BSOD (black screen of death!)

kingnothing83

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I bought a msi p965 motherboard but it died on me twice, I also got a replacement psu because that was found to be faulty (which maybe killed the msi motherboard both times). Anyway I started again with a new psu and the asus p5n-e.

Installed the mobo with new psu and everything seemed fine. Except about 1 week after the install i was watching a movie and the screen went black, sound was still playing but i had to restart, windows said id had a serious error. This problem seems to happen randomly even when just browsing the internet. It even happened when I was reinstalling windows.

I have bios 0401 installed but i still seem to have the problem. All the settings on the BIOS are on default except for primary graphics adapter which i have set as PCI-E (it was set to PCI). I just bought cheap memory so dont know what settings I should have.

Any idea whats causing it? Could the old psu that failed have damaged the graphics card, so is this a graphics card problem? Could it be a CPU, RAM or motherboard problem? Or even the psu again? Someone suggested overheating but I think thats unlikely because nothing is overclocked and the problem sometimes happens after the PC has been on 5 mins and sometimes 24 hours.

If anyone could suggest any BIOS settings which i should change, or thinks they know what the problem is I would be very grateful. I bought this pc 3 months ago and it still doesnt work so im very upset :(

I tried memtest and it reports no errors

Thank you all


Asus P5N-E
Core 2 Duo E6400
Antec Neo 500W PSU
Antec solo quiet case
2x DDR2 800Mhz RAM
PX7900 256MB Video Card
Seagate 7200 SATA Hard Disk
IDE DVD rewriter
Soundblaster XFi
 

middeneast

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I had a similar - ish problem before. Not quite to the extend you had it, but similar.
I used to have a 7800GT, and with me it also went black a couple of times, until a time came where I would start up my computer and the whole time my screen stayed black; and it was my 7800GT which had died.

R.I.P. 7800GT
 

kingnothing83

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i think thats probably most likely, although ive never had a video card die on me before. Wish i could just plug my old AGP card in to test it
 

kingnothing83

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hey thanks for the tip. Since i posted I actually did run memtest for a good while, it reported no errors. I did just put the new mb in and not install a fresh XP. But since then i bought a second hard disk (needed one anyway) and although i havent had the problems yet i think its just a matter of time (although time will tell). I think the fact that the monitor went off during the install of win xp on the new disk means it has to be a hardware problem, do you agree?
 

randomizer

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It is likely yes. It does sound alot like the card since according to what I got out of your first post everything keeps going but the screen goes black. Btw does the monitor go into standby (orange/yellow light usually) or just goes black (green light still on)? This may help a bit if you can tell us. Check your connections at both ends of the monitor cable too and reseat the card, cleaning the connectors on the card and the PCIe slot of dust. This caused problems for my brother once, similar to yours but the screen was black from startup.

EDIT: 23 to go, counting down to the new millenium.
 

kingnothing83

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well, i got the new hard disk, put it in but then went out for a few beers. Came back and decided to install windows (at 3am). I booted from the xp cd and told it to format the disk. I was feeling a little sleepy so i shut my eyes for 5minutes and when i woke up 6 hours later with a sore head the monitor was doing its thing again. So i guess thats no help is it :) Oh if anyone is wondering its not the monitor as it works fine with my other (old but reliable!!) pc
 

kingnothing83

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it goes into standby (a blue flashing light on my monitor). First time it happened i expected to wiggle the mouse or press a key and it would come back. The cables are in securely i checked that, i also changed the cable. Havent tried reseating it yet though but will give that a try when i get in from work this afternoon.

Does the stand by thing give you an idea?
 

randomizer

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Blue LEDs, whats this world coming to? 8) Well it tells me that the monitor has lost signal for some reason, possibly due to a faulty card, bad connection (which apparently isnt the case), dust in the connections, power saving feature (which since you cant just move your mouse makes it seem unlikely) etc. If you have a PCI card lying around then try connecting to that and if nothing goes wrong then its the card or the connections.
 

kingnothing83

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Can you use an old pci graphics card like a tnt2 just in the standard pci slots? I might have one of them lying around somewhere. Also, my mb is sli it sounds like a long shot and the mb tells me to put the card in the slot its in now, but is it worth trying the card in the other slot?
 

kingnothing83

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hmm, maybe i'll try swapping the slots then. The other slot only supports 8x PCI-E though. This saga has gone on for over 3 months now, so im not sure I can RMA the card, I hope so, will have to check the website
 

kingnothing83

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yeah its 16x normally and 8x in SLI. The second slot is noticibly smaller than the first one (dunno why that is, im guessing it has something to do with the 8x and 16x thing!)
 

kingnothing83

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ok, it was seated ok, no dust. Another thing i noticed is that the drives are still been accessed when the screen dies, and i can open and close the cd draw as normal, is that significant? Think ill probs RMA the graphics card today tho
 

kingnothing83

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Constant accessing for no reason, or just coz you're doing something?

Constant accessing, but not really constant more like occasonal accessing as if i was randomly opening a file every minute or so.

And no i dont have a floppy drive why would that be important?

Taking the pc to my friends house, think he's going to try it with his graphics card but the fact that it sometimes works for several hours without crashing makes the problem tough to diagnose
 

chrispyski

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Yeah it definitely sounds like a video card issue with the monitor going into standby. I had the same problem with a 6800GT whenever I played Oblivion cause the thing would get too hot after a couple minutes, and it would stop sending a signal to my monitor. An aftermarket Zalman solved my particular problem. Since it's doing it during mundane, non-intensive stuff, sounds like you might need a new card...Sorry man.
 

slashzapper

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Is the card getting enough space for heat to properly dissipate . What are the temp readings.

IS the cable properly plugged in on either end. Make sure to check for the stupidist things first.

make a list of things and then do problem solving 8) thats how i do it all the time .
 

kingnothing83

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yeah the card is no where near anything else hot, temp is around 35degree's which is fine and cable is in. Don't think its anything too stupid, i have heard of other asus boards not liking my psu though, could that be a possibility? Best case scenario is bad graphics card i think cause i dont want to fit my 4th board by time i get this working it'll be time to buy a quad core (or possibly a space ship at this rate)