensure this is not corrupted was to set a really small page file small as possible, then reboot, then re set either a nice big page file or let windows manage it again and reboot. Apparently these can cause very hard to pin down and eliminate problems that express themselves like mem probs.

Beyond this if you have a soundblaster audigy 2 card im thinking oh noes... these are notorious for problems. Dont know if exigy ones(or whatever theyre called) are as bad but..... one thing you can try with this is set the hardware acceleration at basic and see if it continues to crash.... just temporarilly hopefully to either id this as something to do with it or to eliminate it.....

to possibly eliminate graphic card as source would be to try your system with either an old card that you know works or use slightly older release drivers....

Id be really interested to know what it is if you find out... always happy to learn something new :)

[Jinxed]

Ive edited the bold bit below as what i originally put was bobbins ... knew something wasnt quite right with it ;)

Another thing to check would be paging file.... read about corrupt page files before now and the suggested way to ensure this is not corrupted was to turn off the page file(no page file), then reboot, then re set either a nice big page file or let windows manage it again and reboot. Apparently these can cause very hard to pin down and eliminate problems that express themselves like mem probs.

[Karma Supra]

Hiya.. sorry been mega busy at work and not really had a Pc at home :(

I am running the onboard HD audio on my Motherboard.

Running the ram at the manufacturer's reccomended 2.2v...

I have reformatted/reinstalled it countless times, no joy, infact things got worse with repeated blue screens of death!

I have been doing some reading and found that Vista 64 has an issue with Raid controllers and systems over 4GB of ram. I pulled one of the 2GB memory sticks and at least vista starts up properly... but thats like buying a V8 and running it on four cylinders!

Another theory is to set up vista on less ram then add it afterwards.. I am going to try that this weekend....

As for the games, Halflife 2 Episode 2 crashed loads, especially in the fast moving parts of the game, and command and conquer 3, on high graphics setting. In all cases they are more reliable with the graphics/resolution turned down, but to be fair if I wanted low graphics settings I'd have kept my old perfectly stable but slowish system :(

[Jinxed]

I cant comment on vista things sadly as i have no experience of it but I can tell you command and conquer 3 is a POS. Although the developers etc dont do much MANY ppl have problems wih it and kanes wrath from what appears to be memory leaks. Consequentially id say this is a bad thing to use to test stability as it itself is about as stable as a mental patient in a pharmaceutical cabinet. Havnt tried half life 2 episode 2 on my own pc yet so wouldnt like to comment on that but id reckon its ok to use as valve are ok.

The memory settings of 2.2v sounds about right for high spec corsair mem.

Hmmm onboard sound... still try lowering the hardware acceleration of this if its available to basic and see what happens...

[Karma Supra]

Well it looks like ANY game, set to high resolutions and detail will bing out this fault... Anything half life, C&C Generals zero hour and C&C3. Even though the game runs smoothly at high res, it'll suddenly hang.

I think I'll manually reset everythng, all the memory speeds/processor speeds were left on "auto". I also need to work out how to set memory speeds... (Ram says 5-5-5-15 on it I have no idea what this means! I know it is 1066Mhz DDr2)

I don't recall the last two I built being as complicated!!!

[Jinxed]

The 5,5,5,15 are the timing settings of your memory. Manually setting these in bios is probably bit more reliable than an auto setting but make sure you know what number relates to which setting. Memtest is your friend to soak test your settings for this and if it passes without any errors then its likely ok what with the voltage. Does the bios have some kind of acceleration setting switched on? eg. mine has turbo and f1 settings that really strain the memory etc.

how big is your page file, are you letting windows manage it? if this isnt sufficient this will cause crashes that are similar to what you describe.

Is the list of bits you listed exhaustive? do you have other addin cards such as a tv card, dv card, um see im thinking this is also sounding like a hardware conflict and these can be a pain to sort out(for me anyhow). maybe go into the device panel and see if the sound and the graphics card are sharing resources. Beyond this it may be driver issues which may be resolved in time with patches....

lets try and id the source by process of elimination...

