constant shutdowns
Hi. I have a real poser for our resident experts.
The pc that I am currently running from is as follows;
DFI LP UT nF3 Ultra-D
Venice 3500+ s939
2X512 OCZ PC3500 Gold GX UTT BH-5
Sapphire X800 Pro 256Mb
Samsung 250 Sata
Ultra X-Finity 500
I purchased a 2nd hand 165 opty and installed it into that system after clearing the BIOS as per the DFI preferred method.
System ran fine for a couple of days then started to have hard shut downs. It was just like pulling the power from the wall. No blue screen, no warning beeps, just power off. I am able to boot up immediately after.
I installed the dual core optimiser with no improvement. The shut downs were at random times, either whilst surfing the web, or playing a game, idle or loaded. I upped the vcore slightly with no improvement. I moved the memory from orange slots to yellow slots, no change. Used one stick of memory in one slot at a time, then the same for the other stick, no change. Ran orthos for 10 hours with the cpu @ 2500 with no errors. Ran memtest on each stick of Ram with no errors.
CPU temps never went above 50C. Used another PSU (FSP 500) I have here with no change.
After two weeks of making subtle changes, there was no change so I put the 3500 back in. System running beautiful again
.
Now, I also had a DFI LP UT nF4 Ultra-D here that I had previously bought for my 2nd pc. All I was waiting on was a graphics card. I bought an XFX 7900GT EE and I was set to go.
I put the nF4 on a rubber base and connected a brand new WD 250 Caviar, the gfx card, one stick of the OCZ's, the 165 opty with a 9500 on it and the FSP 500 psu.
(Cleared the cmos first)
Booted up great. Installed XP and all windows updates etc. etc. etc.
Got everything where I wanted it and.............another rotten shutdown same as in the nF3 board
.
Now, this thing had a new HD, a different mobo and bios, a different gfx card, a different monitor, a different keyboard, a different mouse and it's doing the same thing.
I removed the OCZ and tried a stick of Gskill from my daughter's pc. No difference made.
So, by this time I'm thinking I got ripped off on the cpu. I go out and buy myself a 2nd hand 170 opty.
Cleared the cmos again and installed the opty.
Guess what? I get another shutdown.
One thing I can do to cause the shutdown deliberately is to run the memory latency test in Everest. Every time I try it I get the shut down. Both processors do this.
I can run the other two memory tests (read and write) ok.
I have tried 1T and 2T and loosened the timing, with no change to the shutdowns.
So, I am after a quick and cheap fix to this problem
. Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to try and cover everything.
The pc that I am currently running from is as follows;
DFI LP UT nF3 Ultra-D
Venice 3500+ s939
2X512 OCZ PC3500 Gold GX UTT BH-5
Sapphire X800 Pro 256Mb
Samsung 250 Sata
Ultra X-Finity 500
I purchased a 2nd hand 165 opty and installed it into that system after clearing the BIOS as per the DFI preferred method.
System ran fine for a couple of days then started to have hard shut downs. It was just like pulling the power from the wall. No blue screen, no warning beeps, just power off. I am able to boot up immediately after.
I installed the dual core optimiser with no improvement. The shut downs were at random times, either whilst surfing the web, or playing a game, idle or loaded. I upped the vcore slightly with no improvement. I moved the memory from orange slots to yellow slots, no change. Used one stick of memory in one slot at a time, then the same for the other stick, no change. Ran orthos for 10 hours with the cpu @ 2500 with no errors. Ran memtest on each stick of Ram with no errors.
CPU temps never went above 50C. Used another PSU (FSP 500) I have here with no change.
After two weeks of making subtle changes, there was no change so I put the 3500 back in. System running beautiful again
.Now, I also had a DFI LP UT nF4 Ultra-D here that I had previously bought for my 2nd pc. All I was waiting on was a graphics card. I bought an XFX 7900GT EE and I was set to go.
I put the nF4 on a rubber base and connected a brand new WD 250 Caviar, the gfx card, one stick of the OCZ's, the 165 opty with a 9500 on it and the FSP 500 psu.
(Cleared the cmos first)
Booted up great. Installed XP and all windows updates etc. etc. etc.
Got everything where I wanted it and.............another rotten shutdown same as in the nF3 board
.Now, this thing had a new HD, a different mobo and bios, a different gfx card, a different monitor, a different keyboard, a different mouse and it's doing the same thing.
I removed the OCZ and tried a stick of Gskill from my daughter's pc. No difference made.
So, by this time I'm thinking I got ripped off on the cpu. I go out and buy myself a 2nd hand 170 opty.
Cleared the cmos again and installed the opty.
Guess what? I get another shutdown.
One thing I can do to cause the shutdown deliberately is to run the memory latency test in Everest. Every time I try it I get the shut down. Both processors do this.
I can run the other two memory tests (read and write) ok.
I have tried 1T and 2T and loosened the timing, with no change to the shutdowns.
So, I am after a quick and cheap fix to this problem
. Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to try and cover everything. 0
Comments
My new PC build has done this twice now, and I'd like to figure out the cause so I can return suspect parts while I still can.
First time, I hit a key to bring maching back from stand-by. I heard it fire up (fan whirl, etc) but then it just died. I moved the PC to take a look and then it powered back up again.
Second time: I was playing LOTR:BFME2 for a while, stopped, check e-mail, then tried to open NVIDIA monitor and the power shut off copmletely.
No error messages upon restart of Windows.
I've heard: capacitors, PSU power, PSU over-heat, RAM, grounding, CPU fan connection...
WHAT IS MOST LIKELY TO BE THE ISSUE?
Thanks!
To Crunchie, Im not an expert but I would have thought that if you are having stability issues increasing the vcore is the worst thing to do. If your PSU is at fault then increasing the load on it will make the situation worse. Similarly if your CPU is over heating increasing the vcore will again make it worse.
With help, I eventually traced the problem to a little software tool that quite a lot of ppl use, CoreTemp. As soon as I shut it down, the problem went away. You would not credit it. All those hours of elimination of hardware....Not happy.
I contacted the author of CT and the tool has subsequently been updated and appears to be ok.
Crunchie; the problem you described sounds like my 2nd encounter. I've updated my nForce software since, so I'll wait and see... maybe my issue was Software also.
Is this a home build PC or bought pre built. If the later I would just send it back as faulty. If it is home built its more complicated.
Check the voltages on your Powersuply rails. Also get hold of coretemp and run it in the back ground. If you are having problems with the CPU over heating you will be able to see this from the log file.
Also get memtest86
http://www.ocztechnology.com/displaypage.php?name=ocz_memtest
look for the bootable floppy option. Copy the downloaded file on to a floppy and boot from it. This will then run through and test your memory.
These are the three most likely causes of your problem. Non of the above will fix it but it will at least get you looking in the right direction.
Another power-off occurred again when opening/running "nVIDIA Monitor". Not sure what the deal is with that, but I've now Un-Installed nTune. Plus, I'll avoid using "Monitor" if possible.
Have you got the latest drivers from the net for your graphics card?