Computer problems

[Brother Oni]

I've been having some computer problems recently and I was wondering if anybody could point me towards a more suitable forum that could help (unless somebody here is willing to help :smalltongue:).

I've tried http://www.sevenforums.com, but I only got one reply, which didn't fix the issue.

[dehro]

I've been having some computer problems recently and I was wondering if anybody could point me towards a more suitable forum that could help (unless somebody here is willing to help :smalltongue:).

I've tried http://www.sevenforums.com, but I only got one reply, which didn't fix the issue.

since I understand it's about microsoft's latest wunderkind with which I have no experience at all...I cannot help you...but it would help your case if you gave an outline of what the problem is... as I'm pretty sure there are several forums dedicated to several different problems or level of complexity...

[Dispozition]

What's your problem? I know we have a few tech support dudes on the forum, and I'm pretty handy with troubleshotting Win7...I've done it often enough so far...

[Brother Oni]

Sure, if you think it's suitable for here.

Current build:
Windows 7 64bit Home Premium (from a retail box)
AMD Phenom II X4 955 processor
Asus M4A75TD-EVO motherboard
Corsair PC3-10666 1333MHz 2GB DDR3 RAM stick
Western Digitial 500GB SATAII WD5000AAKS hard drive
Corsair 850W HX Modular PSU
Pioneer DVR-110 DVD-R drive (connected through IDE)

I'm trying to install Windows 7 64bit Home Premium to a new build, however the installation keeps on locking up or crashing at random points during the installation process, for example during the finalisation step or during the expanding files step. This is to a brand new hard drive, not an upgrade.

I've tested each component step by step, so I don't believe it's a installation issue (none of the components are currently in the case anyway, so it's not grounding out against that).

I've tried the SATA configuration with AHCI and IDE, disabled Cool n' Quiet and updated the BIOS. Other than those changes, the BIOS settings are default, so nothing's overclocked as far as I know. I've scanned the hard drive for faults with my old computer and checked the RAM with memtest (6 passes), and they're fine. The monitor is connected to onboard graphics with a VGA cable.

It's not a heat issue as the processor reported between 38-42C for over an hour. There were no crashes for this period in BIOS either.

I've since tried using my old computer with the new hard drive and installing windows 7 that way, which works (so the DVD is fine as well). However, when I transplant the hard drive back, it boots into windows, picks up the new motherboard, installs the different components, then starts freezing at random after reset (requiring a hard boot).

I suspect the motherboard is faulty, possibly something to do with a hard driver controller, but I'm not sure whether it's a physical fault or a driver fault.
A driver fault would be my issue, thus I can't return it for a refund, while a physical fault I can.

Anybody have any ideas?

[Dispozition]

Fault could lie in your SATA cable, I know I've had that problem. Also check to make sure *all* your connections, especially power ones, are in properly, same with RAM. I had trouble like this a while back and my RAM being slightly popped out was the culprit in the end. I've also had SATA cable problems in the past. Fault may lie in the Mobo, but I've generally found that installing an OS on one computer than transplanting doesn't work out too well (almost made me lose around 1tb of files as well as causing me to need to reinstall about three times).

More than that, I can't say. If you give it a day or so I imagine some of the techies will post giving better advice. I'm just a guy who's built a few computers and keeps them working himself, they do it for a living.

[Brother Oni]

If it were fault in the SATA cable, would it have been picked up when I installed to my old computer? Unless the fault was SATA II specific and the lower data transfer rate of SATA I didn't trip it.

I've tripled checked the connections (I've had this problem before) and I've replugged all the connectors multiple times in various attempts to get it working.

I'm entirely self taught as well with regard to computers (been messing about with them since '95/'96), so I have more of a 'this plugs into here' and 'that setting you can change somewhere in Control Panel' understanding towards how computers work.

I really hope I can get this fixed soon - I've got a ATI 5770 sitting forlornly on the side. I finally want to be able to play a recent game without turning everything down to minimum as a reflex action. :smallsigh:

[Dispozition]

If it were fault in the SATA cable, would it have been picked up when I installed to my old computer? Unless the fault was SATA II specific and the lower data transfer rate of SATA I didn't trip it.

Good stuff. I normally used different sata cables for ease of moving so I thought you may have done the same. Clearly not, so all good on that front.


I've tripled checked the connections (I've had this problem before) and I've replugged all the connectors multiple times in various attempts to get it working.

Once again, good stuff. One more thing to check off I suppose.


I'm entirely self taught as well with regard to computers (been messing about with them since '95/'96), so I have more of a 'this plugs into here' and 'that setting you can change somewhere in Control Panel' understanding towards how computers work.

Exactly the same with me, only with more years under your belt (I was only 4/5 when you started D:).


