Help! Shiny new 1700+system is unstable

System:

Cheap 300W ps macron
fic ad 11 mb
amd 1700+
wd 40g 7200 hd
diamond 550 viper
Phillips 8x burner
dell 12x dvd
powerup 128MB ddr
xp upgrade

Sorry i've got to do this in steps cause it reboots all the time.

Ok sometimes it will run for hours if you leave it alone. Like it ran long enough to install 98 and xp no problem. It also ran all night crunching a movie to divx, no problem.

Other stuff will make it reboot everytime. WCPUID causes a reboot every time. It has rebboted during surfing, exploring and once even during a boot before I could get a password in. It just killed IE completely without a trace but the system kept running Sometimes it will blue screen but you hit anykey and everything looks fine and it doesn't stop what it was doing.

I've run cpu and memory stress tests and sometime they run fine and other times the system will reboot after a few minutes. It almost never locks up in the usual way where you loose functionality. It either reboots, flashes a blue screen and keeps working fine, or kill the app you are in (IE, explorer, ect) but the system stays up.

Give me fuel, give me fire, give me that which I desire.<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by lakedude on 05/10/02 06:45 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

I don't like your PSU, there is a great chance that your PSU is the problem.
But also check if your RAM timings are normal.

With a hovering case crashing takes a whole new meaning... .

It really doesnt sound too power supply or ram related since the installs went off with out a hitch. I have had to underclock a buddies axp once cause it would run stable try that. Or a new heatsink fan combo.

But heres my advice lose the vid card I used to have a S3 card and their drivers were [-peep-] for 98 let alone XP.

-Jeremy

<font color=blue>Just some advice from your friendly neighborhood blue man </font color=blue>

Ok here goes:

Got fed up cause the system would not stay stable long enough to even post a darn help thread. The only thing I could do that was free was kill xp and go back to 98se. I loaded 98se, via mobo drivers w sound, video drivers (it is a tnt card BTW), temp, voltage and fan monitor software, and then tried to install the nic and at that point all I got was a black screen. The cards do not seat well because of the crappy case design so I nixed the nic. I'm running 98se and no nic and it is pretty stable but not perfect. It still has problems every hour or two sometimes but has been crunching a mpeg for hours now with no problem. It seems to have the most trouble when opening a new app or closing an old one. It doesn't reboot anymore. Now when it locks up it freezes more like I'm used to. I don't know if XP or that nic card was the problem but it is running good enough for now. Thanks everybody.

BTW the only weird thing the temp/fan/voltage shows is that the 5v is a little low at around 4.8v. None of the monitors ever have anything to report when a failure occurs.

Give me fuel, give me fire, give me that which I desire.

looks like u got the cure of the crap components my friend *i pity you*


Today on Toms: Trisexual hamsters, anal applications of peanut butter and Marrige councilling!

Dude I'm pretty sure that it is not the video card cause it is a very old and well tested card. It came out of a system that was 100% reliable. Is there a compatability issue? I guess it wouldn't kill me to swap cards with another system. I've got a rage 2c that I could put in.

Update:

The system is very strange. I have run several mpeg conversions using Fair Use with no problems what so ever. Fair Use is known to be hard on a system and sometimes and oc'ed system will work fine on everything except Fair Use. On my system it works perfect. Fair Use will run huge files at 100% cpu load for 8 to 12 hours no problem.

When surfing sometimes I'll get an invalad page, internal error, or illegal operation error. When you click ok on the error ALL copies of IE go away. Usually the system stays up. Sometimes if you are in the middle of a download you can move the error box to one side and the download will complete fine. Since I switched to 98se/no nic it has only rebooted for no reason one time. It was popping off every few minutes in xp/nic. Sometimes it will pop up an error offline when using explorer to view pics. Once something is running it seems fine until something new happens. A new instance of explorer or ie will sometimes cause the problem. I almost alway happens when you are clicking on something. Click=error. Very strange.

Give me fuel, give me fire, give me that which I desire.

First check for any IRQ problems, also check if your DMA in enabled (if not that may point towards IRQ problems).
Which soundcard are you using?

With a hovering case crashing takes a whole new meaning... .

From experience:

1) FIC is crapola.

2) Random reboots and random install errors (especially Win2K failing to copy some file) are usually memory errors.

3) Lockups are usually heat problems or power supply problems. Power supply problems often also cause the system to take a few seconds to start POSTing.

I'd first try running memtest86. If it fails memtest86, go get yourself some different memory, preferably Crucial or Corsair.

If memtest86 passes, I'd see about logging voltage levels over time and see if they remain steady. If they're low (i.e. 5V is below 4.85) or they deviate beyond 0.05V, your power supply's not cutting it.

<pre>We now <b>return</b>(<font color=blue>-1</font color=blue> ) to an irregular program scheduler.</pre><p>

UPDATE

ARRRGGGGGG!!!!! This thing is gonna get me drinkin heavy again.

