Narrowing down problems

Ok, to make a long story short I had some problems with my Mobo a while back and had to RMA it. I got it back and the mb works find but i'm having some odd problems.

I thought at first it was just the game, but Unreal tournament 3 restarts my computer randomly throughout gameplay. usually within the first 2-3 minutes. I got CoD4 to do the same thing, but I had to run P95 blend test while playing the game, and it took 3 hours before my puter restarted. (100% cpu/ 98% RAM). that was @ 3.01Ghz (375FSB)

At 3.2Ghz I was small fft stable for 5 hours. But it fails blend within 5 minutes (400 FSB).

Im going to dl the new memtest86 and run that for a good long time to see if it finds any errors at either FSB speed.

I'm thinking it is the RAM, but I just want to be sure before I start taking it apart to send parts back.

My computer crashes when running memtest and Dell Diagnostics....wish I could help

kkpudge7 said:

Im going to dl the new memtest86 and run that for a good long time to see if it finds any errors at either FSB speed.

I'm thinking it is the RAM, but I just want to be sure before I start taking it apart to send parts back.

Click to expand...

Sounds good, I'd run memtest86 with one stick at a time, both etc. I'd RMA any dimm that doesn't pass memtest86 for sure.

Ugh...I guess not being able to find any problems with the memory is a good thing.

I ran each stick in the same slot (A1) for 3 hours each. Both passed 10 passes of memtest86+. What is also weird is that UT3 worked fine with each stick. Played each stick for 30 minutes no problems.

What is stranger yet is that I decided to put both DIMMs into slots B1 and B2 and now my 3.2Ghz OC is running stable in p95 blend. Which I was never able to do even before I had to RMA my MB.

After this I'm going to test UT3 with the RAM in B slot to see. My A slots should be fine though, its a brand new MB...Computers are so weird.....

sounds like a bad dimm slot

Thats what I thought as well. Until just now.

Again after about 2.5 hours of stability on p95 blend (while playing cod4) the computer restarted (@400FSB). It is behaving the same way no matter what FSB I have it set at.

lets recap...

1. both DIMMs passed 3 hours of memtest86+ v2.11 (tested seperately and together)
2. Computer restarts within 2 minutes of gameplay during UT3 with both DIMMS installed
(did same thing in slots b1 and b2)
3. UT3 worked for 30 minutes with both DIMMs when they were installed in A1 (single stick at a time).

It sure seems like a RAM problem, but they both ran for 3 hours on memtest with no errors. I thought it was a bad DIMM slot, but its doing the same thing in all 4 slots.

Im scratching my head

How strong is that power supply? Lower down your Overclock on either your Video or CPU and see if your problem goes away..

Here is my PSU http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817339002

I was wondering if this could be a power/gpu related issue. bc it only occurs during games. I've burned DVDs, watched movies, and used the computer for other basic tasks for hours on end with no problems. I have tried everything on stock settings including the GFX.

It would explain the fact that my RAM is passing memtest.

kkpudge7 said:

Here is my PSU http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817339002

I was wondering if this could be a power/gpu related issue. bc it only occurs during games. I've burned DVDs, watched movies, and used the computer for other basic tasks for hours on end with no problems. I have tried everything on stock settings including the GFX.

It would explain the fact that my RAM is passing memtest.

Click to expand...

Well burning DVD's and playing videos does not tax any video card like a game, so you can't compare the two.

I would lower your settings and try again.

I have everything on stock speeds. My MB bios everything is set to auto except for FSB and DRAM frequency. I have FSB at 333 and DRAMf at 1333. My cpuv is at 1.20624v and I have the DRAMv at 1.9v (I heard setting it to auto it sometimes over volts it.)

I even went as far as re flashing the bios to my 4870, thinking possibly it was a bad flash or something. no luck.

If it was a power issue it would seem like the computer would restart under load in the same amount of time. But I can play COD4 for several hours before anything happens, and that is with p95 blend running in the background.

It makes sense that UT3 works with only 2GB of ram installed, bc it is drawing a little bit less power from the PSU, but it doesn't seem like the 1.9v that one stick of ram draws would be enough to make a difference.

Some ideas for further testing would be appreciated, I'm not sure what to try next.

EDIT: I bet I have an idea as to what might be the problem. Maybe I'm overloading this PSU. Its only 19A on the 12v rails, and I'm running 2 HDD's and 2 CD drives on one rail. The PSU is on the weaker side to begin with, maybe running everything on one rail is causing problems.

Not sure why UT3 is more prone to the restarting, but its an idea.