I've had this current build since late '09, and it's worked great without a hitch. The rig runs cool with the positive pressure from the three intake fans, and the CPU has an aftermarket cooler on it and never runs hot. However, since earlier this year, a couple of things have happened, and in the past couple of months, I've been experiencing some strange lock-ups. Let me lay it out in a timeline:
* January: Booting up one day, after three years of running my triple core AMD720BE unlocked as a 4-core, my bios tells me that ACC has failed. I reverted to triple core and applied a light overclock (-->3200MHz).
*Thinking perhaps the CPU was going, I ordered a Thuban 6-core 1055T, got a new power supply, upping my PSU from 430 to 600. I OC'd the 1055T to 250FSB-->3500MHz. It was very stable, and did not require extra juice to any of the components.
*After a month or so of no problems, I got a few lock-ups, where the screen would go distorted lines of color, and a high-pitched whine would come from the speakers. This would require a hard reset or power-off. I reset everything to stock settings, but continued to have these occasional lock-ups.
*After a couple more weeks, it got worse: When restarting from cold boot after lock-ups, the power light on the case would not illuminate, and the fans would "rev" in a constant cycle and not boot; not video on the screen. I cleared CMOS, changed power supplies, and still this issue persisted.
*Convinced the PSUs were alright, I pulled the Radeon 5770 out of the rig and hooked up the internal graphics (4200). It worked fine without a hitch.
*Convinced that my 5770 was bad, I ordered a 6870. I installed it last week, and everything booted up. I enjoyed around ten hours of gaming, while monitoring the temps. This new card runs much cooler than my 5770 (high sixties rather than eighties); all my other temps are good. Voltages are within spec.
*Last night I was playing the alpha of Endless Space, which is not a demanding game by any means, and suddenly I experienced this same lock-up again with the distorted screen and audio whine. It rebooted fine on hard reset and it hasn't yet happened again, but this indicated to me that I did not solve the problem by replacing the video card. This leaves the MB, the memory, and the CPU.
*At one point after the lock-ups when the 5770 was still in it, I entered the BIOS to try to reset the overclock and the bios characters began running corrupted with streaks of random characters down the screen. This happened only the one time, but it was quite strange. Would this have been a video card or MB symptom?
Where can I go from here to narrow this down? Is it possible I damaged the MB during the overclock? I've checked all the caps on the MB, and there is no sign of bursting. The CPU runs cool and hasn't been overvolted or anything; the 250FSB overclock was light from what I've read these things can do. I'm thinking MB at this point.
Thanks in advance for your help. -Chizz
* January: Booting up one day, after three years of running my triple core AMD720BE unlocked as a 4-core, my bios tells me that ACC has failed. I reverted to triple core and applied a light overclock (-->3200MHz).
*Thinking perhaps the CPU was going, I ordered a Thuban 6-core 1055T, got a new power supply, upping my PSU from 430 to 600. I OC'd the 1055T to 250FSB-->3500MHz. It was very stable, and did not require extra juice to any of the components.
*After a month or so of no problems, I got a few lock-ups, where the screen would go distorted lines of color, and a high-pitched whine would come from the speakers. This would require a hard reset or power-off. I reset everything to stock settings, but continued to have these occasional lock-ups.
*After a couple more weeks, it got worse: When restarting from cold boot after lock-ups, the power light on the case would not illuminate, and the fans would "rev" in a constant cycle and not boot; not video on the screen. I cleared CMOS, changed power supplies, and still this issue persisted.
*Convinced the PSUs were alright, I pulled the Radeon 5770 out of the rig and hooked up the internal graphics (4200). It worked fine without a hitch.
*Convinced that my 5770 was bad, I ordered a 6870. I installed it last week, and everything booted up. I enjoyed around ten hours of gaming, while monitoring the temps. This new card runs much cooler than my 5770 (high sixties rather than eighties); all my other temps are good. Voltages are within spec.
*Last night I was playing the alpha of Endless Space, which is not a demanding game by any means, and suddenly I experienced this same lock-up again with the distorted screen and audio whine. It rebooted fine on hard reset and it hasn't yet happened again, but this indicated to me that I did not solve the problem by replacing the video card. This leaves the MB, the memory, and the CPU.
*At one point after the lock-ups when the 5770 was still in it, I entered the BIOS to try to reset the overclock and the bios characters began running corrupted with streaks of random characters down the screen. This happened only the one time, but it was quite strange. Would this have been a video card or MB symptom?
Where can I go from here to narrow this down? Is it possible I damaged the MB during the overclock? I've checked all the caps on the MB, and there is no sign of bursting. The CPU runs cool and hasn't been overvolted or anything; the 250FSB overclock was light from what I've read these things can do. I'm thinking MB at this point.
Thanks in advance for your help. -Chizz
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram