SOLVED New i5 system crashes/other problems

[Phelix08]

First off hi everyone, this is my first time posting here though i've been reading for quite a while and really enjoy the site. Sorry to start out with a problem but I'm kinda at my wits end and this place seemed like my best bet to get some help.

I have a new i5 system:
Windows 7 x64
ASUS P7P55D-E (It was open box, for what it's worth.)
i5 750 @ stock
2 x 2 gigs of OCZ DDR3
EVGA GeForce GTS 250 1024
Seagate Barracuda 500 gig 7200 rpm
Some oldish IDE DVD burner (given to me by a friend, i think it's an OEM model but I can't find much of anything about it)
600W Thermaltake power supply
It runs pretty cool, low 30's when idle and I've never seen it break 65 under load

About all I can think of..

Anyway, the thing has never really worked right. When I first got it, I could barely even get the OS to install (I was using windows xp 32 bit and ubuntu 10.04 64 bit at that point in time). Tried a few things myself (a few passes of memtest 86+ and got nothing at all) and eventually returned it to micro center to see what they could come up with. They decided it was bad ram, and replaced both sticks.

I got the computer back, and it worked for about 2 or 3 days after reinstalling vista 64 bit on it and using that. But, Vista randomly BSOD'd and wouldn't update, it kept giving me errors when it started installing. That wasn't exactly great, so I decided to take it back again. They thought it was a bad install, so we installed a fresh copy of Windows 7 64 Ult 64 bit. Ran furmark and a few other benchmarks to stress test it a bit, and everything worked ok, so I took it home.

At home, I installed Win 7 home premium 64. It worked ok, but still crashed every time I played games (Team fortress 2 randomly dies in game, Street Fighter 4 has never made it through arcade mode without crashing, Portal seems to work fairly well but I barely ever play it, and Phantasy Star Online Blue Burst crashes all the time and usually takes the operating system with it. And for what it's worth, PSO shouldn't even get my computer out of idle, it's pretty old and low end) Updates still rarely work. Everything else runs pretty smoothly, though furmark has odd blips when it runs. Aside from that, I randomly get BSOD's like once every 2 or 3 days.

Oh, and I took it in again and they said it was nvidia drivers (i was trying the beta drivers to see if any of the bug fixes did anything for this problem) and rolled back to the stable release, but the stable release didn't work any better before I installed the beta or after they rolled it back. They also said display fusion was causing things to crash so they disabled it. It's still having the exact same problems it was having.

Sorry, that was quite a bit to read, but I'm just trying to be thorough. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated

Edit: throughout the entire process I've been using Ubuntu 10.04 x64 off and on. It worked *fairly* well, but still crashed occasionally. More than it should lol
just remembered, I also fairly frequently got "nvidia driver ... quit responding and has recovered" in Win 7.
adding stuff as I remember it... I don't know if it's related at all but when ripping dvds (doesn't happen when using Video_TS folders on my hdd) handbrake outputs complete garbage. It may just be a handbrake problem but I figured it may also point to some hardware failure or something.

 

[cyberkost]

I'd say bad memory or bad mobo. Test the memory with Memtest86+ for several passes. I had random crashes in Ubuntu when my memory went bad.

 

[Slayn]

Do you have your memory timings and voltages set properly in BIOS? Have you tried each stick one at a time? Are they in the correct slots ( sometimes it specifies that you need 2 sticks of memory in slot 1/3, for example, refer to mobo manual ).

Also do you know what BSOD you get? You can turn off the automatic restart and get the BSOD information.

Right click on "Computer" in the start menu and hit properties. Go to the advanced system settings on the left, start up and recovery settings, and then uncheck the "restart automatically" box. Find out what the BSOD is. Really only need the "name" it gives, like IRQ_NOT_LESS_EQUAL or nvidiaysks.blah blah whatever. Don't need all those x's and 0's.

 

[Phelix08]

Thanks.. yeah, I'll probably let memtest go all night. I guess I just keep thinking the memory is good because I already replaced it once. And I've always been leery of the motherboard since it was an open box

 

[Phelix08]

I think so, let me check to make sure though. I really haven't messed with bios. Well, definitely not any of that stuff. I'll be back in a minute and post what I've got. And I get a few things like "paged file in non-paged area" or something like that. Sorry, yeah, i have automatic reboot on so I never have time to read well or write down anything. And yes i'm sure they're in the correct slots, no I haven't tried one stick at a time.

 

[Slayn]

So you set the timings/voltages? It is crucial, usually the mem voltage specifies something like 1.65v and the stock is 1.5v, it can cause crashes.

 

[Phelix08]

Hmm. No, I haven't. Let me grab the box and check bios real quick.

Tryin not to double post too often lol.
Apparently I should have it at 1.65v and 9-9-9-20. So, if default is 1.5v then it's probably wrong. Please excuse my noobieness, but I'm still not very familiar with any of these settings; I've never really had to mess with them. How would I go about changing this stuff (it's asus's bios, fwiw.) I can't really find anything that looks right

He was right, voltage and timing was wrong, and Slayn is my hero lol

 

[cyberkost]

So, is the problem gone now? I mean, usually mobos default to some pretty conservative settings and you should have been ok from the get go. Did you set the the timing/voltage set by hand initially (when having problems?)

 

[Phelix08]

Nope, it was all on defaults. And yeah, it was conservative, too conservative. It was giving the ram 1.5v instead of 1.65v and stuff.

And yeah, the problem is gone now as far as I can tell. It was never 100% repeatable, but I've never made it through a night of playing games without it crashing