OK last night I was on line to tell you that with no changes since last time that the system has been runing perfect. I did another movie and even burned cd-r and everything was fine.........until I tried to post the good news last night and poof. Black screen with green bars every quarter inch or so at the top. Now I'm startin to think it is the vid card because the only other time I have ever seen a screen like that before was when I was trying to figure out which vid-card Linux needed to think my system had. Linux did not like the setting for the correct card and gave me a very similar looking screen. I had to play with Linux and use standard vga drivers to get the system to work.

Give me fuel, give me fire, give me that which I desire.

Kell,

The power supply would have [-peep-] out in the install what makes you think it would go now? I have had these cards in my shop and I used to be a hardcore S3 man so I had one in my box. S3 stopped makeing drivers when talks of the merger with VIA started. I saw the same symptoms time and time again on my customers and my own system. But hey you never know that power supply might be going but I doubt it since its a rule of thumb with power supplies, they usually die early if they die at all.

-Jeremy

<font color=blue>Just some advice from your friendly neighborhood blue man </font color=blue>

You still say that the videocard is the problem?

Weird because it is a good card... based on the Nvidia Nrivia TNT... Diamond was a good brand when those cards came out.

With a hovering case crashing takes a whole new meaning... .

are those values under full load?
if so... well done!

Whats better, <font color=blue>Intel</font color=blue> or <font color=green>AMD?</font color=green>

"are those values under full load?" Yep 100% cpu load.

I don't trust the numbers. The same software also measures fan speed and I tested it by jabbing a pen into the fan to stop it and the rpms shown by the software did not change.

BTW it ran perfect again last night but the night before it was really bad (locking up rebooting)like it was with xp on it. Last night I was on line clicking many things having multiple copies of IE open and typing and it worked perfect for hours. How am I gonna know if it is fixed if it will work fine for days??

Give me fuel, give me fire, give me that which I desire.<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by lakedude on 05/24/02 04:51 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

Ok I got it figured out. I was thinking that the PS fan was the chassis fan. There is a plug where you could put an extra chassis fan but it is used for the north bridge fan. The PS fan is not monitored. Stopping the cpu fan shows up as a stoppage under the cpu fan monitor (of course) and stopping the north bridge fan shows up under the chassis fan monitor. I guess the software works after all.

Give me fuel, give me fire, give me that which I desire.

More updates:

I just finished 2 movies back to back that were running at 100% cpu load for 20 hours with no problems until I got online and started posting. I only have problems when clicking or typing. Very strange. Since I started typing it has killed IE once and blacked out requiring a reboot once.

Give me fuel, give me fire, give me that which I desire.

Hey Lakedude,
I had this exact same error when the system would restart for no reason, or freeze and leave a black screen with little green lines. It also happened with a cheap 300Watt power supply. The weird thing was it would do it at odd times, sometimes I'd just leave my system on and walk away from it and come back to a black screen. other times it would occur when playing games. It was really random. I replaced the PSU with a high quality 350W Antec PSU and never had another problem. Also for the power requirements of your system you really should use atleast a 350W PSU.

Ok com1, com2, and lpt are all red x'ed. Disabled in hardware profile. No problem so far but it is too soon to tell. Got fingers crossed. Burning a CD and posting and downloading at the same time right now.

Give me fuel, give me fire, give me that which I desire.

UPDATE

Its dead.

I was doing a conversion again last night and woke up to "unable to write to drive D". The drive is partitioned and upon reboot both partitions are gone. Bios does not even pick up a drive at all. Not sure if this is the same problem as before or a new one. Gonna go downstairs and see if I can't get it running again.

Give me fuel, give me fire, give me that which I desire.

While we're on the subject of HD cables, I'll point out that the 80-conductor IDE cables need to be treated with care. They don't like being folded, stacked, creased, or crumpled; such treatment will affect performance and could possibly also affect stability.

Delicate crap like that is partly why I tend to be an all-SCSI man.

<pre>We now <b>return</b>(<font color=blue>-1</font color=blue> ) to an irregular program scheduler.</pre><p>

It shouldn't bother your P75 even if one came half-way off.




<font color=green><b>Inside every older person is a younger person wondering what the hell happened!

You really think I'm that mad that I use 80-conductor cables with my P75?

<b>P75 @ 90 Mhz</b>... because I need the speed.

my p-166 came with a LBA mode seagate 2gig.

<font color=green>Hamsters</font color=green> <font color=red>don't</font color=red> <font color=green>play</font color=green> <font color=red>Soccer.</font color=red>

I don't think you are mad at all. Everyone I know has 36 fans in their case.



<font color=green><b>Inside every older person is a younger person wondering what the hell happened!

Ok. You win. You have the windiest family I have ever heard of.




<b><font color=blue>The shortest distance between two points is under construction.

Sure. Great idea.
<pre>I would hate to pay for your power bill.</pre><p>
<b><font color=blue>The shortest distance between two points is under construction.