Computer Rig Troubleshooting

Ok so, I've completed building my computer and my friends computer and was wondering if I could get help on 2 problems that have risen.

Here are the specs for both:


COMP A
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Intel 6600 2.4Gh Quad Core
Gigabyte EP45-Ds3R
XFX 8800 GTS Alpha Dog
2x2gb 6400 DDR2 Mushkin Ram
Seasonic 650W powersupply
Scythe Mugen CPU Cooler
Antec P182
LG Sata Dvd Writer
Seagate 500Gb SataII 32mb cache
Windows XP Home 32bit



COMP B
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Intel 6600 2.4Gh Quad Core
EVGA 780i Tri Sli
XFX 8800 GTS Alpha Dog
2x2gb 6400 DDR2 Mushkin Ram
OCZ 650W powersupply
Antec 900
LG Sata Dvd Writer
Seagate 500Gb SataII 32mb cache
Windows XP Home 32bit



Ok so both computers posted fine and ran well the first time loaded up. However an issue has popped up with both of them. Lets start with CompA, my computer.

The problem with this one is simple, freezing, randomly too. It first froze when I was trying to format the drive, it got stuck on 0% for about 20 minutes. I reset it and tried again. Got all the way past xp installation and all driver installations without any trouble. Played COD4 for about an hour or two the first night, then shut it down for the night. The next day when I started it up it froze at the black screen right prior to xp logging in. Reset it, and it froze again, this time at the gigabyte loading screen.Third time I got all the way into windows, and then 5 min later it froze. As I was building my friends computer I continously checked it, it definetly is random, although freezing that the gigabyte screen seems to happen at least once per load up. It even froze once when the screen went to sleep. To say the least I am not happy with this problem lol. I am thinking that the bios needs to be updated, seems far to random to be a hardware issue right?



On to computer two now, my friends computer. I told my friend that there were issues with the 780i chipset from the get go, and he still was pretty adament on getting SLI, and now it looks like I am paying the price for it. I haven't done much research on this yet, but I know there is information out there on it as it seems to be a pretty common issue, but I thought I might as well include it. I am getting the nvgts.sys BSOD message. Usually when I load up or shutdown the computer. From what I have read I see that it is an issue with Raid setup and optical drives. Well theres no raid, but this comp is running both it's hard drive and dvd burner in SATA. Does anyone know if there is a clear solution to this problem yet, or another work around to not having it BSOD. I did not have time to try and uninstall any drivers last night, mostly because it kept BSOD on me when i tried to get into windows. So I will have to try that later today. If the work around is getting rid of the optical drives, do I only have to switch the burner to IDE, or the harddrive as well?


Oh one more thing, my friends comp is only showing 2.75Gb of ram, where as mine is showing like 3.75 ( what ever max for 32 bit is ). I am assuming this is a hardware problem. Is it possible the ram is just installed wrong or could one stick be defective?

Anyways, thanks for any help.

- Paul

test your memory

memtest86

i updated the bios for my comp and that seemed to fix my issues. As for the other comp there is a beta fix out for it that is aparently based off 790i's drivers for Sata devices.
So I tried that and it seemed to fix the problem for now atleast. My friend and I were trying to fix his ram still though which is only showing 2.25gb instead of the max for 32 bit operating system. At first I thought it was defective but then found something that mentioned how to fix this issue. Unfortunatly I didn't bookmark the page. All I remember is that the suggested fix had something to do with chaning something in the bios.

I will get him to run mem test on his computer today, and continue to look for the fix for this. If anyone knows how to fix it off hand thatd be great.

aight ill try that out tonight, thanks for all the help guys.

On an unrelated matter, I am thinking of overclocking my Q6600 tonight, and it would be the first time I have overclocked a processor. Im at 2.4 Ghz atm, my question is, is it really worth it to try and overclock to like around 3.0.

I already bought a replacement for my stock cpu fan, but i dont ever really plan on going water cooling. So will the difference in speed be that noticeable?

hmm ya I think I will, I got it to around 2.7 yesterday just by fooling around for a few minutes with it. For now though I think im going to wait until I get it fully stable. Because it doesn't seem to be working the way it should yet. I tried to do the torture test in prime 95 and it ran for 1 min then stopped saying there were hardware issues. So something in my comp def isn't working right yet. I'm thinking it could be my ram. When i use gigabytes easytune6, which seems to be there version of CPU ID, and I goto the memory tab, the application crashes. What could this be an indication of?

Stability and smoothness of an operating system was my top concern when I decided to go with this system and I kind of wish I hadn't gone with a new chipset, there doesn't seem to be much support for it. I've also had one or two random freezes, although not as many as before I updated the bios.

Have any tips for making a system more stable and tracking down problems?