System Crashing don't know why

[TorQueMoD]

Hey all.

So my system has been rebooting randomly and I can't for the life of me figure out what's causing the problem. I just recently bought a brand new Q6850 3.0 ghz Quad Core cpu from Intel. I thought it might be overheating at first so I bought a new heat sink and fan which dropped the core temps down to 45C under full load but the system is still rebooting.

Here are my specs:

Windows XP Pro X64 edition
Quad Core 3.0 Q6850
EVGA 680i motherboard
4x 1GB OCZ Platinum DDR2 PC2 -6400 ram
Nvidia GTX 260 Superclocked Videocard (896MB)
Soundblaster Audigy SE
1 Samsung DVDR optical drive
3 7200 RMP HDs (500GB, 500GB, 250GB)
Silverstone Stider 650 Watt PSU

The weirdest thing is that the rebooting only happens when playing games (all games) which leads me to think it might be an issue with insufficent power, but according to two PSU calculators I've used, they both say my system shouldn't be using more than 450 watts under full load.

Any ideas on what might be causing the problems?

 

[Guest]

Have you disabled the automatic restart option when windows BSOD? You will probably find it is Blue Screening.

Also...
1. Judging by your system spec your PSU is not powerful enough.
2. Have you overclocked your rig? There are known stability problems with 4 x 1GB DIMMS vs 2 x 2GB DIMMS. The issue here is 4 DIMMS vs 2 DIMMS.

If you do make any changes, get yourself a new PSU ;-)


K

 

[Zorg]

That mobo has a lot of issues, you may want to pick up a cheap P45.

nVidia, fix the 680i chipset! Petition

 

[TorQueMoD]

I've had the mobo for nearly 2 years and its run flawlessly so I doubt its the problem. I don't think the system is BSODing, but maybe... I'll disable the auto restart and see. I think I forgot to do that after I re-installed windows. Also, I pulled 2 sticks of ram, my sound card (went back to on board) and unplugged one HD and the system still reset. I then unplugged the optical drive as well and I did manage to play the Left 4 Dead demo for about an hour without it crashing, though I have managed a max of about 3 hours in Fallout 3 before without crashing so I'm still unsure if that was coincidence or not. I'm going to run a game for as long as I can tomorrow without the optical drive plugged in but if it reboots again, then I'm going to start thinking its a software issuse since with only my CPU, videocard and two HDs plugged in, 600W is definitely enough.

We shall see.

Forgot to mention that I ran an 18+ hour system diagnosis (boot from CD) on my hardware and everything passed, so now that you pointed out that I had auto restart turned on for BSOD, I'm almost positive that its a software issue. Which would be really nice. I'd rather not drop $130 on a new PSU only to find out it wasn't needed.

Thanks guys I'll keep you updated.

 

[roadrunner197069]

Well 680i and quad cores are known to have issues.

Also I would think that your power supply is a bit on the week side for your system.

 

[jitpublisher]

^ +1
Quads and 680i can = problems.
A lot of people suggest that your PSU should be capable of suppling double the watts your system pulls.

 

[kg4icg]

I had issues with my Quad Q6600 and an Asus P5N32E-SLI 680I board until I swapped it out With a Gigabyte GA-EP45-D3SL board P45 chipset on Vista Ultimate 64 bit overclocked at 3.2 ghz with ddr2 800 running in sync at 1:1 with a fsb of 1600 stable at 3 months since I swapped it out. And I haven't looked back yet.

 

[Zorg]

+1 +1 +1

I would be swapping the mobo before I swapped the PSU.

eXtreme Power Supply Calculator Lite v2.5 shows a recommended PSU size of ~513W with all your components and a CPU VID of 1.3V (high), 100% CPU Usage and 100% system load.

I don't think it's the PSU, I think it's the flaky mobo.

Don't believe us, Google it yourself.

 

[TorQueMoD]

I believe you that the motherboard might have issues with a Quad core, but I flashed the bios when I installed the CPU and according to EVVGA's site, it should work fine with my CPU.

Also, I just went out today from 4:30pm until 1:30am. Before I left I had the 2 sticks of ram removed, my Sound Card removed, one HD unplugged and also unplugged my optical drive then set UT 3 with 12 bots to run for the duration I was gone and amazingly the game was still running when I got home. So that's a record 9 hours of gaming without a crash which would again lead me to believe that maybe it IS actually the power. If there's something wrong with my mobo not working I'd be RMAing the bastard instead of buying a new one and since I want a high quality board, I'd probably want to buy an MSI p4 Platinum which is about $230 CAD whereas the PSU is only $130.

