ok guys im getting a bit stumped and after some thoughts one of my mates has had a problem with his system in that it keeps on crashing or even not even posting - no bios some times basic spec AMD X4 955 BE H60i cooler evga GTX470 samsung f1 HDD 6gb ram DDR3 OCZ 750w PSU (replaced about 1 year ago) now he popped it over to me and i have pulled it apart, my first thought was heat so i have cleaned it all out redone the thermal paste on the CPU and cleaned the heat sink and fan the GTX 470 was a mess so i have pulled it part cleaned it reset the heat sink and fan with new thermal paste and dropped it down to 82 degrees under full load (hit 108 before when i was testing) have run a 12 hour memtest so know its not the ram when i put it all together again it started to crash again, took the side off and the fan on the side try it again and all worked fine, put the side back on and reconnect fan and crashed, thought at that point i had found the problem so pulled the fan and put the rest back together and ran prime95 and no crashes for 26 hours so was happy i had found the culprit and that it was probably a faulty fan shorting and interrupting the power supply anyways i have given it back to him and he popped me a few quid for the trouble (and the bits i had used) and anyways he has got it set up installed a load of stuff in which is was fine, however he has now loaded up the system with all its extras (USB he has said) and wham bam its started crashing again - so any ideas what its likely to be?
You haven't listed what motherboard it uses but id say that's where the problem would lay. If it goes through mem test and prime fine the rest is likely fine.
will try and get the details on the mobo, not sure which it is atm since he has it back and not likely to get it back for a few days, but wanted to be armed with how i can test it, however just me being a numpty but could it really be the motherboard as it has been working fine normally and surely a motherboard would either work or wouldn't, there wouldn't normally be a occasionally with something like that? whereas a PSU could be a problem as it crashes when there is higher load?
well the fan that i thought was the problem was just directly wired into the PSU on the same cable as the hard drive, but i didnt check it any further as when i took it off the system was fine for the 26 hour prime test and the 12 hour memtest as to anything shorting, no it shouldnt be as i tidies the cables properly and made sure the heads where not in contact with the side