I really hope I can get this fixed soon - I've got a ATI 5770 sitting forlornly on the side. I finally want to be able to play a recent game without turning everything down to minimum as a reflex action. :smallsigh:

:O
Can I steal it while your computer isn't working? I want to get rid of the 2900XT (so loud) that's in my home theatre pc and replace it with the 4770 I have in my gaming comp and put something that's actually up to modern gaming in there.

[Erloas]

It sounds like a stability issue to me.

Without having the system under load (which will be the case if you looking at temperatures in the BIOS) you can't tell what the temperatures might get up to. Is it possible you don't have the heatsink set well? Is the fan on auto-control, where you could hear it spin up if the processor gets hot? The temperatures look a little high to me for idle, but it depends on the ambient temperature as well and I don't know the Phenom's heat levels normally.

Installing the OS on another computer won't work unless that computer is almost identical. A lot of the low level system drivers change from one motherboard to the next even if they are the same basic chipset, so the install from one system isn't going to work on another.

The memtest you did with the current system right? Not the RAM in another system? Some of the performance RAM requires a higher voltage then stock and not all motherboards will default to the right voltage for that RAM.

I guess one other option would be to pick one of the various Linux distros that will boot from a thumb drive or CD without installing on the HD. Check your temperatures under load and run a few stability checks there first.

[Brother Oni]

It sounds like a stability issue to me.

Without having the system under load (which will be the case if you looking at temperatures in the BIOS) you can't tell what the temperatures might get up to. Is it possible you don't have the heatsink set well? Is the fan on auto-control, where you could hear it spin up if the processor gets hot? The temperatures look a little high to me for idle, but it depends on the ambient temperature as well and I don't know the Phenom's heat levels normally.


The fan is off auto control (I've heard it causes problems with Phenoms), so it's spinning at full speed from the get go. The Asus Q-fan thingamajig is also disabled.

It's possible that I haven't seated the heatsink well, but it appears to be cemented to the processor - I was trying to take the heat sink off before unlocking the processor and taking that off and I ended up pulling the entire thing out of the motherboard. Luckily, it appears none of the pins are damaged, but I haven't tested the processor since.

I'm in the UK, so ambient temperatures are high teens/low 20s but I thought those temperatures would be suitable for an air cooled processor at idle? Google seems to think those are about right for a Phenom.

Unfortunately, I can't get an OS up and running to stress the processor unless you know of a program that works from bootup.



Installing the OS on another computer won't work unless that computer is almost identical. A lot of the low level system drivers change from one motherboard to the next even if they are the same basic chipset, so the install from one system isn't going to work on another.

Well the only reply I got on the forum was whether the DVD was working and that was the only method I could think of to test it. I'm glad I had the foresight (ie a complete fluke) to buy a 64bit processor and motherboard for my current machine.



The memtest you did with the current system right? Not the RAM in another system? Some of the performance RAM requires a higher voltage then stock and not all motherboards will default to the right voltage for that RAM.


I did the RAM test with the setup listed above with a bootable memtest from CD.
According to the Corsair website: "This memory has been verified to operate at 1333MHz at low latencies of 9-9-9-24".
I have difficulty converting this statement into the BIOS options I have available - is there anywhere I can read up on this?



I guess one other option would be to pick one of the various Linux distros that will boot from a thumb drive or CD without installing on the HD. Check your temperatures under load and run a few stability checks there first.

Unfortunately I have absolutely no experience of linux. Could you suggest a starting point and some diagnostic programs? I'm guessing something like everest, but I'm failing to find a linux version.

[Erloas]

The fan is off auto control (I've heard it causes problems with Phenoms), so it's spinning at full speed from the get go. The Asus Q-fan thingamajig is also disabled.
You might try turning it back to auto-control and see what it does. If the processor is getting too hot during installation it will speed up the fan and you should be able to hear that clearly enough since you can't monitor the temp directly. If it causes problems I would assume it would be when under long term heavy load, which you don't really have to worry about until you get the system running.


It's possible that I haven't seated the heatsink well, but it appears to be cemented to the processor - I was trying to take the heat sink off before unlocking the processor and taking that off and I ended up pulling the entire thing out of the motherboard. Luckily, it appears none of the pins are damaged, but I haven't tested the processor since.
They can be a bit hard to remove with the thermal paste, not sure what sort of room you have around the processor, but twisting the heatsink as you lift it should release the paste, but I don't know if you have that much room. I'll have to look at my brother's system when I get home (he has a Phenom) and see what it looks like.