I'm still confused however because like Zorg said I shouldn't need that much power. My CPU and videocard would be the biggest hogs since they're both drawing about 190W each wheras all the other components combines wouldn't add up to 200 extra wats meaning at max I would need 580 watts and I'm running with 600.

I think I'll just have to test the system some more. I'll try running CS:S with a bunch of bots for a while tomorrow while I'm out an see what the results are.

Oddly enough this is the first time I've ever prayed for a BSOD so I could at least see what the problem is and hopefully it will be software related.

Thanks for all the help and suggestions guys. I'll let you know how things pan out.

 

[Zorg]

Good luck with it.

If you get a new PSU and it's not fixed, then you know what to do.

 

[TorQueMoD]

Hmm... Well I think I'm going to send EVGA an e-mail because I pulled 2 sticks of Ram, my optical drive and a HD and my system ran UT3 for 9 hours and CS:S for 6, making me think its the PSU, but then I tried playing left 4 dead and its still rebooting after about an hour. I'm utterly confused.

 

[jdbecks]

I'm having a similar problem, my game was just crashing to desktop with no error messages then it got progressivly worse, and vista was crashing, I've got a XFX 750I SLI mobo, and then search over the internet and found alot of the mobos suffer from memory leakage, I was getting BSOD's saying memory leakage, out of vitural memory, 0000XFFFF, 0000000064 etc etc

my new mobo comes tomorrow

 

[TorQueMoD]

Well I thought the issue might be a software problem so I nuked all my HDs and re-installed windows just to be safe and I was playing Left 4 Dead for about 3 hours before I experienced my first reboot. Unfortunately I had paused the game and left the room so I didn't see it restart, but when I came back, windows had restarted and Steam wasn't loaded (I set it not to load with windows) so I knew it had restarted.

So I'm going to send EVGA an e-mail today and see if they know about any issues. Otherwise I'll pick up a new PSU when I get paid on Friday.

 

[TorQueMoD]

So I got my first e-mail back from EVGA and they said it definitely sounds like a hardware issue. They asked what my FSB speed was and what the speed of my memory was, if it can run linked and if it passed memory tests.

My reply to them was that the CPU has a FSB speed of 1333Mhz, the memory is PC2 6400 800Mhz at 1.9 volts and I'm not sure if it can be linked. Honestly I don't know what that means. http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/memory/ocz_ddr2_pc2_6400_platinum_revision_2_dual_channel

Any ideas on what they might be thinking with the Ram and CPU being incompatible?

Oh, and YES the ram passed memory tests.

 

[Zorg]

Yeah, they are probably thinking:

"Gee this guy doesn't know that the 680i is an unstable piece of crap."

"I wonder how he doesn't know, it's all over the web even on our own forum."

"Quick make up some kind of excuse about the RAM not being compatible with the CPU and maybe he will go for it."

Just get a P45 and be done with it.

 

[TorQueMoD]

My god! I think I may have finally solved the problem. I had the unfortunate chance that the last BIOS update I downloaded at the end of August for my motherboard before installing my CPU was actually from the 22nd of January. I recently revisited the EVGA driver page and found a newer bios released on September 15, a mere two weeks after I bought my CPU. Coupled with the latest motherboard drivers, it seems that the restarts may have finally stopped! I haven't yet had a chance to fully test the latest drivers since it was 2am when I found them, but so far Ive managed to play about 2.5 hours of Left 4 Dead without rebooting (it was averaging 1 hour lately). The ultimate test will be when I play fallout 3 tomorrow!

I'll keep you all posted but for anyone else having similar problems, make sure you get the latest BIOS update and motherboard drivers for your system installed!

 

[bwhitmax]

My god! I think I may have finally solved the problem. I had the unfortunate chance that the last BIOS update I downloaded at the end of August for my motherboard before installing my CPU was actually from the 22nd of January. I recently revisited the EVGA driver page and found a newer bios released on September 15, a mere two weeks after I bought my CPU. Coupled with the latest motherboard drivers, it seems that the restarts may have finally stopped! I haven't yet had a chance to fully test the latest drivers since it was 2am when I found them, but so far Ive managed to play about 2.5 hours of Left 4 Dead without rebooting (it was averaging 1 hour lately). The ultimate test will be when I play fallout 3 tomorrow!

I'll keep you all posted but for anyone else having similar problems, make sure you get the latest BIOS update and motherboard drivers for your system installed!

Hello TorQueMoD:
How is your system running. I have similar problems with my BFG 608i MB + q6850. I'm flashing bios tonight, once I shoehorn a floppy into the stytem.
bwhitmax@yahoo.com