Wierd Problem

[woodchip]

A month or so ago there was a storm, power went off and while the comp. is hooked to a acp power back up surge protector, the battery (cat may have stepped on button to turn battery off) was not on and comp turned off. First indication of problem was when I booted back up, dos at start-up said overclocking failed so I just had it reset to default with idea of putting settings back later. Comp worked and no problem when I got into winxp os.

A couple of weeks later (too busy with work so never redid OC settings in bios) things started to go screwy. First was online game I'd get a message CCCP.exe encountered a problem and game would normally just shut down and I'd restart game. Now it would turn comp off and reboot. Then firefox started doing same thing. Going thru a reboot now would bring me to the dos command screen where one can choose to go into safemode, restart to previous setting etc. I would pick one and comp would reboot and come back to same screen. I couldn't even get into safemode. Eventually tho it would go back and restart normally. Comp would behave until I tried to log onto game or go online. So I uninstalled game and disconnected internet.

I can get into my dos based cad program and it runs but if I tried to get into a game, comp crashed. Now things like my comp. doesn't work and things are disappearing. Some comp. science guy thought my HDD was failing so I got a HDD tester (Partemagic) and no problems found. Got memtest 4.01 and been running it fo a hour and no errors. I tried resetting bios for the original OC settings but I get OC failed message. I was able to run a quick Malware bytes scan and no issues there.

So do I have some seriously malevolent virus? I would reformat HDD but I have a photo album I would like to try and salvage but it may be too late for that. Any suggestions? I let the memtest run all day while at work so see if anything crops up when I get back

[CDN_Merlin]

You may be having power supply issues. My ex had this at one point and her system would keep rebooting until we removed a stick of ram. It didnt' have enouhg juice to run it. So maybe yyour games pull to much power and are forcing your system to be unstable.

[Foil]

Agreed. I've seen similar issues with failing power supplies as well.

At first, only high-power-draw apps like games cause crashes, but as the power supply fails it starts to crash much more often.

[snoopy]

I'll third it. My power supply was dying, and the symptom that I saw was the plugging in extra USB devices caused crashes, and sometimes it wouldn't initiate my USB devices properly upon boot.

If you have a hardware monitor, you can probably set it to log the voltages, then boot up a heavy game, plug in USB devices, and generally load down the supply, and see if the voltage sags.

[woodchip]

After letting memtes run all day, in test 6 of pass 4 I have a number of errors. would power supply affect ram mem sticks or could the symptoms I described also be caused by bad ram memory?

[Foil]

It could be a bad stick, but I'm thinking it's more likely a dying power supply causing the memory issues.

... Or it could be both.

[Heretic]

Signs that it maybe a memory problem can include computer crashes or reboots, data corruption. Memory errors appear on screen. Computer seems to boot but screen remains blank, Computer doesn't boot and you get beeping sounds.

Power supplies failing can include computer not starting and reboots

But after running memtest you have errors I have to go with bad memory. Did you run the test from a boot cd or from windows?

Edit: A Virus can also give you the same results as those above. Except for the beeps

[Foil]

Power supplies [failing] can include computer not starting and reboots

... and memory errors, and crashes in games, and motherboard overclock failures...

I'd put $$ on the power supply being the problem.

[Heretic]

Yep and that's why a problem like this is so hard to diagnose. Could check it with a Multimeter but there no way to really tell unless you have a load tester. He could just go get new power supply since they are cheap enough. Then if that doesn't work go get memory.

[woodchip]

Memtest is being run off a boot floppy. Error count is now rising. Wish there was a way to check the power supply. any boot disk/software available?

[CDN_Merlin]

Turn off the PC. Then check every power connector for brown or burnt spots.

[woodchip]

Nothing visual at plug/contact points. Also comp has been running all day and no burnt smell. PSU is PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 Quad.

[Heretic]

How many memory sticks do you have?

[Spidey]

Whenever you suspect a power supply problem, you must eliminate the supply as the problem first, because a problem in the supply can give errors in the memory test and a number of other things.

I can’t help you if you want to use software to find the problem, all I know how to do is the old school way…using a meter and loading the supply.

If you want to do this…get some Molex splitters or whatever kind you need, a good VOM…then…

Get the specs for each rail, put the meter on one rail at a time using the splitters, then load the supply…you can do this by running a game or other means.

Check each rail as the PC falters…if all the rails test ok, then I would start with the memory.

But, before you do anything…try re-seating the memory…that’s a common problem.

PS…you don’t really need the splitters, there are many ways to connect the meter, just depends on your skill level.

[Grendel]

You really need a scope to check the supply, voltages may have too much ripple/spikes etc. that you won't see on the VOM. Can't hurt to try tho.

FF causing a crash points to the PSU again, lately browsers tend to switch the GF/X card into 3D mode (drawing more power.)

I doubt the cat switched the UPS off, IIRC you need to hold the switch for a couple seconds on APC units to turn them off.

Everything considered I would start w/ switching out the PSU as well, may have killed something else in the process of failing tho :/

[woodchip]

Memory is Corsairs Dominator and comes as a matched pair of 2 gig sticks each. Also has a fan assembly that I will have to disconnect to see if re-seating is a issue. On a brighter note I applied for a RMA from Corsairs about a hour ago and already received the RMA number. This ram has a lifetime warranty. No where on the Corsair website does it mention anything about PSU's affecting the Memtest. So I guess I'll pull the 2 sticks and send them back and try out the new ones. If they don't work then I'll get another PSU.

Edit: When I stopped the memtest, it had recorded over 1.4 mil errors in 8 test/9 passes. How much power would the PSU have to supply running a test in Dos?

[Grendel]

In Dos the load on the PSU is considerably higher than eg. in Windows since the CPU runs at full speed/voltage. All the niffty powersaving modes won't work w/o drivers..

[Spidey]

Yea, a good diagnostic meter with recording capabilities (droop/spike) cost a lot more than power supplies.

Remember “lifetime” is lifetime of the product…not “your” lifetime. Heh…I found that out the hard way.

[woodchip]

Does ram memory affect bios settings? I still don't understand why putting my OC settings back in place won't work. Or would this be more indicative of the PSU?

[CDN_Merlin]

If you OC a system you draw more power. Hence the PS cutting out.

[BUBBALOU]

Considering it is a PC Power and Cooling PSU... I doubt it's the PSU.

Use a Flashlight look in the back of the PSU for swollen caps.. pretty obvious if they are... let's stop the speculation and Move on

[Krom]

If you got the memory timings / ratios / voltages wrong it would cause plenty of instability. Also DRAM stretched to near its clock speed or voltage limits will degrade over time until it quits working completely. Once the degradation process has started it cannot be stopped or reversed regardless of settings; burned modules will fail with absolute certainty.

A stable system should have exactly zero memory errors, even one is unacceptable.

If you think it is the PSU, then swap out the PSU for a known good one and rerun the memory test. Testing a PSU requires expensive equipment and knowledge that few people have and would take longer than just going to Frys or Best Buy (or some other store with PC parts) and grabbing a spare PSU with a cash back guarantee.

[woodchip]

Update. Got the new Dominator ram back, plugged it in, went to bios and set up my OC settings and machine worked splendidly. Played UT2004 and my Eve Online game with no hiccups. I did discover one thing about the ASUS P5Q Delux MB via googling for the Dominator settings. Seems default voltage is 1.7 and the ram voltage needs to be 2.1. The bios supposedly will not accept the 2.1 voltage unless you go change a pair of small jumpers on the MB. Never did before but did now. Wonder if that had anything to do with Memory going bad? At any rate, seems the rig is working.