Tried everything, it´s driving me crazy!

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covtops

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Apr 9, 2010
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Hey guys I have the following build that I made last year.

Phenom II X3 720 @ 3.4 with 1.42 vcore
2 x 2GB of OCZ Gold Edition DDR2 Ram @ 1066 in dual channel
Geforce GTX 275 by BFG
and an ASUS M4A78 Pro Mobo

The problem is my computer would sometimes refuse to turn on or have random blackouts when its doing something intense like playing a game. I say random because sometime i could game for days, or sometimes it would happen like 2 or 3 times a day. It shouldnt be Overheating resets because I´ve got a blue orb on the cpu and my antec case has 4 fans. It seems like it tries to reset but it freezes. if i try to turn it on again right after it locks up,everything lights up but i dont hear the cpu fan run at full speed.i have to switch off the Power Supply and wait a while till it can turn on again.

I tried Cleaning my case (thinking dust was shorting the board), checked the standoffs to see if they were ok. changed my ram from 1066 to 800, lowered my overclock. nothing seems to work.

I suspect that its a problem with my motherboard. but I don´t want to replace it until im absoloutely sure.

what do you guys think?
 
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shortstuff_mt

shortstuff_mt

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Apr 1, 2008
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I would lean more towards a RAM problem. I've seen this problem with countless systems with OCZ RAM. Have you tried each stick of RAM by itself? Do you have the RAM speed, timings, and voltage manually set in the BIOS? Have you performed an overnight Memtest86+ test to check for RAM errors? Those are the first things I'd do. I wouldn't be surprised at all if your OCZ Gold RAM has died. DDR2 OCZ RAM run at very high voltages so failures aren't uncommon.
 
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covtops

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Thanks, i´ll try memtest when i get home.

Just in case one of my sticks is busted what would be my dual channel options? I don´t want more than 4 gigs of ram, and they have to be the exact same in order to run in dual channel. so is there any difference between a set of ram (1 x 2) running dual channel on the yellow rails with a single 2GB on a black Rail in single channel, and 2 sticks of 2GB in single channel?

 
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shortstuff_mt

shortstuff_mt

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covtops

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I doubt it, I´m using an OCZ StealthXstream it should be enough....


I just finished a couple of passes in memtest and no errors :??:

I was gonna try hardsetting my ram info in the BIOS but my ram is rated 1.8v and the minimum DRAM Voltage value my board would let me set apart from AUTO is 1.9


what should I do?
 
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neorecon19

neorecon19

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My reasoning behind the power supply is that it possible the amount of energy consumed by you computer increases while playing games, which could explain the loss of power. How may watts is the power supply?
 
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shortstuff_mt

shortstuff_mt

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Apr 1, 2008
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Your RAM is NOT rated at 1.8v if it's OCZ Gold DDR2 1066 RAM. What is the exact model number? I'm guessing this is your RAM.

OCZ DDR2 PC2-8500 Gold Edition 4GB Dual Channel

You'll notice that the RAM linked to is rated at 2.1v and is covered by OCZ's EVP (Extended Voltage Protection) to 2.15v. That means that OCZ will honor the warranty if you run the RAM at up to 2.15v. There are no OCZ DDR2 1066 Gold kits that run at 1.8v. Double check the sticker on your RAM if you don't want to take my word for it.

That RAM also has very loose 5-6-6-18 timings. You should manually set the speed, timings, and the voltage to the correct values and hope for the best. All bets are off with OCZ RAM, though.
 
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covtops

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WOW! that´s the exact same RAM I have and you´re absoloutely right!!!

I though it was rated 1.8v because thats what Everest was telling me. I heard that ASUS boards are notorious for underclocking ram voltages so that might explain it...

anyway i´m gonna hardset everything now and do some extensive "testing"

thanks a lot! :D


 
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covtops

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Damn.... just when I thought that all was good... the problems started happening again! But at least I know how to provoke the crashes now...... It pretty much always happens when I leap from a tall building and dive into the water where it makes a huge splash in Assassins Creed 2. Does it still sound like a RAM issue?

This is what I tried:

Hard setting my Ram info in the BIOS with Speed = 1067Mhz, Dram Voltage = 2.17 and the Timings with Cas = 5, Trcd = 6, Trp = 6,Tras = 18, Trc = 24

Seemed to run stable but then encountered a crash.

I then disabled all spread spectrums and upped the CPU/NB Voltage to 1.4 and NB Voltage to 1.2 thinking my cpu overclock somehow got unstable.

Same as above

Still thinking it had to do with the overclock I loaded the bios defaults but left Dram Voltage at 2.17

Was working pretty good, got through a couple of plunges in the water but then Crash....

Ughhh... this is driving me insane...

I also wanted to explain the nature of the crashes in more detail.

When my pc crashes it doesn´t shut off, there´s no video signal, cpu fan slows down but all the fans and lights stay on, it seems like its freezing while trying to reset itself. When this happens I´m able to turn it off by holding the power button. After waiting 1-3 minutes it boots and everything seems to works as it "should". If i try to turn it on immediately after it crashes it doesn´t boot. Everything lights up and cpu fan doesn´t run at full speed like before. The difference is I would have to switch off the power supply to turn it off because holding the power button won´t work. That´s why I think its a mobo problem.

hopefully that should give some insight,

I´m at my wits end.....
 
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