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#1
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Many many errors...
In recent months, my system has become very unstable. at 1st, never a
problem, rock solid at any time. then maybe 2x a month I would get an occasional crash that a simple reboot would fix. then it came to be once or 2x a week (at this point I still had not changed any hardware, software or bios settings) and now crash-o-matic every stinking minute of every day! This has happened over a course of 4-6 months. Now I have changed out ALL parts EXCEPT the motherboard and cpu which these are the only parts I do not have to spare or test with. Seems like I mostly get memory errors such as MEMORY_MANAGEMENT BSOD's, such & such data could not be written/read at such & such memory address (address is different HEX every time), the referenced data pointed to an invalid memory location, other problems consist of corrupt files, registry corruption, IRQL BSOD's and other BSOD's that don't have a name or code. Even errors such as Internet explorer has caused a problem and needs to close, for no apparent reason. Its never ending now it seems. I have been told by several tech-savvy people that its the CPU as the memory controller is built onto the chips now adays however I'm not so sure. one strange thing is that if I remove 2 of my 4 stix of ram the system is completely stable. once I give it 4 stix of any ram the errors happen again. all I have are 512mb stix of ram and 1g is not enough to get me thru the day altho the past week I've had no choice but to run 1gb of ram. all memory used in this system tested with memtest86 and all passed with flying colors, even when tested on this system. something else that is odd to me, I will go through hours/days of continuous errors as mentioned above then all of the sudden the system will be fine and dandy for a few hours then out of the blue it starts again. this thing is driving me insane! Additionally the crashes happen from it being idle at the login screen to playing not such a high demanding game like WoW or even simpler games like solitaire. anyway, thanks for your time and thanks a ton for any info provided. Gigabyte GA-K8NS Ultra-939 AGP 8X nForce 3 based chipset (almost 3 yrs old) AMD 4800+ X2 dual core CPU, never overclocked and runs about 40C under heavy load. (1 yr old) Currently an ATi X800XT AIW AGP (tested 2 others, one nvidia and another ATi) 2.0 GB RAM OCZ plat. rev 2. (Also tested Rev 1 and some corsair value select) 2x western dig raptors 36gbx2 (also tested a single western dig 120gig and a Seagate 80. tried 2 different PSU, a 550W and currently a 600W have tried win xp pro 32 bit, win xp pro x64 edition, windows vista prem. x64 to no avail. currently running win xp pro 32 bit with all current drivers, still non stop crashes system resides in a mesh filtered case with plenty of fans and airflow and runs continuously ice cold. I tried to be as specific as possible but if I left anything out please feel free to ask. |
#2
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Many many errors...
"AnotherAnonymous" wrote in message t... In recent months, my system has become very unstable. at 1st, never a problem, rock solid at any time. then maybe 2x a month I would get an occasional crash that a simple reboot would fix. then it came to be once or 2x a week (at this point I still had not changed any hardware, software or bios settings) and now crash-o-matic every stinking minute of every day! This has happened over a course of 4-6 months. Now I have changed out ALL parts EXCEPT the motherboard and cpu which these are the only parts I do not have to spare or test with. Seems like I mostly get memory errors such as MEMORY_MANAGEMENT BSOD's, such & such data could not be written/read at such & such memory address (address is different HEX every time), the referenced data pointed to an invalid memory location, other problems consist of corrupt files, registry corruption, IRQL BSOD's and other BSOD's that don't have a name or code. Even errors such as Internet explorer has caused a problem and needs to close, for no apparent reason. Its never ending now it seems. I have been told by several tech-savvy people that its the CPU as the memory controller is built onto the chips now adays however I'm not so sure. one strange thing is that if I remove 2 of my 4 stix of ram the system is completely stable. once I give it 4 stix of any ram the errors happen again. all I have are 512mb stix of ram and 1g is not enough to get me thru the day altho the past week I've had no choice but to run 1gb of ram. all memory used in this system tested with memtest86 and all passed with flying colors, even when tested on this system. something else that is odd to me, I will go through hours/days of continuous errors as mentioned above then all of the sudden the system will be fine and dandy for a few hours then out of the blue it starts again. this thing is driving me insane! Additionally the crashes happen from it being idle at the login screen to playing not such a high demanding game like WoW or even simpler games like solitaire. anyway, thanks for your time and thanks a ton for any info provided. Gigabyte GA-K8NS Ultra-939 AGP 8X nForce 3 based chipset (almost 3 yrs old) AMD 4800+ X2 dual core CPU, never overclocked and runs about 40C under heavy load. (1 yr old) Currently an ATi X800XT AIW AGP (tested 2 others, one nvidia and another ATi) 2.0 GB RAM OCZ plat. rev 2. (Also tested Rev 1 and some corsair value select) 2x western dig raptors 36gbx2 (also tested a single western dig 120gig and a Seagate 80. tried 2 different PSU, a 550W and currently a 600W have tried win xp pro 32 bit, win xp pro x64 edition, windows vista prem. x64 to no avail. currently running win xp pro 32 bit with all current drivers, still non stop crashes system resides in a mesh filtered case with plenty of fans and airflow and runs continuously ice cold. I tried to be as specific as possible but if I left anything out please feel free to ask. Although it's always risky to answer a post such as this, what you describe is so nearly identical (board and all) to mine and how it behaved that I am pretty confident I am not