- Jun 16, 2009
- 93
- 0
- 18,640
Situation Overview
Well, I've had this PC for about a year and only a week after I unpacked it, this weird problem began to manifest. The first week I used the PC with only the integrated video chipset HD 3200 and there were no problems. Then it began, the first time I plugged my Nvidia GTS 250 I was palying Gears of War when the sound went into a loop, the PC froze completely and I had to hard restart. After that, no problems for 24 hours. Two days later it happened again, hard restart and the PC worked fine.
Ever since then I've been haunted by this random nightmare, since the PC can work fine for about a week and then begin to restart up to 3 times in less than 30 minutes. I've sent the PC over the warranties department of the store where I bought it already two times, the guys over there have come up with many "solutions" but so far nothing works.
First they found nothing and returned the PC to me with a new PSU since the old one was making rattling noises, this took about 3 weeks of waiting. The problem returned and I went personally to ramble and curse. This second time they said the chinese Pixxo PSU wasn't good enough, and so I bought a 700 watt Thermaltake Purepower PSU, with a discount for the crap PSU they sold me. A week later I received a mail saying the RAM sticks were of different frecuency, 800 and 667, and that could cause problems, then I bought another 2GB 800 mhz Kingston stick to match the first one. After that they sent another mail saying that the Phenom II X3 710 CPU was causing the random errors, so they swapped it for a 720 BE, and sent the whole thing back to me.
Immediatly after it arrived I put it through heavy gaming for 3 whole days, and it didn't even cough, left it overnight and on for 48 hours with no problems, used 3ds max, made some rendering and nothing. Then today I was using Firefox and MSN and it froze, sound loop, black screen and restarted two times.
The Issue
On with the problem. The thing locks up with a sound loop and it restarts or forces me to hard restart, this can happen a few times in a row or once in a day, but not always in a daily basis, it can be twice or once in a week. Most of the times it happens when gaming, a few minutes after launching a game it freezes, but sometimes I can play for hours without problems. Sometimes it just happens when I'm surfing or even when MSN is starting, this has a range of 3 to 40 minutes of use before it freezes.
Temperatures are fine I suppose, this is a hot country and the GPU idles at 55-60 celsius, and it tops at 80-90 when on full load, I've already set the fans to 100 when gaming to avoid overheating and not a single time I've seen artifacts or anything weird onscreen, if the PC works I can play for 8 hours straight at solid 60fps on almost any game.
CPU temps are always between 40-50 celsius. This new PSU gives a stable 12.03 on the 12vrail, and as the RAM is now of the same brand and speed I think it should cause no problem. Event viewer in Windows only give a Kernel Power issue with and ID of 41, which only means the PC was hard restarted.
I've already update bios, GPU drivers, ran antivirus full scan, disc defrag and even Ccleaner, installed three different Windows 7 and one Windows Vista ultimate, this last Windows 7 is updated and I haven't overclocked anything.
I'm literally desperate, new PSU, CPU, RAM and still the same thing, so please if you have any idea of what could be causing this problem let me know.
Thanks in advance
PC Specs:
MoBo: Gigabyte GA-MA780G-UD3H
CPU: Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition @ 2.8 no OC
RAM: 2x 2GB Kingston DDR2 800 mhz PC2-6400 CL6
GPU: Nvidia GTS 250 1GB DDR3 256 bit no OC
PSU: Thermaltake PurePower 80 PLUS, 700W
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate Edition x64 (Updated)
Case: Cooler Master Centurion Black, ATX, 3 120mm Fans
.C.
Well, I've had this PC for about a year and only a week after I unpacked it, this weird problem began to manifest. The first week I used the PC with only the integrated video chipset HD 3200 and there were no problems. Then it began, the first time I plugged my Nvidia GTS 250 I was palying Gears of War when the sound went into a loop, the PC froze completely and I had to hard restart. After that, no problems for 24 hours. Two days later it happened again, hard restart and the PC worked fine.
Ever since then I've been haunted by this random nightmare, since the PC can work fine for about a week and then begin to restart up to 3 times in less than 30 minutes. I've sent the PC over the warranties department of the store where I bought it already two times, the guys over there have come up with many "solutions" but so far nothing works.
First they found nothing and returned the PC to me with a new PSU since the old one was making rattling noises, this took about 3 weeks of waiting. The problem returned and I went personally to ramble and curse. This second time they said the chinese Pixxo PSU wasn't good enough, and so I bought a 700 watt Thermaltake Purepower PSU, with a discount for the crap PSU they sold me. A week later I received a mail saying the RAM sticks were of different frecuency, 800 and 667, and that could cause problems, then I bought another 2GB 800 mhz Kingston stick to match the first one. After that they sent another mail saying that the Phenom II X3 710 CPU was causing the random errors, so they swapped it for a 720 BE, and sent the whole thing back to me.
Immediatly after it arrived I put it through heavy gaming for 3 whole days, and it didn't even cough, left it overnight and on for 48 hours with no problems, used 3ds max, made some rendering and nothing. Then today I was using Firefox and MSN and it froze, sound loop, black screen and restarted two times.
The Issue
On with the problem. The thing locks up with a sound loop and it restarts or forces me to hard restart, this can happen a few times in a row or once in a day, but not always in a daily basis, it can be twice or once in a week. Most of the times it happens when gaming, a few minutes after launching a game it freezes, but sometimes I can play for hours without problems. Sometimes it just happens when I'm surfing or even when MSN is starting, this has a range of 3 to 40 minutes of use before it freezes.
Temperatures are fine I suppose, this is a hot country and the GPU idles at 55-60 celsius, and it tops at 80-90 when on full load, I've already set the fans to 100 when gaming to avoid overheating and not a single time I've seen artifacts or anything weird onscreen, if the PC works I can play for 8 hours straight at solid 60fps on almost any game.
CPU temps are always between 40-50 celsius. This new PSU gives a stable 12.03 on the 12vrail, and as the RAM is now of the same brand and speed I think it should cause no problem. Event viewer in Windows only give a Kernel Power issue with and ID of 41, which only means the PC was hard restarted.
I've already update bios, GPU drivers, ran antivirus full scan, disc defrag and even Ccleaner, installed three different Windows 7 and one Windows Vista ultimate, this last Windows 7 is updated and I haven't overclocked anything.
I'm literally desperate, new PSU, CPU, RAM and still the same thing, so please if you have any idea of what could be causing this problem let me know.
Thanks in advance
PC Specs:
MoBo: Gigabyte GA-MA780G-UD3H
CPU: Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition @ 2.8 no OC
RAM: 2x 2GB Kingston DDR2 800 mhz PC2-6400 CL6
GPU: Nvidia GTS 250 1GB DDR3 256 bit no OC
PSU: Thermaltake PurePower 80 PLUS, 700W
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate Edition x64 (Updated)
Case: Cooler Master Centurion Black, ATX, 3 120mm Fans
.C.
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