Firstly if your pc is stable enough when not playing games, consider looking to see if there are any bios updates for your mobo and consider flashing it. I know this is something that many people wont do unless theyre having problems, which u are, but sometimes it does resolve issues esp with newer mobos. Just make sure you know exactly what to do with this, and make sure you leave it and dont update if you are in anyway not sure.

remove any non essential addin cards, im talking barebones, disable all non essential bios features that you are sure you dont need such as any firewire, network, that kinda stuff

disable onboard sound in the bios, test, if it works then the sound is something to do with things.

Change slot for graphics card if you have 2 slots, test, and see if problems lessen or stop, change card for anopther if you have one lieing around, test.

if you can get it stable with just graphics then switch on the sound and set it at basic acceleration minimum features etc, test, up things one piece at a time and see if it gets to a point where it starts to crash llike it is doing.

another thought is do you have error logging on and what does the log say about the errors? any error codes?

if you get to a point where its running ok without crashes, stop and post what youve done upto that point m8

and yup i must admit that the last pc i built was a pain to get mostly stable, much tweeking, time and hair was required....

[Karma Supra]

Cheers for your help on this ;)

The system is fairly bare bones as it is. I am believer of not putting thing in that won't get used.

Complete total spec:

New bits:

Asus M3A32-MVP Deluxe Motherboard

AMD Phenom 9850 Black Edition Quad Core

Corsair Dominator RAM - 4gb (1066mhz 2x 2gb sticks)

Sparkle Geforce 8500 GT passive cooled graphics card (I needed a PCI-E card on the cheap, I figure this will be a nice silent hand me down to the HTPC later)

Pioneer SATA DVD RW

Corsair HX-520 Modular PSU

Seagate Barracuda 500GB hard disks x2 in RAID 0

Scythe Mynee cooler with 120mm fan

Other bits:

Coolermaster ATC-X case (Sound deadened :))

Accustifan 80mm case fans x2

Generic USB 3.5" card reader

Sony 19" DVi TFT, Boston accustics 2.1 Speakers, logitech Keyboard and mouse.

No floppy drive, IDE cables, shiny neon bits etc, Internet is via the onboard LAN to my router, unused bits are turned off (like the second RAID controller etc)

It started up and ran fine with the one memory stick in it, but hung during games. I just replaced the second stick and got the same blue screen registry fault on start up I was getting before. Started in safe mode then restarted to normal and it started ok. No doubt if I try and restart it again now I'll get the Blue Screen Of Death again. - So that implies its memory... I am sure the bios settings won’t be ideal as they are all on "auto" Is there anywhere that describes what memory settings are what? Any Google just leads me to overclocker forums where people can only communicate in TXT SPK and acronyms that mean nothing to me!

Oh and I am running the latest Bios, Always the first thing I update on a new build, they have since released another which is upgraded. All Drivers are the latest as of this week. Page file is windows managed...

I am a bit disappointed to be honest... For some reason I expected it all to work out of the box... and it all cost me a packet! For the money I have spent s far I could have got stand alone management for the supra, or a monstrous winch and winch bumper of full body/suspension lift for the Hilux! I am sure it’s just me being an idiot and not setting it all up properly... It seems things are more complicated this time round with loads more adjustment and clocking features in the Bios to confuse me!

[Karma Supra]

WEll I restarted it and all I am getting is Blue screens... Starts fine in safe mode but under "normal" mode I get the bluescreen and a C0000218 Error. Sometimes if I Restart from safe mode it boots up ok... Othertimes I get the same blue screen.

> STOP: c0000218 {registry file failure}

> The registry cannot load the hive

> \SystemRoot\System32\Config\SECURITY

> or its log or alternate.

> It is corrupt, absent, or not writable.

http://help.wugnet.com/vista/TOP-C0000218-...opict29428.html

Looks like its Not Just me! I'll give this a proper read through at work tomorrow... Low-res safe mode makes me eyes hurt!

[Jinxed]

Quick reply until after as I got an appointntment in 30 mins but is a pleasure to try n help...

Switch the memory stick for the one that let you boot up. Will it still let you boot? I'm gonna look myself after at some of the details but i suspect those are matched pairs right? If so they can be very twitchy. Corsair are a good company and ive only had probs with them when i didnt know the default auto voltage wasnt sufficient for higher spec ones. If there is a difference in where the other stick gets to then rma them to the shop and get a replacement.