sending you a bum steer. Mine did all this and when I finally established that, not only would it only run with one stick, but that it would only run with it in the second slot, I was confident enough I was dealing with bad electrolytic capacitors to ask for an RMA from GigaByte. My board was still under the three-year limit, though yours probably no longer is. They did repair it. In fact, when the board was returned to me, every single electrolytic cap on it had been replaced. (I can't imagine how much that cost them, but the board was out of production, and the CPU a problem in transferring to any new one). You might *try* getting them to accept responsibility for it, but unless you were able to show just how common that model board failure might be, I doubt you'd get very far. Next best is to hope that it's an *isolated* failure, best of all possible situations: an isolated leaking or bulging electrolytic. If you don't know what you're looking for, I'd suggest you Google for 'bad cap' which would be likely to bring some examples of the so common failure of motherboards and PSUs due to inadequate or poor-quality electrolytic capacitors. I don't have any good pictures right now, only one of a cap I removed from this machine I'm using right now, and it isn't clear enough in what you'd be looking for. If you don't recognize electrolytics, they look like tubes, standing upright with closed ends. The up-end is generally a flat aluminum disk, with, say, a cross pattern embossed in it, or, worse news, a three-spoke pattern, but other patterns as well. The cylindrical side is usually encased in a light plastic film sleeve, and the capacitor is mounted on the motherboard with two leads from the (should be flat)-bottom soldered into eyelets on the board, so that it just looks like an upright small can. Size varies widely, from half the height of an 'AAA' alkaline cell to the size of a 'D' cell, thinking in flashlight terms. Signs of trouble a bulging top or bottom (it should be flat); leakage (evident as an oily-looking liquid, or perhaps a dried-up bubbled residue). Sometimes they are split open. The one on this machine was split open, but the machine generally worked acceptably, so where the cap is means a lot as to how evident will be your trouble. Look around your memory slots to see if there's anything obvious. Or around your chipset. Even so, unless you are extremely handy with soldering and desoldering, you'll probably find that the cost of repair will exceed your valuation of the board and CPU, given the age of the pair and the performance of current equipment. Don't go to a big box store, many of which seem to be folding, anyhow. Choose some shop that makes its living repairing commercial electronic equipment and they'll give you the straight up and down on it. Sorry to not bring more positive news :-| Joe |
#3
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Many many errors...
"jt3" wrote in message
... Although it's always risky to answer a post such as this, what you describe is so nearly identical (board and all) to mine and how it behaved that I am pretty confident I am not sending you a bum steer. Mine did all this and when I finally established that, not only would it only run with one stick, but that it would only run with it in the second slot, I was confident enough I was dealing with bad electrolytic capacitors to ask for an RMA from GigaByte. My board was still under the three-year limit, though yours probably no longer is... Thanks for your reply. I am familiar with leaky caps and such (unlucky me, from past experiences). I have since removed the board and very carefully visually inspected it. Visibly, I can't see any signs of leaky caps, or obvious problems on the board although I do not have any testing equipment to test the components for any hidden issues. I did however call AMD today to start an RMA process on my chip since its probably the only piece of hardware that is still under warranty. I explained the situation to them and thoroughly described my setup to the technician. He then told me that due to a limitation with their chips, when running 4x stix of ram, their processors (or atleast the socket 939 versions) will automatically clock the memory down to 166/333MHz. I do recall noticing this happening in the bios when I installed my 4x stix of ram when I 1st built my pc nearly 3 yrs ago so I manually set the memory to 200/400MHz then and it has been that way since day one and running without a hitch. What I (nor he, the tech) don't understand is why now, all of the sudden this would happen. I told him I had hard-set the mem to 400 and he said to set it to 333 or auto. Well I have done this (as much as I hated to) and so far it seems completely stable again. its been running prime95 now for about 2 hrs with no errors while prime95 caused BSOD's the second it was started prior to this. He still accepted my RMA and offered to replace the cpu. I may give it some time, or go ahead and replace the chip while I still can before I start throwing $ around. Thanks alot for your reply, I had not thought about checking for caps prior. hopefully theres no hidden probs with them. |
#4
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Many many errors...
Here's what bad 'caps' look like-:
http://home.earthlink.net/~doniteli/index27.htm here's a couple of links that 'may prove interesting.... apparently some bad caps was due to industrial espionage....! http://www.niccomp.com/taiwanlowesr.htm and http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,939887,00.asp The ones affected are certain ones from Taiwan only.... the Japanese ones are ok. I had a couple bulge in my GA7VA rev 1 mobo which I changed, in my case it did not affect it's operation, the rev 2 mobo's used superior ones. I can't say for your's as is a different mobo from mine. I never like the look of bulging caps, they can leak gunge which can be corrosive and eat the copper tracks away.... mine didn't leak, might have done if I had left them in though. Some Gigabyte mobos I understand could be unstable when running near maximum with certain brands of RAM, wonder if thats worth checking..? Davy |
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