Crashing problem...am I on the right track?

c0y0te

OK - so I've got a system with the following spec (which I got from Komplett and had built by a buddy):-

ASUS A7V333 Mobo
Chieftec ATX Case
1.8GHZ AMD Athlon XP
512MB DDR PC2700 RAM
2 x 80GB IDE HDD (Maxtor)
Creative TI 4400 128MB GFX Card
40X DVD
$0X/12X/40X Plextor CDRW
Creative Soundblaster Live! Player
Usual Keyboard/mouse/monitor stuff etc.
Win XP Pro - Latest patches of everything.

So - the symptoms I've experienced are irregular crashes / reboots. No error messages, just system decides to fall over and reboot. I thought this was something to do with the memory so I used MEMTEST86 - but no issues there.

I then suspected the sound card - but can't find any issues there. All drivers up to spec etc.

I don't know if the GFX card is causing any issues or not, most apps and games play fine, and then all of a sudden - whamo. crash and reboot time.

Lately I'm beginning to wonder if perhaps the PSU isn't up to the job. I can't remember what type/size of PSU is in the box, but I was wondering.... are the crashes symptoms of a PSU not being up to scratch?

Is there any way to tell if its good enough?


c0y0te

Dempsey

Im suspecting the PSU is not powerful enough. Find out what power rating it is and Manufacturer and you'll be told fairly quickly if its the PSU. What are your temperatures like? Idle and Load. Could be a thermal issue.

Tea drinker

Yeah, Dempsey is right on all the points.
Yeah could be the PSU allright, it's not that expensive for a good one these days.
I realise you have latest patches on XP but you might want to check all your driver versions
latest via 4in1 drivers:
http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=300

latest nvidia geforce drivers:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_2k_56.64

Check out creative for the latest drivers on the SB live.

If none of that works, and you have checked all Dempsey said, and you are pretty sure on your bios settings are good(might be worth getting later bios), then go buy yourself a nice PSU.
As regards the bios if you have any questions bang them up here I'll have a go at answering for you.

Cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrsssssssss

c0y0te

Short of opening the case and mucking around with everything again, is there any easy way to determine the PSU make/model/size?

c0y0te

BigEejit

usually nope

damnyanks

Hey I've been getting the same sorta prob. Figured it might be a dodgy HDD.

I've a AThlone 2500 barton, radeon 9600pro , 1024 ram. I got a green chieftec tower with the standard PSU. Should that be enough ?

Not sure what voltage it is.

Dun

Originally posted by c0y0te
1.8GHZ AMD Athlon XP

Is that not what you said your processor was?

Anyhow, you can use one of those system analysis tools, like Belarc Advisor (free - 594kb) to tell you more details about your setup.

Any idea if your power supply is up to handling everything? There was a handy link to a power supply calculator recently in the Technology forum if you do a search. If you open your case, the max. wattage should be visible on the PSU.

jabberwock

if was anything other than hardware winXP would probably tell you on the restart afaik.
does it tell you it unexpectedly stopped?
have a look for a dump file if it does.

defo sounds like a heating or power problem though.

.Aaron

c0y0te

OK....

Opened the hood and peeked inside ...

It seems I have a chieftec ATX12V 340W PSU (model HPC-340-201).

Is it worth considering replacing this?

c0y0te

kmb

Its the 5v value you need to check.Is it 30 or 35 watt?

also do you have a hardware monitor to check values in windows loaded?

marauder

You should have got probe software with your asus mobo. You can download it from asus http://france.asus.com/support/download/item.aspx?ModelName=Tools&Type=Latest

It will tell you the actual voltages on the supply lines

uberpixie

Your PSU is fine for the amount of stuff you are running. 340w SHOULD be enough.

Try switching the gfx card.

Had a similar problem to yourself. My system ran fine for the first few months after i built and then suddenly had random crashes every time I tried to play games.

