Recently upgraded but having some issues.

TechSlave

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This is going to be a slightly long post so I can fill you in on what I've done thus far as best as possible to avoid suggestions that I've already applied. (I hope one of you can get through this and help =/ )

I've recently upgraded a lot of the components to my PC - So before I get into that, I'll mention the issue I'm having and the things I've done to try and quell it.

After I put in the upgrades that I bought into my computer it was doing great for the first couple weeks. But for the past couple days It's been restarting on me out of nowhere. I know that I'm the one inducing the action because it only happens when I game for 1+ hour(s), sometimes less.

The thing is, I'm running Speed-fan and both of my core temperatures never get over 45°c while gaming, so my motherboard isn't killing the computer because of overheating (At least not from my CPU). I've even checked my BIOS for the thermal monitoring and disabled it just in case, but am still having the same problem. My GPU runs a little hot sometimes - It's kind of iffy about itself. Most times I'll see it steady at 55°c - 60°c, but it rarely goes above 65°c (<--All while gaming - My GPU idles at 45°c). After I checked the voltage to all components of the computer through the BIOS (CPU, Ram, GPU, Fan speed etc.) and realized it was on manual, I set my mobo to handle it automatically as I don't over-clock at all. I talked to my dad about the potential issue. But even after him pointing out the manual voltage setting, and me fixing it, It's still happening.

The only difference between it not restarting before to now doing it frequently is the heat-sync fan. Prior to yesterday I was (shamefully) using a house fan to blow diagonally into my case and across the heat spreader on my heat-sync fan to keep it cool and it worked fine - I did experience one restart, but that's it. I recently got my heat-sync fan running smoothly and now I'm showing the temperatures I listed above, where as with the house fan all temps listed were 10°c-12°c higher.

I'm in desperate need of help and any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I would prefer to troubleshoot with someone who has the time through email, but if not - I'll check this frequently to see what I get.

As far as what I upgraded to, here's a short list of what I put in my system:

Ultra X3 1000w Power supply
Intel Core 2 Duo Wolfdale (3.0 ghz)
Gigabyte G31M-ES2L

Thanks in advance for any help.

~Ts
 
"heat-sync fan"
I'm not correcting you because I'm an ass, just taking a minute to educate. It's called a "heat sink" because it's a place (or item in this case) where you throw heat and it goes away. A sink is a place where water drains away. A heat sink is a place where heat drains away.

So, you aren't trying to synchronize anything :)

As to your issue -

Please list ALL your components.
Specific ram modules are key.

Download CPU-Z:
CPU-Z

Run it.
Take screenshots of each tab.
Edit these down then post them using some free online image hosting like
http://tinypic.com/
 
A good first step will be to go into your BIOS and adjust the DRAM voltage to 2.0V manually. This may resolve the issue, especially if it is currently set to the default 1.8V.

I still need

-Your GPU
-Your Hard drive
-Your operating system

 

TechSlave

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May 9, 2009
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Crap - My bad man

GPU - Nvidia GeForce 7950 GT

Hard Drive - Seagate Barracuda ST3500

OS - Windows XP Professional (32-bit)
 
Do you have any idea how massively overkill that PSU is for that system? :)

I hope it's not failing because the demand on the PSU is so light. I have heard of that happening, although it is very rare.

Anything under about 90C is probably fine for your GPU, but it may be having issues. The 7900 series was not terribly long-lived.

Since you have just upgraded, you should also, (AFTER ADJUSTING YOUR RAM VOLTAGE), see this checklist:

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/261145-31-build-post-checklist

There are items in there that are relevant.

 

TechSlave

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I went through the BIOS and set my DDR2 voltage up by .2 but CPU-Z - Is still readin a 1.8v signal on it.. Did I miss something?
 
The SPD tab does not tell you what your settings are, but what they are supposed to be. Your RAM is actually listed as 1.8V-2.0V... so while the 1.8V may be enough, we want to eliminate that as a possibility.

If you are still restarting after that change, then it's time to move along to something else.
 

daship

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When you upgraded did you do a fresh install of windows, or you just threw your old hard drive in and went at it like normal? If you didn't reformat, do so now.
 

TechSlave

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I have not tried one stick individually yet and the problems happen every 2 + hours.. But it sometimes restarts right as the game starts up.