I'm in the UK, so ambient temperatures are high teens/low 20s but I thought those temperatures would be suitable for an air cooled processor at idle? Google seems to think those are about right for a Phenom. I read a few quick things on the temperature and seen from 20s to 30s listed, but not enough information to draw and great conclusions. One I found said the 965 was about 5-6C over ambient at idle. I can check on my brother's Phenom when I get home, see what it sits at at idle.


I'm glad I had the foresight (ie a complete fluke) to buy a 64bit processor and motherboard for my current machine. You would have a hard time finding a computer that wasn't set up for 64bit any more. Which is why so many enthusiasts wonder why MS even gives the choice any more.


According to the Corsair website: "This memory has been verified to operate at 1333MHz at low latencies of 9-9-9-24".
I have difficulty converting this statement into the BIOS options I have available - is there anywhere I can read up on this? Some BIOS hide that information by default and you have to enable it to be shown (ctrl+i maybe? I forget now) The Corsair website should also have the default voltage for the RAM, see if it is what your computer is set at. Though I wouldn't guess thats the problem (and it eliminates quite a few motherboard possibilities) if you've been able to pass a few long memtest runs.



Unfortunately I have absolutely no experience of linux. Could you suggest a starting point and some diagnostic programs? I'm guessing something like everest, but I'm failing to find a linux version.I'm not sure of any off-hand either. You would have to look for them. Though the Memtest is one such, it boots into a very basic Linux kernal to run the test. I've also seen some for hard drives. I would think they probably have them for CPU and/or GPU stress testing as well, but I don't know them.

A little old, but a quick search came up with this where someone lists a few programs to do that.http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080130082037AAWJnj1
Here is something else http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=486495

[Brother Oni]

You would have a hard time finding a computer that wasn't set up for 64bit any more. Which is why so many enthusiasts wonder why MS even gives the choice any more.


My current machine is running an Athlon 64 and a ECS RX480 motherboard - it's well over 4 years old, when 64bit computing was still a high end enthusiast only activity.



A little old, but a quick search came up with this where someone lists a few programs to do that.http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080130082037AAWJnj1
Here is something else http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=486495

Thanks for the links - I'll give them a try tomorrow.
I'm taking the night off tonight as I've been at this since Friday and I wanted to give my scalp a rest from all the hair pulling.

[The Valiant Turtle]

I had a similar experience to yours and the culprit was one of the things I least expected: My DVD drive. I didn't catch on until I tried copying the entire contents of the Win7 DVD to my hard drive to use the USB-install tool from MS. I also had occasional problems when I tried other DVDs. I swapped the drive and Win7 Installed without any problems at all. I found it very odd. Both the original and replacement DVD drives were IDE.

To answer your original request for another forum I'd recommend the forums at www.arstechnica.com. It's one of my favorite tech sites and it has a dedicated MS forum.

This link should get you straight to the MS forum, but you'll have to register of course: http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewforum.php?f=15

[Brother Oni]

I had a similar experience to yours and the culprit was one of the things I least expected: My DVD drive.

I've only got 1 DVD drive and I've already used it to install to my old machine, so I know that's fine.

I suspect that Erloas' suggestion of a stability issue to be right on the money as the crash points are variable. This would indicate a processor fault as looking on various websites about the motherboard shows it has very little issues with installing Windows (it should install straight out of the box, never mind with a BIOS update).
Given that the processor still works under idle, but not under possible load, stress testing it would be the next logical step.

One question though - if it turns out that I've incorrectly seated the heatsink, do I need to clean the processor and re-apply fresh thermal paste? Are there any particular brands that people reccomend?



To answer your original request for another forum I'd recommend the forums at www.arstechnica.com. It's one of my favorite tech sites and it has a dedicated MS forum.


Thanks for the link. If I reach a dead end here, I'll give them a shot.

[Erloas]

If the thermal paste is still in pretty good shape you should be fine. Which is generally the case when it is still fresh, if it had been a few months worth of heating then I would change it for sure.

You might get some more anyway just to be sure, it is fairly cheap. Arctic Silver used to be the option of choice, I don't know if that has changed much lately.

[Brother Oni]

Right, I've reseated the processor and heatsink and everythng still works.

I've tried DSL but as far as I can tell, the distro doesn't have a driver for my onboard LAN adaptor and the only network card I have lying around is an ISA one.
Somehow I don't think that'll be compatible... :smalltongue:

UBCD I had more luck with. Mersenne prime starts up 4 instances of the test for each core, does a test each, then appears to hang. Is this normal behaviour or a fail? I'm finding plenty of information about how the program is good for stress testing CPUs, but nothing about what it looks like while it's running.

Edit: Half an hour and it still hasn't completed the first test. Various google searches suggest that it only takes a few minutes to do that, so I think I can safely say the processor's unstable under load.
Replace the thermal paste next or just start the returns procedure?