After much hair pulling, reinstalls of os, testing with various spare parts, a house mate slagging me telling me i should have bought a dell! etc.. I tracked it down to the gfx card.

Was running 1800xp
A7V333 mobo
gainward GF4200 64mb
creative audigy 1
512mb samsung pc2700 cas 2.5

For god only knows what reason the card just decided to stop liking my computer 4/5 months in.

Had to replace it with a GF 2 pro 64mb I picked up in PC world for 40 euro ( now who said PC world are always a rip off :-) ) After that plain sailing, no more crashes.

The kicker is that the ****ing bastard of a GF4 now works perfectly in my Da's Dell box! Not one glitch, tried it on a similar Dell system belonging to a friend and it would crash like a bitch! WTF? :rolleyes:

In short GF4s can be a wee bit twitchy a just decide not to work when they should. Out of 3 other people I have come across with GF4s, 2 have had problems with crashes. Switch the GFX card, just might be the problem.

Hope that helps and best of luck with the hair pulling :-)

Michelangelo

Experiencing the same as yourself. Got a chieftec 360watt psu with my chieftec case. Ordered a Zalman 400 watt. Will tell you if it sorts anything out. Mind you I also ordered a radeon 9800 pro and a 160 gig hard disk so I guess I will not know for sure.Happens after an hour of a very heavy game like il 2 sturmovik.

Tea drinker

Hey Michaelangelo, can you contain yourself for a while when you get the new bits....... just to see if the Zalman PSU on it's own sorts your problems?

Would be good to know for future reference......

Cheers...

Dempsey

Originally posted by Michelangelo
Experiencing the same as yourself. Got a chieftec 360watt psu with my chieftec case. Ordered a Zalman 400 watt. Will tell you if it sorts anything out. Mind you I also ordered a radeon 9800 pro and a 160 gig hard disk so I guess I will not know for sure.Happens after an hour of a very heavy game like il 2 sturmovik.

Your problem sounds like a thermal one. Check your temperatures

Michelangelo

temperatures of what?

CPU and hardrives?

CPU is about 45 or so, hard drives about 30 or thereabouts. Sounds pretty normal. I may pick up a few system fans though as well. I do not have any.

Should I????

kmb

Okay...if your power supply is fine then it is a irq problem.Move s/card to new slot.
Do you have acpi on in your bios?(For irq sharing have it on but see below.....)

With some systems agp port shares irqs with a particular pci slot so moving card will sort it.
How many pci slots are full?

(Also acpi isnt fully compatiable and sometimes if you shut it off things go smoother but xp will throw a fit!!!!!)


anyway move pci slot s/card and take out any other cards and see what happens..

Wolfie

Originally posted by Dempsey
Your problem sounds like a thermal one. Check your temperatures

I agree.. I've experienced similar problems when my heat sink was not making full contact on the surface of the entire Athlon chip. A common problem with XPs. Also, a bit of thermal grease, or better will also help. Check to make sure the heatsink is on properly, covering your entire chip, and make sure the CPU fan is spinning.

Michelangelo

Originally posted by Wolfie
I agree.. I've experienced similar problems when my heat sink was not making full contact on the surface of the entire Athlon chip. A common problem with XPs. Also, a bit of thermal grease, or better will also help. Check to make sure the heatsink is on properly, covering your entire chip, and make sure the CPU fan is spinning.

Obviously my cpu fan is spinning otherwise it would have melted and gone on fire 6 months ago when I built the thing.

I think I need to get some fans to get some air moving inside the case.:dunno:

Mutant_Fruit

i can nearly guarentee you its not the ram, as if it was ram, windows would throw up blue screens.

If you've overclocked, try reducibng the overclock. Also, bump up voltage to your CPU by one notch. Restarts are frequentlyu causedf by not enouh voltage to the cpu. But maybe nit in your case.... but its worth a shot

Gerry

You need to check the voltages under load ok. See if there is much fluctuation. Also, try removing hardware bit by bit, and swapping out as much as possible to narrow it down.