Help Needed with a New build :(

Darq_83

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Jan 4, 2011
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Hi All,



I've recently just bought the following parts but am not having much joy in getting it working:



AMD Phenom II X6 1055T 95W

MSI 870-C45

4x2Gb DDR3 133 eBuyer Extra Value RAM (Micron)

Sapphire Radeon HD 6850 1Gb GDDR5

Artic Freezer Pro rev 2

CiT 700w PSU

WD Green series 500gb HD (came out of my Stora)



Basically the system is very unstable - I bought all the parts from eBuyer bar the HD which came from my NetGear Stora and I know it works well as I've had it in my other system for about 3 months. When I got the parts, the first issue was with the Graphics card, it was faulty on arrival, I tested it in my new build and it wouldn't run the windows experience index after drivers were installed AMD and the driver disk. Tested on my mates machine and it BSOD on install of the drivers. Have recieved a replacement for it which seems to work fine now... except for... I'm still having random crashes



The crashes are definately hardware related as they are not Bluescreens but screen freezes and at one point random reboots (but that seemed to have stopped and now it just freezes) in order to save myself some grief and to prevent my HD 6850 getting damaged I've replaced it with a known working 8400gs for testing/stability purpose.



Oh just to note this is a new install of Windows 7...



I've checked tempretures both by touch and through speedfan which reports around 32c idle and 42c 100% CPU load. The system is reporting about 30c - 50c for the motherboard tempreture. So don't think its a thermal trip out.



The PSU is reporting about 11.9 - 11.3volts on the +12v Rail. I think this could be a problem but this was only gathered from Aida64 not by hard measuring it with DMM.



On the phone to eBuyer where it all came from, the tech support mentioned its because the memory they sell is not compatible with the MSI motherboard (he said the RAM generally works better for cheapo motherboards) So I am now returning the RAM with Kingston 2x4Gb DDR3 1333 which are on the manufacturers approved list of memory, and a new Artic Power 700w PSU which people have reviewed very highly given the price (~£45)



Do you think the Tech support guy is right as this is pretty new to me, motherboards compatible with only specific manufacturers RAM sounds very odd and fishy to me...



I did get the machine to run a little more stable by downclocking the RAM from 1333 to 800 and it did run one cycle of memtest without any issues, however Windows MEmory Diagnostic did report an error (but MS being MS, it didn't state any details...)



Any advice/tips greatly appreiciated as I am now Bald and have no finger nails and haven't slept for about 8 days (ever since I had this delivered to me)



Thanks



 

omnisome

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Dec 12, 2010
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All motherboard vendors have their memory support list per model. I think you should just get a refund on everything and build a better system, although I myself run a CiT PSU, it's not really the best of the business. What does the BSOD say?
 


Did you install the OS fresh on this new motherboard?

CiT 700w PSU
I'm not familiar with this brand, and that almost certainly means it's junk. Whether it's the issue or not it needs to be replaced.


The PSU is reporting about 11.9 - 11.3volts on the +12v Rail. I think this could be a problem but this was only gathered from Aida64 not by hard measuring it with DMM.

Yeah board sensors are very unreliable. We never give them any credit.

On the phone to eBuyer where it all came from, the tech support mentioned its because the memory they sell is not compatible with the MSI motherboard (he said the RAM generally works better for cheapo motherboards) So I am now returning the RAM with Kingston 2x4Gb DDR3 1333 which are on the manufacturers approved list of memory, and a new Artic Power 700w PSU which people have reviewed very highly given the price (~£45)

This is the right track but I doubt you are getting a big upgrade on the PSU. AC did sell one or two decent units at one time, but this was not one of them. You should see the PSU guide linked in my sig.

RAM has various settings requirements. Most RAM can be made to work on most modern hardware, unless it's voltage requirements exceed specs. However, if the motherboard does not know how to talk to the RAM correctly, it cannot configure itself with the many little adjustments needed to run right. Sometimes they will release a BIOS update to fix this... in fact it's very common and probably the biggest reason for BIOS updates.

So, replacing the RAM is a strategy.


 

duk3

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Jan 15, 2010
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I wouldn't get that 700w PSU either, for the money the Antec BP550w is probably your best choice:
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/141007
£57.42
It's not about watts, both will (hopefully in the case of the Artic) have enough, it's that the Antec is higher quality.
If I'm reading the specs right, the Artic has to use molex connectors for even 1 6850 (They require 1 PCI-E 6 pin), let alone 2.
That along with the fact that it's a 700w for that cheap leads me to believe that this is not the best PSU.
 

Sesquipedalius

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Dec 7, 2011
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Interesting that nobody has mentioned the motherboard yet.

I have also recently purchased that same motherboard and the same processor (but the 125W version), and had problems where the PC just powers off, as thought the plug had been pulled.

No error messages or BSOD's, just switches off.

Once off, the PC won't reboot immediatley - you have to wait several minutes and then try again. The longest I managed to run the PC between switch-offs was about 30 minutes!

I tested another PSU as this was my first suspect, but same effect. Tested different Graphics card - same effect.

During one test, a load "pop" from motherboard !

Arranged a return, and on removal from system, I noticed an area which had gone bang on the motherboard - to the right of the CPU area, right near the "Active Phase Switching".

After a couple of days =, supplier (Aria) confirmed motherboard had tested as faulty and replaced with another of the same model.

Rebuilt system with replacement motherboard, and guess what? EXACTLY THE SAME SYMPTOMS !!! 10 - 15 minutes, then switch off !!!

Needless to say am now returning that motherboard and have shelled out on an ASUS Extreme 3 990FX to (hopefully) get a working system !