Assuming board is new given that you updated it when you got it and theres another bios update out already... so theyre still tweaking that but it doesnt really seem like that your probs will be this as the mobo if its like that for everyone wouldnt be fit for purpose.... going to have a squiz at it after.

yep the system doesnt have cards out its ears but as you are having these probs even just booting up it isnt that which is causing boot faults, will read that thread and see what i think.

Will have a look see if i can find anything relating to the error code...

Its a doozy mate... dont think you should be having this much trouble with a build as its not your first etc.... leads me to think somethings really not happy

A thought i had was are the cpu, mem, and graphics card seated properly.... sounds like one of those 'is it plugged in' suggestions but with new boards the slots can be pretty tight and things can feel like theyre in when theyre not quite....obviously dont geof capes the board in two pieces tho....

[Jinxed]

I read that entire thread, seems most people are either getting better results with less than 4 gig mem or by dropping raid arrays and using the other connectors....

Whether its down to the mobo or vista I have no idea but given the amount of time that threads been growing its pretty ridiculous :(

Id say drop the raid array, turn raid off in bios, use one hard drive that isnt connected via the raid connections, full clean reinstall, and see what happens, although i appreciate it means having a useless extra drive, if its stable its better than a useless pc. The question is will it be stable....

If it is, maybe u can try adding the second drive again not on the raid connections or u can print that thread as evidence if needed for returning the spare drive to shop even though it itself isnt likely faulty.

With all sincerity, I'd be very tempted to do the above and if it works be happy. Although there are a relative small number of people in that thread, they've been trying for a long time now and i dont think we is going to resolve this in any short time for you, if resolving is even possible :(

Pretty scandalous accross the board if that's the situation with vista 64, large amounts of memory and raid. The other alternative is have a look around at forums for other mobo manufacturers and see if their boards are getting any similar issues.... if they arent rma the mobo and try one of the ones not apparently suffering.... but again this is all time for you and god if youre like me then after some reinstalls, pulling bits out moving them around putting them back in you are likely fed up and cba....

Post what happens mate...

[Karma Supra]

Cheers Fella...

I'll try with the RAM timings next, if that fails I'll try just the one disk.. Not fussed about having spare left over... HTPC can never have too much disk space! ;) I liked the speed of the RAID array though.

All the cards/RAM etc are seated properly, checked that!

There seems to be a lot of info on it here with Bios screen shots. I am not using the overdrive windows feature, but looking at those bios shots the 5-5-5-15 settings make a little more sense... I'll try them... I need to find someone like that with my exact setup!

If hat doesn't work... should of spend it on car bits... I understand them!

I bought the board/ram/cpu as a bundle, I have emailed the seller to see if he has and any other people with my issues, and better still a fix/workaround.

[Jinxed]

If hat doesn't work... should of spend it on car bits... I understand them!

but you cant shoot ppl in the face with car bits :D

The second picture down in that link does show the timing settings... theyre the first 4 settings at the top on the left... but omg that bios looks frightening lol waaaaaay too much to mess with for me so id just be altering those 4 for the meantime and spending a great deal of time researching the rest before even thinking about messing with the rest

I think its going to be the non raid setup that has best chance of working for you at this point tho... it seemed that those ppl whod been trying a while were getting a result from it...

tbh even if you do end up with non raid, you should have a pretty rapid pc there when its stable, that large chunk of memory will work wonders, moreso when you ditch the graphics card and get a fast full chipset one in as for data transfer rates, dont worry about those where hard drives are concerned.... raids ok but large contiguous file transfers are pretty fast even without it, and slower than normal operation with loads of smaller files with it. The differences in speed between non raid and raid arent worth a coronary

[Karma Supra]

Lol at least its not just me that found that BIOS reeeaaaaaly complicated!

I have posted on the Motherboar and RAM manufacuters forums... fingers crossed.

As for the money I coiuld have got this winch bumper....

Or bought a Lexus V8 for either the truck or the supra (Not sure which one I should V8ifty lol)

[Jinxed]

yeah but you STILL cant shoot angst filled teens in the face with a bumper lol

[Karma Supra]

But you can squash cyclists and chavs ;)

"Sorry I didn't see your nova" :D :D