SOLVED Asus Commando freezing question

[rainman33]

Hey all, I recently broke out my Commando again just for fun and keep having the same problem. Whether I use my P4 920 D or my E6300 it freezes at different times while in the O/S. It never did this before but my son was using the computer yesterday and just locked up. I am using a hard drive that was giving my father problems before I replaced it but I found it was a virus and he wanted a bigger HDD anyway. Can it damage sectors in the HDD and cause it to malfunction once in a while?

Setup: (Keep in mind it's just to play with)

Asus Commando w/ either P4 D 925 or e6300
500 watt cheapo galaxy psu-tested with multi meter and psu tester. works fine.
2 GB OCZ Platinum 2.1V 5-4-4 ram
evga gtx 650 gpu (the mini card)
WD Caviar black 250GB or so HDD
Optical drive
All on a Lian Li test bench and water cooled

What I did:
swapped cpu's
resat cpu
swapped RAM and tried different channels
removed CMOS batt and waited
reset BIOS w/ onboard button and jumper at separate times obviously
pulled all parts off of the mobo and added 1 piece back at a time and ran with minimal hardware needed
flashed the BIOS
Reinstalled all drivers


I do not currently have another HDD to try but everything works like said but locks up at different times whether I am loading the cpu or it is at idle.Also all BIOS settings are at default. Any help is appreciated.

 

[(G{in}[AK)TION]]

random freezing during game? have you tried changing the cooler? i had a Pentium 4 HT 3.2ghz processor taht did the same.

after i replaced the mascool heatsink with an Intel Genuine Heatsink, it worked better after that. i could feel the tight grip that intel heatsink had on the pentium 4 board while i was installing it. dropped temps from 67c to 55 after that.

 

[rainman33]

I don't think it's the cooler. It is water cooled with a Raystorm block and the TIM and seating are correct. It doesn't go above 37C. It freezes at random times while in the O/S. I have not tried gaming on it yet.

 

[(G{in}[AK)TION]]

try replacing the HDD with another one, if it still freezes at random then the board is going bad. i had two asus boards do the same thing. one was a Pentium 3 board and the other was a pentium 4. showed the same signs of your going through: random freezing

and yes, i exhausted all solutions on what was wrong with them and all i could think up of was the board.

have you taken the board out and checked it?

 

[Bobnova]

You check the caps in that PSU? A multimeter won't show component slaughtering ripple levels.

 

[(G{in}[AK)TION]]

You check the caps in that PSU? A multimeter won't show component slaughtering ripple levels.

i thought it would show if the caps were about to blow...

well since bob nova metioned that, did you try swapping power supplys? if you havent, try that and see if it works.

what about ram? did you try different ram sticks? did you test one at a time?

if replacing parts on it dosent help, then its got to be the board. i have had around three asus boards do that to me. two pentium 3 boards and 1 pentuim 4 board.

 

[rainman33]

I have not tried it out of or off of the test bench yet. I should do that any way thanks for reminding me about that.
BOBNOVA-i did not realize that. I figured if there was a spike the meter would reflect that by the fluctuation of power coming out. How do I check the caps? I would hate for this mobo to be going bad. It is my first build/board ever.

 

[RJARRRPCGP]

Hey all, I recently broke out my Commando again just for fun and keep having the same problem. Whether I use my P4 920 D or my E6300 it freezes at different times while in the O/S. It never did this before but my son was using the computer yesterday and just locked up. I am using a hard drive that was giving my father problems before I replaced it but I found it was a virus and he wanted a bigger HDD anyway. Can it damage sectors in the HDD and cause it to malfunction once in a while?

