Freezes, crashes, reboots on Asus M2A-VM HDMI sys

adarryl

Oye, Oye! Looking for a troubleshooting/repair game plan for my brother-in-law’s system. He is bringing it to me this weekend from 250 miles away. At 35, he is the epitome of the poster child for ADHD so I have done only “light” troubleshooting with him over the phone. I don’t have all his specs and as much as I want to know, I don’t dare let him get into the BIOS to check things for me. All I can do is tell you what I know and what I’ve tried to do with him over the phone to troubleshoot. So what I am looking for here is a game plan to follow once I get his system in my shop. His sys is a custom built AMD X2 4600 AM2 (2X512 mb) set up for him by “a friend.” He tells me this sys has not run right from the beginning and issues are only getting worse. As the title states, it is an Asus M2A-VM HDMI board with a 1-gig module of Patriot DDR2 6400. I believe it is this module: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220088

Motherboard is here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131174

He is using on-board video and sound, Lite-On DVD-ROM and CDRW, Sata HD, Win XP Home. The problems he is experiencing are random freezes, crashes and reboots that happen just after the sys boots up or even after an hour of continuous use. It apparently happens most often when he is editing photos, viewing mpegs or other graphic animations though it does happen out of the clear blue as well when doing nothing. He says it has done this when the screensaver kicks in and when the sys comes out of hibernation. Now from what I have read so far, this mobo is buggy and picky about RAM and seems to need a BIOS update to iron out some known issues along these lines. However, he also says the mobo driver CD isn’t recognized in either drive as he gets a “please insert disk,” prompt every time he tries.

Here’s what I had him do via the phone thus far:

1. Scan for spyware etc.—none found
2. Download and install latest chipset drivers: Beta vers. 8.411 for Win XP dated 12-10-07—problems remain
3. Run Memtest86+-- system froze during first pass at test 1 or 2 with 972 errors reported at that point; hard reset system at that point and abandoned the memtest

Now I intend to remove his RAM and replace with one of my Mushkin DDR2 modules: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820146118

I don’t know if it will be compatible but it’s all I have on-hand. I also intend to test his power supply and check his BIOS settings for the RAM as this board has a reputation for being snotty and may even be misconfigured. I have downloaded the latest BIOS for the board = 1603 which apparently addresses known issues that may be related to these problems. My biggest fear in this is getting to the point of trying to flash to the new BIOS only to have the sys freeze, crash or shutdown thus hosing the flash and the motherboard.

Any guidance welcome here! Thanks! I will report back once I get my hands on the sys and try a few more things that I couldn’t do over the phone.

adarryl

P.S. This sys is NOT used for gaming.

adarryl

Update: Can't get the computer in my hands due to bad weather/icy roads. For now, I am sending him known working RAM hoping that will resolve the matter. We'll see........

Leonardo

Good call. Testing with different RAM would be my first step. Hmm, considering that the system builder used one of those pathetic little VM format boards, I bet he cut costs with other components as well. (Let me guess: it has a tiny, flimsy, plastic case.) Wanna bet it's got a bottom-of-the-barrel, no-name, craptastic power supply? Lot's of custom builders use pathetic, generic, low quality power supplies in their builds. They cross their fingers, figuring the customer will not place high demands on the computer.

To be fair, it's a hard sell to many customers trying to convince them to install an expensive PSU when ComputerGooGoo down the road sells store brand PSUs for $35. When I purchased my first custom computer over a decade ago (build my own now, of course), it would have been a hard sell for the builder to convince me I needed a PSU at twice the price of the bargain at the local computer parts store.

adarryl

To close out this thread, I finally got my hands on this pc. Turns out the motherboard had incorrect settings for the RAM and thus the memtest errors. Apparently the Asus M2A-VM HDMI has difficulties auto-detecting RAM by SPD and setting timings and voltage correctly. I manually set both and it's running like a gem. Moral of the story: Friends don't let friends drive their PC's when ignorant. Next time brother-in-law has a PC project, I think he will phone me first!