bad mobo or ram or hd?

S

syn3rgyz

Gawd
Joined
Jun 14, 2005
Messages
763
my parts for my new rig just came and i just put it together and installed windows 7 few hours ago. It ran fine until after i installed all my drivers and started to download my games. Then it started to randomly freeze, blue screen a few times with different errors such as memory_management and system something error. Thought it was the ram so I pulled out my video card and wireless card, borrowed my friends ddr3 stick and stuck it in still blue screened with a diff error. Thought it was the drivers so i tried to reinstall a fresh windows 7. Then it would not post a few times, just a blank screen or freeze at post screen, something different almost every other time i try to restart the computer. So I thought it might be the ram again, tried pulling each ram one by one and still have the same problem. Thought it might be the hard drive so tried plugging another one in, still won't post most of the time and if it does it doesn't go past the start windows normally option. After many hours of frustration it started to work if i reseat one ram on the 4th slot only. I used that one slot to run memtest86 on each stick one by one, one pass each. No errors.

As we speak i'm trying to reinstall windows 7 with that one stick in the 4th slot.

What else can I do to determine what the problem is?

here are my specs

Asus M4A89GTD Pro / USB3.0
74.6 GB raptor SATA HD
AMD Phenom X4 3.2ghz 955 black edition
2x 2GB GSKILL DDR3 PC3-10600
 
  • What PSU do you have?
  • Can you test the CPU in another system?
  • So the system still exhibited the same issues when you used a different set of DDR3 RAM, a different hard drive, and the onboard video of the motherboard?
 
-Antec NEO ECO 620C 620W PSU
-I don't have another system to test my CPU in I could try asking my roomate if he minds swapping his CPU out but I highly doubt he'd let me
- yes it still did the same behavior

I've already reinstalled windows, updated drivers and installed a bunch of other programs so far while still using that 1 stick of ram in the 4th slot

*edit i just jinxed myself it froze and got a bluescreen for like half a second blinked and restarted itself
 
it just restarted and i restarted firefox and everything besides the mouse froze for like 30 seconds then everything started running again

guess i'll rma the mobo and hope for the best
 
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this is weird the other slot is working again

*edit
plugged back both rams into slot 1 and slot 2 and its working again
so maybe its a driver issue again???? im so lost as to what to do now
 
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this sounds pretty similar to my issues i was having over here http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1550094 with my new build.

I RMA'd the mobo 2 days ago, so i'll keep you posted if i get it back before you send yours out. I had an ASUS M4A87TD/USB3.. pretty similar. I also tested every component except the CPU, they all passed with 0 errors. I never tried my ram in different slots though... But that freezing issue is sure spot-on.

Uhh, for a TLDR on that thread:
chockomonkey said:
AMD Athlon II X4 620 Propus 2.6GHz
G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600
GIGABYTE GV-N460OC-1GI GeForce GTX 460
ASUS M4A87TD/USB3
CORSAIR CMPSU-650TX 650W

Everything seemed to be going fine with all BIOS settings on auto for a day or two. Ran some stability tests, received no errors (save for one error generated on the Linpack OCCT Test). Played some games the next day and it froze. This first freeze seemed to start a process where this machine would freeze more and more frequently after this first one. After 5 or so freezes it wouldn’t even get into windows.

Thinking that my ALL Auto’s were to fault, I reset the CMOS, set these settings, and again the computer ran well for 1-2 days. In this uptime I ran much more stability tests to verify that things were stable. It passed hours of 3 hours of various Prime95 tests, a 12-hour cycle of the OCCT CPU test, several hours on Furmark, and this time it also passed a 1-hour test of the OCCT Linpack. So I thought “yay! It’s fixed!” Played some more games, then it eventually crashed and started the above cycle again—crashes became more and more frequent. This time, however, it would sometimes not even POST. I had to reset CMOS again, reconfigured the bios settings (this time with some extra voltage thrown on the ram and CPU)… Ran fine for another day, then all of this happened over again. Froze in a game, got more frequent, etc… again to the point of it freezing before windows, sometimes not POSTing, sometimes even freezing in the BIOS settings screen.
This is where I’m at… when the computer is “up” it’s passing stress tests… when it starts to freeze, it quickly chokes and completely won’t go anywhere. Right now, I can’t get it stable again… it just keep crashing while trying to boot up
.
Click to expand...
 
^ have you gotten any bsods?
*edit nvm i read the full thread.
I'm gonna call new egg up tomorrow and see if they can do cross shipping
 
try bumping memory voltage some. also see if it specifies some minimums or if by default the fsb is running at a faster speed than is rated for the current voltage.
 
^ memory voltage is running at what it should be, i dunno if bumping it up will help i'll try when i get home. everything is running at the correct speeds / voltage i checked
 
update
got my rma'd mobo back and installed it, no more freezes / blue screens for now.

Question though, should i reformat/reinstall windows and all the drivers? i mean its the same motherboard right?
 
syn3rgyz said:
Question though, should i reformat/reinstall windows and all the drivers? i mean its the same motherboard right?
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Reformat and reinstall. The BSODs and hardware freezes may have done some long-term damage to the OS install.
 
took your adviec and reformating now.

One more question, I have a 2.5 sata laptop hd i wanna put into the case, is it okay if i just tape it onto the mounts?
 
okay so I installed my hard drive, formatted it in windows and assigned a drive letter to it, but everytime i restart its gone and I have to assign it a drive letter again. I tried running a disk error check on it but it says windows cannot run a disk error check on it, but I can do it for my other drives.

Also lately my programs have been freezing, I can move my mouse but I cant open the startmenu sometimes and i cant open task manager. It happened when I was playing counter strike and SC2 too, sometimes if I wait it out it will unfreeze. Could this have anything to do with installing my harddrive?

suspecting its my vid card drivers, using onboard right now and it seems to be fine for now
 
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Download the CD image of Hitachi Drive Fitness Test, burn the ISO file to a CD, and then boot from it, just like you would do with the XP/Vista install CD. Test the hard drive and see if any problems are found. DFT will run on most manufacturers' hard drives. Alternatively, you can use Seagate's SeaTools for DOS to test a Seagate or Maxtor drive. For a Western Digital drive, you could use Data Lifeguard Tools for DOS to test a Western Digital drive.
 
i downloaded the trial for HDtune. Ran tests before I left for class and for one of my HD's 3 warnings popped up(the one where the OS is installed), one of them is bad sectors replaced and another is something about bad connection that might be caused by a bad cable. Will upload images when I get home.
 
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xm3acm.png

this mobo i bought only has one IDE port, and one of my harddrives and my DVD drive use IDE, so I dont know how i'm gonna scan that one
 
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Yeah try another hard drive and see if the issue clears up. I recommend these:
$55 - Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD502HJ 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
$55 - Western Digital WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
 
syn3rgyz said:
can't i get 1TB drives for around the same price?
Click to expand...

Well there are $60 1TB drives but they're gonna be a bit slower. For a fast 1TB drive, I recommend this:
$70 - Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
 
this is weird, i pulled out the 2.5" drive that i have to keep assigning drive letter to after restarts, and i haven't experienced any lock ups so far. But the SMART scan says that drive is fine, and its my raptor drive running the OS that has the warnings.
 
HDD or memory.
Just test your memory first.
and for HDtune do error scan and if you see redspot on that then Hdd would be the reason
 
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