Need Help With PC Crashing. Possible Memory Failure, Or Software?

xFazzz · Nov 18, 2013

Hi, over the past week my PC has been freezing/bluescreening after around 10 mins of game-play on any game (sometimes when it reboots it gives me four beeps with an orange blinking power light). I have called up dell, they instructed me to run their diagnostics tool which came back fine. Every component passed the test which is leading them to believe it is a software issue.

In summary I really need some help here, I'm lost. I'm new to this kind of stuff so I don't know what to post. Let me know what you need and how to get the information and I will be happy to do it.

- Regards, Fazzz

Supahos · Nov 18, 2013

I would try to update any drivers to update my computer, go to dell and see what that have available for your computer. I don't know the specs so I can't really suggest to you where to look for the drivers. Seems to me that it could be a failing stick of memory, I don't know what battery of tests they had you run...

Google Memtest, download it, burn it to a CD, leave CD in your computer and restart your computer it will run a memory diagnostic that should help see if its possibly a bad memory stick. If not its possibly driver related.

Supahos · Nov 18, 2013

http://www.dell.com/support/my-support/us/en/19

Go there, and select desktop or laptop (don't know which you have) THen select your model, and exact model, then there is an option to "get drivers" Try this and see if that fixes the issue.

xFazzz · Nov 18, 2013

Supahos :

There are no recommended drivers to update, guess this means they are all up-to date?

Supahos · Nov 18, 2013

xFazzz :

Supahos :

that would be my guess as well. Here is the memtest site http://www.memtest.org/

Download file, burn to CD, Leave CD in computer, Restart computer, let it run see if it finds any errors.

There are no recommended drivers to update, guess this means they are all up-to date?

Supahos · Nov 18, 2013

xFazzz :

Supahos :

There are no recommended drivers to update, guess this means they are all up-to date?

xFazzz · Nov 18, 2013

Supahos :

Im running memtest now. Its passed 1 and 0 errors. How long should i let it run? I have 2x2gb and 2x4gb of ddr3 memory

Supahos · Nov 18, 2013

Okay one more thing to look at, make sure the memory is as follows

CPU-->4/2/4/2 or 2/4/2/4

not 4/4/2/2 or 2/2/4/4

You want the same sized sticks in the same colored slots (assuming there are colors on that mother board memory slots).

xFazzz · Nov 18, 2013

Supahos :

On memtest it is as follows.
Slot 0 2048
Slot 1 4096
Slot 2 2048
Slot 3 4096

Is this correct?

Supahos · Nov 18, 2013

yep that is as it should be, I would probably have done them 4/2/4/2 but that shoudlnl't cause the crashes, if you can get into the bios Try upping the Dram voltage to 1.55v, and what kind of rig do you have? amd or intel? and which processor/motherboard? if AMD up the CPU/NB +.1v

if intel (and an IX 2 or 3 series) raise the VCCIO +.1v

xFazzz · Nov 18, 2013

Supahos :

Its an intel rig with an amd gpu. Id rather not go into the bios to be honest mate, I'm not confident in that. How long should i leave memtest running? And if it comes back fine what is my next move. Do i look in a software/driver malfunction? And if so how do i do this?

Thanks for your help!

Supahos · Nov 18, 2013

The changes I suggested are VERY easy and can't be messed up. there will be a value for DramVoltage or Vdram or Dramv, just type 1.55 and let that go

The Vccio is also easy, just look at whatever it has listed next to it (I'm sure it says auto, but there should be a value next to the word auto) and add .1v to it. I think your problem is that you have 2 mixed kits and a bit of voltage would likely fix the issue. If the voltage doesn't fix things the sticks could have different timeings and possibly changing it to 4/2/4/2 in the board could fix it but I promise the volage tweaks are much easier than it sounds.

xFazzz · Nov 18, 2013

Supahos :

Well for now im just gonna let memtest run. How long should i do it for? If it gets an error i will send it off to dell. If it doesn't it must be driver/software right? Also, i have had this rig for around a year and a half with no upgrades. I don't see why the voltage would suddenly effect it?

If its a ram issue will memtest defiantly pick it up? Plus can you offer support for other issues? Because if its a driver or software issue i have no idea how to determine what it is. I also upgraded from windows 7 to 8.1 (legal copy). So how would i restore it back to factory settings?

xFazzz · Nov 18, 2013

If anyone could give me a hand with this that would be great. Memtest has currently passed 2 times with 0 errors.

xFazzz · Nov 18, 2013

Never mind, the PC just shut itself down during memtest. Im seriously stuck on what to do now. Is it hardware or a driver error?

Supahos · Nov 18, 2013

If it shut down durning memtest it cant be driver related as the drivers arent loaded. That does narrow it down to a hardware issue

xFazzz · Nov 19, 2013

Supahos :

Scratch that last, it didn't crash the power cord came out. Memtest found no errors and passed 9 times. This morning i removed my video card drivers (AMD RADEON 6950 2gb). I was running version 13.9, I re installed the beta 13.11 drivers and i have not crashed as of yet. Could this be a fix?

Supahos · Nov 19, 2013

yes it always can be a fix, it might not be that you changed driver is may just be that the old one was corrupt. I wish they made a "clean install" button on all driver updates. I do like that about nvidia you can force its video drivers to uninstall, and then do a fresh install every time.

xFazzz · Nov 19, 2013

Supahos :

Thanks so much for your help, if anything happens can i PM you?

Supahos · Nov 19, 2013

Yes you can, I'm not active all the time so you might be better just posting here but if I see what you ask I'll try my best to answer it.

xFazzz · Nov 19, 2013

Supahos :

Great, the PC just crashed while playing BF4 and CSGO fine for over 4 hours, upon powering off and on. I get the 4 beep error code with the orange light again. Any ideas what I do now? Also, when the PC came back on my desktop icons were all in different places...

Supahos · Nov 19, 2013

are the 4 beeps all the same length? or was it like 3 shorts and a long? Have you looked up this code? it might be exactly what we needed to know to diagnose the issue.

xFazzz · Nov 19, 2013

Here is a video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3zQCEIxSpM

xFazzz · Nov 19, 2013

And yes, the 4 beeps is apparently a memory read/write error. However it only does the beep code on rare occasions, most times it just crashes and re-boots fine...

Also, memtest found no errors after 9 passes.

xFazzz · Nov 19, 2013

Here is another video of it crashing mid game and booting up fine. Sorry about the dodgy camera angle on this one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2-L01UuIi0

Need Help With PC Crashing. Possible Memory Failure, Or Software?

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