Setup: (Keep in mind it's just to play with)

Asus Commando w/ either P4 D 925 or e6300
500 watt cheapo galaxy psu-tested with multi meter and psu tester. works fine.
2 GB OCZ Platinum 2.1V 5-4-4 ram
evga gtx 650 gpu (the mini card)
WD Caviar black 250GB or so HDD
Optical drive
All on a Lian Li test bench and water cooled

What I did:
swapped cpu's
resat cpu
swapped RAM and tried different channels
removed CMOS batt and waited
reset BIOS w/ onboard button and jumper at separate times obviously
pulled all parts off of the mobo and added 1 piece back at a time and ran with minimal hardware needed
flashed the BIOS
Reinstalled all drivers


I do not currently have another HDD to try but everything works like said but locks up at different times whether I am loading the cpu or it is at idle.Also all BIOS settings are at default. Any help is appreciated.

Time for a teardown then reseat all cards and RAM. This happened to my P5QL Pro. Dusting it off with a paintbrush, reseating all cards, reseating the RAM and clearing the CMOS solved the problem.

 

[(G{in}[AK)TION]]

Time for a teardown then reseat all cards and RAM. This happened to my P5QL Pro. Dusting it off with a paintbrush, reseating all cards, reseating the RAM and clearing the CMOS solved the problem.

hey i did (sorta) the same thing with my board!

i removed the heatpipes, the bracket thingy that holds the heatpipes, blew air over the socket and cpu, applied alchohol to the cpu pads and wiped them clean, and after reinstalling everything (with allot more caution this time) i was able to run my computer with memory in dual channel mode again!

i runs at 4.2ghz with 83f now too. used to be 100f.

 

[RJARRRPCGP]

hey i did (sorta) the same thing with my board!

i removed the heatpipes, the bracket thingy that holds the heatpipes, blew air over the socket and cpu, applied alchohol to the cpu pads and wiped them clean, and after reinstalling everything (with allot more caution this time) i was able to run my computer with memory in dual channel mode again!

i runs at 4.2ghz with 83f now too. used to be 100f.

When I did that to the P5QL Pro board, I saw a good-sized piece of dust that looked like it was bridging the legs of one cap!

 

[Bobnova]

Look in the back/sides/top of the PSU and look for any caps that are bulging. That's a start. Really, if it's a no-name unit, it probably violated ripple spec brand new.

 

[rainman33]

Look in the back/sides/top of the PSU and look for any caps that are bulging. That's a start. Really, if it's a no-name unit, it probably violated ripple spec brand new.

Will do. I never realized that about a ripple effect. Then if that isnt the problem, I will have to pull all the heat pipes and heat sinks off and clean it up. Thanks guys, a lot. I will see what happens and post back.

 

[rainman33]

Ok I followed RedDragonXXX's post and found out that the 6 pin rail for the cpu was dropping in power after a certain amount of time. I am not sure why since heat is not an issue. I cleaned the psu every week when I was using it. Maybe similar to Vdroop in motherboards that became worse over time? Anyway I replaced the PSU and have not had a problem since. Thanks again for all the help.

 

[Bobnova]

Because it's a crap power supply. You are very lucky they it didn't fail and give your CPU 380v to think about.

 

[(G{in}[AK)TION]]

well thats fortunate you found the problem. ill take this thread as a lesson and remember it the next time someone like you have a problem with their board.

 

[Bobnova]

The lesson is, don't use crap PSUs.

 

[rainman33]

Bobnova is right. I didn't realize at the time the importance of the psu besides the amount of wattage it put out. I also did not realize the surge that can happen and the ripple issues. That's the lesson I got out of this. I also learned about testing the caps and an awesome write-up about psu testing that I was pointed to. Always learning something new from here that's what makes this forum great.

 

[(G{in}[AK)TION]]

so what PSU are you using now? i have been using this Lepa N500 unit for a while now and its been working great

SPI is also good so i bought another one. best budget supplies i have ever used.

 

[rainman33]

so what PSU are you using now? i have been using this Lepa N500 unit for a while now and its been working great

SPI is also good so i bought another one. best budget supplies i have ever used.

I went with a corsair tx650. I will mostly use it for testing like the old one or to play around with older hardware for fun and keep learning.

 

[Audioaficionado]

Pretty much 3/4 of my motherboard failures to boot issues have been due to a bad power supply.