Hey guys, I'm having issues with my machine and need a second opinion before investing in replacements as money's really, really tight at the moment. The main components are as follows: AMD 4400 x2 Gigabyte K8N-Pro SLI 2GB Corsair 400MHz XFX 7800GTX After 3+ years of stability I started experiencing random crashes about a month ago. Mainly just the system hanging with moving mouse cursor - sometimes complete lockup - and rarely a BSOD (which never stays on screen long enough to record the number). This is also very difficult to replicate and seems to happen randomlly. Sometimes, upon boot, before reaching the part where it detacts IDE devices, the screen will go black and it will start a reboot cycle lasting 1-3 times. The annoying thing is I can run Age of Conan, putting strain on everything and it will not crash. Most of the crashes are while web browsing, but not always. I've run the "Burn in" test in Sandra and it didn't pick anything up or even crash. In my spare time I've been trying to trace the problem and I've got the fault down to either the motherboard or CPU going through the following stages of diagnosis: *I've been using the same motherboard bios version since I flashed is a couple of years ago. The drivers have been the same under XP Pro 32* Ruled out a heat problem by stripping out, cleaning and reseating my CPU heatsink. Also, running AoC rules out a GPU heat problem. (Hoping this has also ruled out any dips from the PSU) Ruled out niggley PCI/PCIe/RAM seating by reseating everything. Ruled out OS conflicts by using XP Pro SP2 and SP3, XP 64, and Ubuntu - Silimar crashes in all of them. Ruled out the RAM by doing a full scan in MemTest86. Ruled out a moist badger by rubbing him down with a roll of Bounty. Ruled out dodgy HD by doing OS installs on different physical ones. Ruled out the onboard network adapter by disabling it in the bios and using my old D-Link nic. Super annoying! My mind is telling me it's the motherboard. If anyone's got an opinion it would be greatly appreciated! Thanks for looking!
It sounds to me like your mobo is on the Fritz. Periodic madness is often the sign of an aged mobo I'm afraid, although there's no concrete way to be sure without swapping one or the other out.
I'm sure you can find one on eBay easily enough, there's plenty of computers getting broken up now C2D has taken off in a big way.
i've had similar seeming random issue which turned out to be the hard disk and i would recommend running the diagnostic tools which most manufacturers have available for download as well as updating your chipset/ide drivers. you may also still consider trying another psu if you or a pal have one sitting idle. good luck
Thanks Though, like I've said I've installed the OS on different HDs with the same result - 3 infact. The chipset drivers are the same as they were about 2 years ago with the same bios version (F9). The crashes also happned on XP x64 with the 64bit drivers, and on Ubuntu with the linux drivers. I've ordered a replacement motherboard this morning. It's only the common Asrock one, but it will have to do. On fleabay the only new ones are those god-awful Asus A8N's. I hope I never have to see one of those again (that's another story all together), and there's loads of "untested" second hand ones, so they're not worth the grief. Anyways, I'll let you guys know how it goes - thanks again.
Update: It was indeed the motherboard. The replacement has been running smoother than the Swiss rail network. Thanks guys.
My next bet would be the PSU that maybe is power fluctuating causing instability's. Always hard to find out what exactly it is. To me hardware is either working or broken, not half broken/working. But in reality its always a mystery.
