My new system is unstable in lots of different ways, and tests arent giving me much to pin it down. It should still be in rma period, so if need be, I can probably return/swap some of this stuff out. I already posted this on DFI street to ask for help, but didnt get anything that helped me there. I'm hoping you guys may have an idea of what exactly is the problem and if it can be fixed or needs an rma.
Link to the thread on DFI Street --- http://www.dfi-street.com/forum/showthread.php?t=19596
And origional post copied ---
My new system is running on all stock settings, but is still unstable.
Symptons:
Starting the system warm or cold, rebooting or just powering on, I will freeze on the first bios information screen right after posting. Sometimes it freezes when it pops up, sometimes right before checking ide drives. Once it gets past this first stage. it will boot up like normal.
Edit: Due to suggested settings in the thread, this problem is happeneing less, freezing about 20% instead of 66%
Windows becomes corrupt often. I had to reformat three times in as many days, each to a different error, but all surely killed windows. It however hasnt happened in the past few days.
Problems with games. Some of my older games have trouble when the chipset temperature gets past ~48C. Rome Total War and Natural Selection (HL mod) speed up when it goes past this temperature. Everything about them spend about 2/3 of their time in a speed up mode, with everything being sped up, sound, moving, enemys, firing, etc. Sometimes instead of speeding up, NS will hang for a second every minute. NS also crashes upon exiting about half the time.
Once again, these affects only start when the chipset gets too hot. After putting AS5, opening the case, and putting a fan blowing towards the chipset, these affects are delayed as it takes longer to heat up, but they still come.
Flatout seemes to crash no matter what I do after playing it for a bit, yet I can still get to windows underneath it. Oddly, the more I crash in game, the more the game crashes.
Also of note, more modern games dont appear affected at all; HL2, WoW, and FEAR run fine.
Ive had a few random programs simply crash to desktop, and had my computer reboot itself a couple times, but these two problems are a lot less common than the others.
Edit: Another problem I have is two seperate games have had their graphic portions die. The game is still running fine in the backround, but the screen shows a blur of lines the color of whatever I am looking at. In one of the games, it had not even gotten to actually 3d rendered enviroment, it was only on the menues when the game crashed. One time the computer rebooted on its own seconds later, the other time it stayed up until I restarted it.
Testing:
I ran memtest on both of my 1gb corsair 3200xms sticks in dual channel for 8 hours without errors. I mean to test each stick indivually as well. (Can errors be hidden with both sticks that will show up with only one in there?)
I ran prime95 on both cpu's at once following the guide in the overclockers section. It ran without error for 8 hours as well.
Without being able to loop 3dmark05, I ran it a few times in a row, with no crashing or noticeable artifacts. Any other good 3d testing programs out there that can be looped?
Any ideas what the problem may be? Any other testing I can do to narrow it down? Can the problem be fixed or will I need to return something? Thanks in advance for the help.
__________________
DFI Lan Party UT NF4 Ultra-D 6-23 bios
AMD X2 4200+, stock cooling
2x1gb 3200 Corsair XMS
BFG 7800GTX
SB Audigy 2 ZS
74gb Raptor
520w ocz modstream
Windows XP Pro SP2
Link to the thread on DFI Street --- http://www.dfi-street.com/forum/showthread.php?t=19596
And origional post copied ---
My new system is running on all stock settings, but is still unstable.
Symptons:
Starting the system warm or cold, rebooting or just powering on, I will freeze on the first bios information screen right after posting. Sometimes it freezes when it pops up, sometimes right before checking ide drives. Once it gets past this first stage. it will boot up like normal.
Edit: Due to suggested settings in the thread, this problem is happeneing less, freezing about 20% instead of 66%
Windows becomes corrupt often. I had to reformat three times in as many days, each to a different error, but all surely killed windows. It however hasnt happened in the past few days.
Problems with games. Some of my older games have trouble when the chipset temperature gets past ~48C. Rome Total War and Natural Selection (HL mod) speed up when it goes past this temperature. Everything about them spend about 2/3 of their time in a speed up mode, with everything being sped up, sound, moving, enemys, firing, etc. Sometimes instead of speeding up, NS will hang for a second every minute. NS also crashes upon exiting about half the time.
Once again, these affects only start when the chipset gets too hot. After putting AS5, opening the case, and putting a fan blowing towards the chipset, these affects are delayed as it takes longer to heat up, but they still come.
Flatout seemes to crash no matter what I do after playing it for a bit, yet I can still get to windows underneath it. Oddly, the more I crash in game, the more the game crashes.
Also of note, more modern games dont appear affected at all; HL2, WoW, and FEAR run fine.
Ive had a few random programs simply crash to desktop, and had my computer reboot itself a couple times, but these two problems are a lot less common than the others.
Edit: Another problem I have is two seperate games have had their graphic portions die. The game is still running fine in the backround, but the screen shows a blur of lines the color of whatever I am looking at. In one of the games, it had not even gotten to actually 3d rendered enviroment, it was only on the menues when the game crashed. One time the computer rebooted on its own seconds later, the other time it stayed up until I restarted it.
Testing:
I ran memtest on both of my 1gb corsair 3200xms sticks in dual channel for 8 hours without errors. I mean to test each stick indivually as well. (Can errors be hidden with both sticks that will show up with only one in there?)
I ran prime95 on both cpu's at once following the guide in the overclockers section. It ran without error for 8 hours as well.
Without being able to loop 3dmark05, I ran it a few times in a row, with no crashing or noticeable artifacts. Any other good 3d testing programs out there that can be looped?
Any ideas what the problem may be? Any other testing I can do to narrow it down? Can the problem be fixed or will I need to return something? Thanks in advance for the help.
__________________
DFI Lan Party UT NF4 Ultra-D 6-23 bios
AMD X2 4200+, stock cooling
2x1gb 3200 Corsair XMS
BFG 7800GTX
SB Audigy 2 ZS
74gb Raptor
520w ocz modstream
Windows XP Pro SP2
