Hello forum,
Last week I have made my first homebuilt PC. I decided to try installing Ubuntu (another first) and and initially everything seemed to work, with a few background programs suddenly throwing errors occasionally.
After a reboot I got the option to run memtest86+ and so I did. At 43%, millions of errors. When I trie to install Windows XP, it said something like 'your harddisk could be corrupted or you could have a virus - try CHKDSK /F'.
After some browsing, I came to understand that memtest86+ checks RAM and that one error or millions don't make a difference as far as the problem is concerned. Responding to that, I tried many configurations and bought an additional RAM stick just to see if anything would change in memtest86+, but nothing aside from a few percent.
Continuing to use memtest86+ as a measuring bar, I started to remove all other components to see if it would make a difference. Nothing changed.
Finally, I checked the power supply output just to see if the values were close to the 3.3, 5 and 12 it is meant to give. No major deviations found, although the manual was talking about a different output order... I'm not sure if it is even wrong. It seems unlikely for this to be wrong - all connected components seemed to be working fine as far as I could tell.
This has led me to believe that it is likely the motherboard itself. However, I also realize I have very little experience in the field, and there may be many things I am overlooking right now. My question is: can I indeed deduce from my checks that the motherboard is the cause of the instability? If not, how can I further specify which component is?
My data:
Components:
HDD SEAGATE Barracuda 7200.14 2 TB
Power COOLER MASTER Silent Pro M2 520 W (Modular)
SSD OCZ Vertex 4 Series 2,5" - 128 GB
Mobo ASROCK Z77E-ITX - Socket 1155 - Chipset Z77 - mini ITX
GPU GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 650 OC - 1 GB GDDR5
RAM CORSAIR Vengeance Performance 1600 (set to 1333 in build) - 2x4GB - CL9 - 1.5V
CPU INTEL Core i5 Ivy Bridge 3570K - 3,4 GHz
Test component:
ICIDU stick 2 GB - CL6 - 1.65V
Known issues:
From the very first Ubuntu startup, randomly programs on the background seemed to crash occasionally.
Ubuntu sometimes does not start up, screen says something about missing table.
Windows XP installation aborts: corrupted harddisk, recommends CHKDSK /F (STOP: 0x0000007B) --> how do CHKDSK /F with only Ubuntu installed?
I might be wrong, but if I recall correctly, memtest86+ used to say memory 8012M, and now it says memory 7894M.
RAM setup check:
Original: Corsair stick A slot 1 & Corsair stick B slot 2 - fail at 43% - 129.0MB
Reverse: Corsair stick B slot 1 & Corsair stick A slot 2 - fail at 43% - 129.0MB
Corsair stick A slot 2 - fail at 44%
Corsair stick B slot 2 - fail at 44%
Corsair stick A slot 1 - fail at 44%
Corsair stick B slot 1 - fail at 44%
ICIDU stick slot 1 PC keeps restarting at a loud click (no screen)
ICIDU stick slot 2 fail at 46%
At some RAM configs, keyboard is not working from PS/2, but is from USB.
Component removal RAM check:
Original: Corsair stick A slot 1 & Corsair stick B slot 2
1. Removed HDD: 43% (same)
2. Removed SSD (run test from USB): 43% (same)
3. Removed GPU (run test from USB): 43% (same)
Assume HDD & SSD are not cause of problem
Measure Power supply:
Measured with a multimeter.
All 6-pins give:
12.01 G
12.01 G
12.01 G
All 5-pins give:
3.37
5.07
G
G
12.01
Manual says the order is 3.3 G 5 G 12, using the SATA end as illustration.
Last week I have made my first homebuilt PC. I decided to try installing Ubuntu (another first) and and initially everything seemed to work, with a few background programs suddenly throwing errors occasionally.
After a reboot I got the option to run memtest86+ and so I did. At 43%, millions of errors. When I trie to install Windows XP, it said something like 'your harddisk could be corrupted or you could have a virus - try CHKDSK /F'.
After some browsing, I came to understand that memtest86+ checks RAM and that one error or millions don't make a difference as far as the problem is concerned. Responding to that, I tried many configurations and bought an additional RAM stick just to see if anything would change in memtest86+, but nothing aside from a few percent.
Continuing to use memtest86+ as a measuring bar, I started to remove all other components to see if it would make a difference. Nothing changed.
Finally, I checked the power supply output just to see if the values were close to the 3.3, 5 and 12 it is meant to give. No major deviations found, although the manual was talking about a different output order... I'm not sure if it is even wrong. It seems unlikely for this to be wrong - all connected components seemed to be working fine as far as I could tell.
This has led me to believe that it is likely the motherboard itself. However, I also realize I have very little experience in the field, and there may be many things I am overlooking right now. My question is: can I indeed deduce from my checks that the motherboard is the cause of the instability? If not, how can I further specify which component is?
My data:
Components:
HDD SEAGATE Barracuda 7200.14 2 TB
Power COOLER MASTER Silent Pro M2 520 W (Modular)
SSD OCZ Vertex 4 Series 2,5" - 128 GB
Mobo ASROCK Z77E-ITX - Socket 1155 - Chipset Z77 - mini ITX
GPU GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 650 OC - 1 GB GDDR5
RAM CORSAIR Vengeance Performance 1600 (set to 1333 in build) - 2x4GB - CL9 - 1.5V
CPU INTEL Core i5 Ivy Bridge 3570K - 3,4 GHz
Test component:
ICIDU stick 2 GB - CL6 - 1.65V
Known issues:
From the very first Ubuntu startup, randomly programs on the background seemed to crash occasionally.
Ubuntu sometimes does not start up, screen says something about missing table.
Windows XP installation aborts: corrupted harddisk, recommends CHKDSK /F (STOP: 0x0000007B) --> how do CHKDSK /F with only Ubuntu installed?
I might be wrong, but if I recall correctly, memtest86+ used to say memory 8012M, and now it says memory 7894M.
RAM setup check:
Original: Corsair stick A slot 1 & Corsair stick B slot 2 - fail at 43% - 129.0MB
Reverse: Corsair stick B slot 1 & Corsair stick A slot 2 - fail at 43% - 129.0MB
Corsair stick A slot 2 - fail at 44%
Corsair stick B slot 2 - fail at 44%
Corsair stick A slot 1 - fail at 44%
Corsair stick B slot 1 - fail at 44%
ICIDU stick slot 1 PC keeps restarting at a loud click (no screen)
ICIDU stick slot 2 fail at 46%
At some RAM configs, keyboard is not working from PS/2, but is from USB.
Component removal RAM check:
Original: Corsair stick A slot 1 & Corsair stick B slot 2
1. Removed HDD: 43% (same)
2. Removed SSD (run test from USB): 43% (same)
3. Removed GPU (run test from USB): 43% (same)
Assume HDD & SSD are not cause of problem
Measure Power supply:
Measured with a multimeter.
All 6-pins give:
12.01 G
12.01 G
12.01 G
All 5-pins give:
3.37
5.07
G
G
12.01
Manual says the order is 3.3 G 5 G 12, using the SATA end as illustration.
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