Hello everyone, this is my first post on the OCF forums. I've been coming to this site for quite some time, but never really had a reason to post anything. Obviously, now I do!
Anyway, here's the scoop: I built a new rig about 6-8 months ago, and I'm starting to think I have a faulty motherboard. Before we go any further, here's my hardware:
CM HAF-X Case
AMD Phenom II X4 BE (Deneb) @ 3.41 GHz (stock)
8 GB (4 x 2GB) OCZ Reaper HPC memory (only 3 sticks in at the moment, due to space constraints w/ HSF)
ASUS Crosshair IV Formula mobo
XFX Radeon HD 5870 graphics card (model is ZFNV I think? Whichever one is non-reference spec)
80 GB Intel X25-M SSD
60 GB OCZ Vertex (might be Vertex 2, I forget) SSD
2 TB platter by Samsung (I think)
Win7 Pro 64-bit
I think that's it for hardware... Basically, I've troubleshooted to the best of my abilities and I'm 98% sure the issue is with my motherboard. It started out with just random disk-read errors at the command prompt after POST but before the Win7 loading screen, it would happen sporadically at first, but with increasing frequency over the months. A couple weeks ago, my 1st-gen G15 keyboard died (wouldn't type ?'s or certain capital letters near that key with the right shift key, started inputting multiple characters per keystroke at the OS password screen, weird stuff like that. It also reached a point where it would give me multiple disk-read errors in the same spot as above, forcing me to reboot several times to finally boot into my OS) but I didn't think much of it since I've had the board for over 6 years. Replaced it with a Razer Anansi and those problems went away. Now, I've still been getting the random sporadic disk-read errors, and a couple days ago a whole new problem came up. Out of nowhere, I booted my system up, and it would not display menus. Drop-down menus, right-click menus, system tray menus, start menu, even the drop-down URL menu in FireFox wouldn't work. I'd click on them, and they'd flash very briefly and then just disappear as if I had instantly clicked away from the menu. I made sure my mouse wasnt sending extra clicks, and even swapped out my Razer Naga to my old M$ mouse, and still had the same problem. So, I rebooted, thinking it might just fix itself. Upon rebooting, I got several disk-read errors in a row, and when I was finally able to get into the OS, my mouse wouldn't work at all. Either of them. And the same issue with the menus persisted. So, with an enormous sigh and quite a bit of grumbling, I reformatted and reinstalled my OS. This may have been a blessing in disguise, as I had been meaning to switch my OS over to the OCZ drive so I'd have more room for games on the larger 80 GB Intel drive, but I digress. Thinking my Intel SSD may have been the culprit, I left only the OCZ drive hooked up, and re-installed Win 7. The disk-read errors are still happening. I honestly can't figure out for the life of me what the problem is. I've tested my RAM extensively ('egg sent me a bad stick in one of my pairs, so I tested all of them once the replacement kit arrived) so I don't think that is the issue. I'd say it could have something to do with only using 3 sticks rather than 4, but the issue was occurring before I installed the Noctua NH-U12P cooler and had to take out the 4th stick, so that's not it. The only thing left I can think of is the motherboard, I'm thinking it may have some bad USB ports on it due to the way I had to switch ports several times when I swapped the mice around.
Anyway, sorry for the wall o' text, just wanted to provide as much information as I could in one go. Let me know if you guys need more info, and if you have any ideas on other stuff for me to test, please let me know! I have a multimeter, so if I need to check voltages on the USB ports or anything like that, that's fine. I'm just stuck on this and I really want to fix it, I missed out on the Steam sale for Borderlands GOTY this week because of this!! Thanks in advance for any help any of you can offer, and thanks for reading!
Anyway, here's the scoop: I built a new rig about 6-8 months ago, and I'm starting to think I have a faulty motherboard. Before we go any further, here's my hardware:
CM HAF-X Case
AMD Phenom II X4 BE (Deneb) @ 3.41 GHz (stock)
8 GB (4 x 2GB) OCZ Reaper HPC memory (only 3 sticks in at the moment, due to space constraints w/ HSF)
ASUS Crosshair IV Formula mobo
XFX Radeon HD 5870 graphics card (model is ZFNV I think? Whichever one is non-reference spec)
80 GB Intel X25-M SSD
60 GB OCZ Vertex (might be Vertex 2, I forget) SSD
2 TB platter by Samsung (I think)
Win7 Pro 64-bit
I think that's it for hardware... Basically, I've troubleshooted to the best of my abilities and I'm 98% sure the issue is with my motherboard. It started out with just random disk-read errors at the command prompt after POST but before the Win7 loading screen, it would happen sporadically at first, but with increasing frequency over the months. A couple weeks ago, my 1st-gen G15 keyboard died (wouldn't type ?'s or certain capital letters near that key with the right shift key, started inputting multiple characters per keystroke at the OS password screen, weird stuff like that. It also reached a point where it would give me multiple disk-read errors in the same spot as above, forcing me to reboot several times to finally boot into my OS) but I didn't think much of it since I've had the board for over 6 years. Replaced it with a Razer Anansi and those problems went away. Now, I've still been getting the random sporadic disk-read errors, and a couple days ago a whole new problem came up. Out of nowhere, I booted my system up, and it would not display menus. Drop-down menus, right-click menus, system tray menus, start menu, even the drop-down URL menu in FireFox wouldn't work. I'd click on them, and they'd flash very briefly and then just disappear as if I had instantly clicked away from the menu. I made sure my mouse wasnt sending extra clicks, and even swapped out my Razer Naga to my old M$ mouse, and still had the same problem. So, I rebooted, thinking it might just fix itself. Upon rebooting, I got several disk-read errors in a row, and when I was finally able to get into the OS, my mouse wouldn't work at all. Either of them. And the same issue with the menus persisted. So, with an enormous sigh and quite a bit of grumbling, I reformatted and reinstalled my OS. This may have been a blessing in disguise, as I had been meaning to switch my OS over to the OCZ drive so I'd have more room for games on the larger 80 GB Intel drive, but I digress. Thinking my Intel SSD may have been the culprit, I left only the OCZ drive hooked up, and re-installed Win 7. The disk-read errors are still happening. I honestly can't figure out for the life of me what the problem is. I've tested my RAM extensively ('egg sent me a bad stick in one of my pairs, so I tested all of them once the replacement kit arrived) so I don't think that is the issue. I'd say it could have something to do with only using 3 sticks rather than 4, but the issue was occurring before I installed the Noctua NH-U12P cooler and had to take out the 4th stick, so that's not it. The only thing left I can think of is the motherboard, I'm thinking it may have some bad USB ports on it due to the way I had to switch ports several times when I swapped the mice around.
Anyway, sorry for the wall o' text, just wanted to provide as much information as I could in one go. Let me know if you guys need more info, and if you have any ideas on other stuff for me to test, please let me know! I have a multimeter, so if I need to check voltages on the USB ports or anything like that, that's fine. I'm just stuck on this and I really want to fix it, I missed out on the Steam sale for Borderlands GOTY this week because of this!! Thanks in advance for any help any of you can offer, and thanks for reading!
