[Solved] First System Build - Random Crashes

Hi guys,

I finished my first homebuilt system about 2 weeks ago, and have been having all sorts of problems. Most of the programs I use, including Firefox, Team Fortress 2 and Windows Media Player, crash frequently. I've put off trying to do something about these problems, since I considered them manageable, but today things have gotten worse. I was trying to troubleshoot a problem I've been having playing DVDs in Windows Media Player and outputting them to my TV. I tried to uninstalland reinstall my graphics card drivers, since my Catalyst Control Center kept crashing and I wasn't sure if I installed the correct version for Windows 7 64-bit initially. Since then, I've gotten 2 blue screens of death, once when I was trying to uninstall the drivers, and a second time when I was trying to reinstall them. (they uninstalled successfully the second time, and appear to have reinstalled successfully despite my troubles, but this makes me worried) Then my computer just restarted for no reason a few minutes ago when I tried to join a server in Team Fortress. So far I haven't had boot issues or anything, but I'm pretty troubled by these problems.

FYI, here's a link to my build: [url=http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/forum2.php?config=tomshardwareus.inc&cat=31&post=278678&page=1&p=1&sondage=0&owntopic=1&trash=0&trash_post=0&print=0&numreponse=0&quote_only=0&new=0&nojs=0][/url] I'm currently running Windows 7 64-bit OEM, which I initially had some troubles installing (got a blue screen of death mid-install, but the install went smoothly the second time I tried) but which seemed to run ok aside from these random crashes. I have a copy of 32-bit OEN too (ordered it by mistake), but I haven't installed it yet.

As I said, this is my first homebuilt system, as well as my first new computer in ~7 years. If these problems are "normal homebuilt system problems" or "normal Windows 7 64-bit problems" I'm happy to just deal with them. I'm concerned that "something is very wrong" though, and if that's the case I need to take some action.

So I'm not sure what to do at this point. Should I wipe my hard drive and start over? Should I chalk it all up to 64-bit Windows 7, make a hard drive partition, and install my 32-bit version? Are there some diagnostic tests I could run? Is there more information that I could provide that would be helpful? Please let me know!

Thanks in advance,
Pat

Why not download the latest version of memtest86 and test your memory for several hours?

Ok, a few new developments:

I ran memtest for 6+hours on each stick and didn't have any errors. I did, however, notice that something seems to be off with my timings. My RAM timings are 8-8-8-21, but my comp runs them at 9-9-9-24 when I set them auto. If I change them to 8-8-8-21, the system seems to be even less stable than usual. I memtested them on both 8-8-8-21 and 9-9-9-24 and didn't have any errors on either setting, though, so I'm sort of confused why they're crashing when I actually try to operate them at the 8-8-8-21 timing.

I've also been going through my Administrative Event logs. My most recent error was "The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck" which I got while I was trying to run on 8-8-8-21. Other recent errors include "The Windows Search service terminated unexpectedly" and "Fatal Execution Engine Error" and "Faulting application name: SearchIndexer.exe". I'm not sure what exactly I was doing when I got these, but I'll be keeping better track of things from now on.

Based on what little research I've been able to do, it sounds like I have some memory problems that aren't being picked up by memtest. For now I'm going to just keep trying to run my computer as normal and take better notes on what I'm doing when I get these crashes so I link the event reports to what I was doing at the time. But based on what I've said, does it sounds like it's a RAM problem?

Ugh, sorry. I ended up getting these:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820231189

Not the Corsairs.

I've been running them at 666Mhz (my mobo default)

Memory Tab:
Type - DDR3
Size - 4096MBytes
Channels # - Dual
DC Mode - Unganged
NB Frequency - 2000MHz (+-0.1)

DRAM Frequency - 667MHz
FSBRAM - 3:10
CL - 9.0 clocks
tRCD - 9.0 clocks
tRP - 9.0 clocks
tRAS - 24 clocks
tRC - 33 clocks
CR - 1T

and from SPD

Slot 1: DDR3
Module Size: 2048MBytes
Max Bandwidth: PC3-10700H (667MHz)
Manufacturer: G.Skill
Part Number: F3-10700CL8-2GBHK
JEDEC#2/JEDEC#3/JEDEC#4/XMP-1334
Frequency 518MHz/592MHz/666MHz/667MHz
CAS# Latency 7.0/8.0/9.0/8.0
RAS# to CAS# 7/8/9/8
RAS# Precharge 7/8/9/8
tRAS 19/22/24/21
tRC 26/30/33/35
Command Rate / / / 2T
Voltage 1.5V/1.5V/1.5V/1.500V

Values are identical for slots #1 and #2, with no data for empty slots #3 and #4

Thanks for your help GhislainG, I really appreciate it. Let me know if you need any more info.

Alright, I'll give that a try. I should note that since I stopped trying to mess with drivers and such my system has been running with much more stability, although now I'm getting other completely different problems. (periodic CPU usage spikes, probably from antivirus software or something though. I'll let you know how things turn out.