- Aug 8, 2010
- 7
- 0
- 18,510
Hi, this is my first time posting in these forums, though i have read through them on occasion. I'm having a problem that has so far stumped 8 A+ technicians. It's a little long, but i'll start from the beginning to try to give you guys as much info as possible. Alright, it all started when my dads video card got stolen (somehow) out of his computer. We had been considering upgrading our video card for awhile so we gave him ours, and reverted back to our old video card, which died about a week later. My system at the time consisted of, a Nzxt tempest case, 800w power up power supply, MSI p6n diamond mobo, q6600 Intel cpu, 4gbs of ram, (2gb Kingston value ram, 2 gb OCZ gold ram), a butterfly cpu cooler(with the original fan removed and a cheap fan put on as the sensor had gone on it), and a d-link dwa 556 wireless card.
We opted to go with an Evga gtx 465 video card, and upon installation, found that for some reason the wireless card was not being recognized by windows, and if we removed, then re-added it, it would turn on, find the network, identify it, then disappear again. Somehow, that situation magically corrected itself. About a week later we got an Ultra chiltec cpu cooler that had been used for a really great price. We thought it would be a good idea to swap out the butterfly since the fan had already gone on it. So we swapped that, turned everything on and it seemed fine. As we were doing some cable management on it, my wife touched the side of the power supply with a side case fan cord and the system suddenly shut off. After restarting it, the system would continuously restart over and over. We tried removing other case fans and such but to no avail, so we took it into her work at Tigerdirect. Oddly enough the system seemed stable, and for 5 days they could not recreate the problem, running benchmarks and stress tests.
Then just as we were about to take it home, it shut down on them and began to illustrate the same issues we were having. They suspected the power supply, or possibly the motherboard. Since i liked my mobo, i hoped it was just the power supply, and so we changed that to an ultra x3 1000w power supply. From here on the system has done the same thing, it starts up fine, and you can usually surf the net, but it will suddenly shut down, and restart. It has done so even while surfing the net, but only once. However, it shuts down EVERYTIME when benchmarking with 3dmark06, or loading a game of starcraft 2. Within 30 seconds it will shut down. Thinking we had killed our mobo, we got an asus p5q pro turbo mobo, and a solid state hd to do a clean windows install on. After reassembling everything, the problem remained. Additionally, the first ram slot was defective on the mobo, so we had to send that back. We also thought perhaps the cpu cooler was no good as it had been used, and so we got a Thermaltake Frio cooler. When the second mobo arrived, we reinstalled everything, including swapping video cards for the same one, in case it was defective, and again, the same issue.
So, we figured that it must be a cpu issue and so we decided to upgrade to an i7 930. We of course had to change our mobo and ram, and we went with an Evga x58 Ftw3, and 6gb of Mushkin blackline ram. After installing ALL of that, the issue STILL remained. At wits end we then changed cases, to the Nzxt tempest evo, and got a corsair 850w power supply, just in case. After rebuilding it yet again, the problem persisted!!! WE called Evga, and went over things such as ram voltage and timings, 12v power being delivered, and we ran prime 95 flawlessly. The only thing they could guess was a bad video card for a second time. Today, we brought that card and put it in another computer, where it ran all the benchmarks flawlessly. We also moved our computer out of the entertainment room, into the laundry room at the other end of the house just to try a different circuit. No luck. We also tried plugging it directly into the wall, as well as multiple surge bars, to no avail.
Now i have a new mobo, as there was an issue with the cpu pins on the first mobo, another Evga gtx 465 video card, as well as an Evga 210 to test out the system with a different video card. I have not installed them as yet. But at this point...does anyone know what could possibly be causing all this?? We've essentially built a new computer from the ground up and yet consistently have this shutdown error. There are no warning signs, nor any error messages generated. The only component that i just realized has gone from system to system is the wireless card. When i rebuild it either tonight or tomorrow, i'll leave that out to see if somehow that was the cause all along.
We opted to go with an Evga gtx 465 video card, and upon installation, found that for some reason the wireless card was not being recognized by windows, and if we removed, then re-added it, it would turn on, find the network, identify it, then disappear again. Somehow, that situation magically corrected itself. About a week later we got an Ultra chiltec cpu cooler that had been used for a really great price. We thought it would be a good idea to swap out the butterfly since the fan had already gone on it. So we swapped that, turned everything on and it seemed fine. As we were doing some cable management on it, my wife touched the side of the power supply with a side case fan cord and the system suddenly shut off. After restarting it, the system would continuously restart over and over. We tried removing other case fans and such but to no avail, so we took it into her work at Tigerdirect. Oddly enough the system seemed stable, and for 5 days they could not recreate the problem, running benchmarks and stress tests.
Then just as we were about to take it home, it shut down on them and began to illustrate the same issues we were having. They suspected the power supply, or possibly the motherboard. Since i liked my mobo, i hoped it was just the power supply, and so we changed that to an ultra x3 1000w power supply. From here on the system has done the same thing, it starts up fine, and you can usually surf the net, but it will suddenly shut down, and restart. It has done so even while surfing the net, but only once. However, it shuts down EVERYTIME when benchmarking with 3dmark06, or loading a game of starcraft 2. Within 30 seconds it will shut down. Thinking we had killed our mobo, we got an asus p5q pro turbo mobo, and a solid state hd to do a clean windows install on. After reassembling everything, the problem remained. Additionally, the first ram slot was defective on the mobo, so we had to send that back. We also thought perhaps the cpu cooler was no good as it had been used, and so we got a Thermaltake Frio cooler. When the second mobo arrived, we reinstalled everything, including swapping video cards for the same one, in case it was defective, and again, the same issue.
So, we figured that it must be a cpu issue and so we decided to upgrade to an i7 930. We of course had to change our mobo and ram, and we went with an Evga x58 Ftw3, and 6gb of Mushkin blackline ram. After installing ALL of that, the issue STILL remained. At wits end we then changed cases, to the Nzxt tempest evo, and got a corsair 850w power supply, just in case. After rebuilding it yet again, the problem persisted!!! WE called Evga, and went over things such as ram voltage and timings, 12v power being delivered, and we ran prime 95 flawlessly. The only thing they could guess was a bad video card for a second time. Today, we brought that card and put it in another computer, where it ran all the benchmarks flawlessly. We also moved our computer out of the entertainment room, into the laundry room at the other end of the house just to try a different circuit. No luck. We also tried plugging it directly into the wall, as well as multiple surge bars, to no avail.
Now i have a new mobo, as there was an issue with the cpu pins on the first mobo, another Evga gtx 465 video card, as well as an Evga 210 to test out the system with a different video card. I have not installed them as yet. But at this point...does anyone know what could possibly be causing all this?? We've essentially built a new computer from the ground up and yet consistently have this shutdown error. There are no warning signs, nor any error messages generated. The only component that i just realized has gone from system to system is the wireless card. When i rebuild it either tonight or tomorrow, i'll leave that out to see if somehow that was the cause all along.
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