This problem has been resolved, thank you all so much, see my last post for details.

Sorry for the length but I wanted to be as thorough as possible.

Here is my problem; I built this pc with all the components below around May 6, 2008. I installed Windows Vista 64 onto it, did all the Windows updates, installed Vista Service Pack 1 and downloaded and installed the latest drivers for the motherboard and video cards. Since then, this PC has been primarily used by my wife to play Age of Conan. It seemed to have no problems, only the game crashed occasionally (crash to desktop) but the pc wouldn’t shutdown.

Now about a month later, I am experiencing the strangest behavior. The whole system would occasionally shutdown on my wife while in game. Immediately upon reboot I would go into the bios and check the health status to see if the cpu was really hot or something. It would be running around the high 60’s to low 70’s C. I researched online and it was difficult to find the optimal operating temp but I had read that basically beyond 75C was overheating. So I knew it was getting a bit hot and I felt maybe it was because the increasing temperature in our apartment from the weather. So I moved the pc into another room with a wall air conditioning unit and setup it up right next to it.
Unfortunately the problem just got worse and we started getting this error upon reboot:

“Warning system is now in safe mode. Please reset CPU or Memory frequency in CMOS setup”

I had never altered anything but the boot order in the bios and disabled its check for a floppy drive (which would cause the pc to stay at the start up until you pressed F1 to continue). Regardless, I went into the bios and loaded default settings. The pc would start up from there and my wife would continue playing for sometimes hours without a problem but this would still reoccur.

Once I had the time to deal with it, I searched Google using the error message and was brought to this topic:

http://www.bjorn3d.com/forum/showthread.php?t=23468

It’s a different model of mobo but similar problem. I followed the instructions and looked up the necessary timings and voltage for my memory (4-4-4-12, 2.1v) but this is what my settings were already at in the bios.

I researched some more and read to try updating the bios. I went to XFX website and downloaded the nForce System Tools version 6.0.1 and the XFX BIOS Update BIN file version P07 for my mobo. Using the nForce program I updated my bios. Now I no longer get that error at boot up (or at least haven’t received it yet) but the pc still shuts down and more and more frequently now.

I considered it was a heating issue again because I found another article that I can’t find the link for again that had the same problem which was caused by his heat sink fan not being completely on. This seemed like the likely problem because this was my first build and I wasn’t 100% sure if I used too much thermal paste or not. Also, the heat sink fan that came with my processor is extremely frustrating to install so I had seated it, removed it and re-seated it several times. I know now, this is a bad thing to do because of possible air bubbles. So, considering that my pc has been running for about 1 month with a HSF that has too much paste and was reseated, I assumed this was the problem.

I took off the fan, used Q-tips and 91% rubbing alcohol to remove the paste from the HSF and CPU. I made sure I didn’t touch them with my finger tips and then I applied a very thin layer of paste (Arctic Silver 5) to just the back of the HSF (which is round) and then seated it onto the CPU, it took me awhile to get all the connectors in properly but I didn’t remove the HSF during the process.

I then started the computer up and still have the same problem. From there I installed SpeedFan to monitor my CPU temperatures. At first, the temperatures were in the low to mid 40’s C. Then it crashed and I started it again and it jumped to the mid 80’s C and slowly came down to the 60’s C. Then after letting it sit all night, I got up today, started the pc and the temperature was in the mid 70’s C and slowly came down over a few minutes and then stayed around 56 C until it crashed.
I have tried just using two of my memory sticks, I have taken out one of the two video cards (while only two of the four memory sticks were in) to see if it was a power issue. There is no onboard video so that was the most I could remove, that I can think of to test the PSU. I tried a different monitor. It crashes in game and out of game. There have been no hardware changes since I built it a month ago. The only recent changes software wise was a Windows update with some security updates and Age of Conan patch but I don’t see how they could be related.

Considering nothing has really changed on this PC for this problem to start occurring leads me to believe some component has become faulty. The problem is I don’t know which. I would believe it if it was the CPU because of my short comings with its installation but I want to be as sure as possible before I take the next step (spending money to have it looked at or try an RMA). I’ve also noticed many people with issues with the XFX boards but I don’t know how to tell if that’s it. Any information you can give me would be greatly appreciated. If you need any further information from me, please let me know. Thank you so much for your time because I know this wasn’t a quick read and you didn’t have to read it!

Jacob

Specs:

Corsair Dual Channel TWINX 2048MB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz E.P.P. Memory (2 x 1024) (Total 4 gigs)

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 500GB Hard Drive - 7200, 16MB, Serial ATA-300, OEM

Ultra X-Pro ULT40029 750-Watt Power Supply - ATX, Dual 80mm Fans, SATA-Ready, SLI-Ready, Active PFC, Black

XFX nForce 680i LT SLI Motherboard, NVIDIA, Socket 775, ATX, Audio, PCI Express, SLI Ready, Gigabit LAN, S/PDIF, USB 2.0 & Firewire, Serial ATA, RAID

CoolerMaster Cosmos 1000 ATX Full-Tower Case

EVGA GeForce 8800 GT Video Card - 512MB DDR3, PCI Express 2.0, SLI Ready, (Dual Link) Dual DVI, HDTV, Video Card (two of these in a SLI)

Sony DRU190A 20X DVD Rewritable Drive - 20x DVD±R, 8 DVD+RW, 6x DVD-R, 8x DVD±R DL, ATAPI/EIDE, Black

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Processor BX80570E8400 - 3.0GHz, 6MB Cache, 1333MHz FSB, Wolfdale, Dual-Core, Retail, Socket 775, Processor with Fan

Check to See if your Graphics Card is over heating, NVIDIA and ATI have a tempature monitor, you can run this program while playing your game, if you have 2 screens, you will be able to monitor this while playing, if you only have 1 screen, you can minimize the screen during game.

Also sounds like you have a Intel processor with this stupid twist pins, I think one of them is not inserted properly and making some area of the CPU surface not making direct contact to the thermal paste and heatsink.

oops, just read your components list.

The high temperatures would cause cpu throttling, and eventually shutdown.

I suspect that you need to re-do your heat sink installation. Go to the arctic silver web site for a visual step by step description of their method. You don't want too much material, which is a common mistake. With push pins, you need to mount the heat sink to the motherboard while the motherboard is out of the case. You need to do this to verify that all the pins are through and locked.

A second possibility is that you PSU is marginal. It is not very high quality on this list of psu's http://www.xtremesystems.org/forum [...] p?t=108088

XFX nForce 680i LT SLI Motherboard..

I've heard alot of issues are with that board.
Your motherboard could be your problem...

I personally have a really bad attitude toward EPP RAM - and when combined with a 680i chipset I wonder if it's voodoo.

I would suggest you disable EPP and manually set your timings and RAM voltage to the Corsair spec you listed.

Let us know how it goes ...

Considering what some of you have mentioned here and others mentioned elsewhere (I used multiple forums), I was convinced it's got to be an issue with the heatsink fan and it's placement.

I went out and purchased a better quality HSF and had the tech demonstrate how to seat it. One thing that I didn't understand, was that you are supposed to "engage" the plastic screw things before you push them through so they lock in and stay. I thought you had to push them through and then engage them.

I took the mobo out to do all this, thank you for pointing that out, I never even considered it.

I now have the new HSF properly installed and the cpu temp has been stable at 33 C and my wife has been playing Age of Conan for about an hour now with no problems. Thank you all so much for your time and advice, it was greatly appreciated!

I'll post again if the problem resurfaces, otherwise this is resolved