G1-P5G43 System instability - need help troubleshooting

Terrier

Honorable
Sep 16, 2012
6
0
10,510
Hello people,

My system specs in brief are in my signature. I have an ongoing problem with system freezing (with loud buzzing noise through speakers), requiring hard reboot that I've been attempting to troubleshoot for several weeks, and will detail the steps I've taken thus far below:

■1st issue was ongoing random BSOD and occassional system freezes.
■Downloaded Realtemp, checked system temps, found high temps (in the 70-80C range under about 60% load).
■Cleaned out PC and graphics card (did not open up the casing on graphics card) fans, reseated stock fan with ceramic thermal paste. Result? Slightly lower temps and no improvement on BSOD.
■Downloaded Bluescreen View and found recurrent memory errors.
■Downloaded Memtest, tested RAM, found all slots ok, but one stick of RAM definitely faulty.
■Replaced both RAM (A-RAM DDR2-800) with 2 sets of 2 x @GB Gskill DDR2 1066 unbuffered. (Thought, hey, might as well upgrade!)
■Also purchased new Coolermaster CPU fan and seated with Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste.
■System froze repeatedly (no BSOD)..... but ran about 20C cooler.
■Reseated RAM and re-checked manual, and learned that only two slots (A1 & B1) support the DDR2 1066. Removed RAM from slots A2 & B2. Tested new GSkill RAM with memtest.. passed with flying colours.
■System more stable, but still freezing occassionaly, especially under load. (e.g., when playing game such as Skyrim).
■Checked for BIOS updates, however none available.
■Updated all drivers through device manager.
■No change with random freezing, but no further BSOD.
■Ran CHKDSK with repair options.
■Performed full system back-up to external hardrive
■Performed a repair/install of Windows, and also checked graphics card for updates and installed.
■Checked all device drivers again. Checked seating of graphics card again.
■Tweaked some settings for skyrim to ease th load, both in the graphics card settings and in the game settings. This resulted in some minor improvement, but still getting random freezes usually soon after starting the game. Sometimes after a reboot, it ran ok.
■Checked system for malware and spyware, found 8 x spyware which has been removed. No malware according to F-Secure Online Scanner.
■Ran another CHKDSK today, all clean and clear apparently.
■System still freezing, especially under load (and within 5 minutes), but this is not always a necessary precursor to the big freeze.

I've been careful to earth myself when touching components inside the case, so I'm fairly sure I haven't damaged anything in that regard.

The only thing I haven't done that I can think of, and don't know how to do, is check and adjust BIOS settings if needed with the change in RAM, and I don't know if this is the problem or not. I'm not interested in overclocking, just want the system to run smoothly.

It seems to me that there were a couple of problems to start with, especially with the faulty RAM issue, and so far the BSOD issue seems to have resolved, but I'm really at a loss as to what else to do.

If there is someone familiar with ASUS BIOS for this model, and/or with dealing with changes to RAM who could step me through troubleshooting that (if that is even the problem), I'd be most grateful. I have CPU-Z installed and can give extra info that is needed.

I guess if that didn't solve any problem, I'd be looking at looming hardware faults.... ?? :(

Thanks in advance.
 

Terrier

Honorable
Sep 16, 2012
6
0
10,510
Hi again people, I've had no responses, so not sure if this is because I haven't given enough info, or if the issue has other's just as stumped as me!

I did neglect to state my OS is Windows 7 64bit. Apologies.

One of the reasons I thought the RAM might be an issue is that in the manual it states suitable RAM as DDR2 1066(O.C.)/800/667 and I am unsure of the (O.C.) reference here. Yes I know it refers to overclocking, but is that simply optional settings or should i be able to run the 1066 as is?

Thanks in advance again.
 

Terrier

Honorable
Sep 16, 2012
6
0
10,510
OK, I ended up going to the GSkill forum for some further input, however it seems that the startup menu was a t least part (if not all) of the freezing problem under load. I used: http://www.geforce.com/Optimize/Guides/stable-gaming/#1 the suggestions on this page to help adjust the system. So far so good. In particular, I removed a program called Akamai netsession, which was running in the background unbeknownst to me. System is now stable.

Hope the above info can be of use to someone else.