[Erloas]

When the program hangs does it kill the whole computer or just the stress testing program? Either way though I think it shows some sort of hardware problem.
If it is happening at a consistent time on the test then its probably not heat. Might be worth finding a second similar program and see what it does. I know the windows based one I used (forget which one now) it showed errors if they came up.

With the RAM test out of the way, and with this program running from memory rather then from the HD (I'm assuming? I haven't used it myself) that pretty much leaves the motherboard and processor. There is a chance of a power supply problem too, but I would not think that too likely (since it is a Corsair with plenty of power). Was there any way to track the processor temperature when you were running the test?

I would probably suspect the motherboard before the processor. Though there isn't a real easy way of figuring out one or the other without have a spare of either. Usually processors go through a more thorough testing process then the motherboards and there are a lot more minor things to go wrong with a motherboard.

And just to make sure, you are positive you have the extra 4/8 pin CPU power hooked up?

[Brother Oni]

When the program hangs does it kill the whole computer or just the stress testing program? Either way though I think it shows some sort of hardware problem.
If it is happening at a consistent time on the test then its probably not heat. Might be worth finding a second similar program and see what it does. I know the windows based one I used (forget which one now) it showed errors if they came up.


It happens after it starts up the 4 instances of 'running 4000 iterations of ...', so it's hanging in the exact same place every time.
I can't cancel any of the tests or switch sessions and as it's a bootable program, it appears to kill the whole computer.

I'll try finding another bootable cpu test, but most of them seem to be for x86 processors rather than x64.



With the RAM test out of the way, and with this program running from memory rather then from the HD (I'm assuming? I haven't used it myself) that pretty much leaves the motherboard and processor. There is a chance of a power supply problem too, but I would not think that too likely (since it is a Corsair with plenty of power). Was there any way to track the processor temperature when you were running the test?


It's running from memory and I've tested the psu on my other computer (it's got more cards and drives than the test one so should pull an approximately equal amount of power despite being only a single core).

I can't find a bootable program which can track CPU temperatures - they all seem to only work from within Windows. I'll try finding a Linux stress tester which doesn't use the console as I making sense of the command structure is a little tricky (I only have a passing knowledge of DOS and I've seen UNIX once).



I would probably suspect the motherboard before the processor. Though there isn't a real easy way of figuring out one or the other without have a spare of either.

I agree, but unfortunately none of the local computer shops have an AM3 motherboard which support DDR3 and I can't afford another AM3 CPU until after payday later this month.



And just to make sure, you are positive you have the extra 4/8 pin CPU power hooked up?

Yup, unlike most blokes, I can follow instructions in a manual. :smalltongue:
The PSU had me puzzled for a while as it came with a 8 pin CPU plug, but it splits in half to make two 4-pin plugs, one of which fit into the motherboard's 4 pin socket.

[Brother Oni]

I've found a bootable version of linux with a pre-installed version of everest on it. Everest reports the CPU and ram as fine, but the cache appears to be knackered as stress testing that either crashes the computer or everest stops the test, reporting a fault with it.

I understand the cache is part of the processor, so it's a processor fault?

[Erloas]

I'll try finding another bootable cpu test, but most of them seem to be for x86 processors rather than x64.
x86 is the basic instruction set for the processor, x64 is the size of the registers and interface. Every PC is an x86 processor and every processor in the last 3-4 years (at least) is a x64 processor as well.


I understand the cache is part of the processor, so it's a processor fault? That is correct, there are 3 levels of cache in the processor, its like RAM only smaller and internal to the processor. I'm not sure if the motherboard could possibly have an impact on that or not, I'm also not really sure how the program could determine that exactly, but I guess they have a way.

[Zeb The Troll]

x86 is the basic instruction set for the processor, x64 is the size of the registers and interface. Every PC is an x86 processor and every processor in the last 3-4 years (at least) is a x64 processor as well.While technically true, the industry shorthand is that x86 is 32-bit while x64 is 64-bit. When I download software from TechNet, I have to choose x86 or x64 for everything from Windows to Office to IE.

[Brother Oni]

RMA request filed for a direct replacement, here's hoping that the new one works and it wasn't me being stupid somewhere during installation/testing :smallsigh:.

[Brother Oni]

RMA request approved, fault with processor confirmed.

New processor should be delivered some time next week - thanks for the help everyone. :smallbiggrin:

[Brother Oni]

After another week of wrestling with my machine and another new motherboard, I've discovered it wasn't the processor.

Apparently performance Corsair RAM chips need more than 1.5V - I upped it to about 1.71 and everything works fine. I guess the Auto setting doesn't supply them with enough power.
Odd that Memtest didn't pick this up, but I guess it doesn't stress the RAM in the same way that trying to install windows does.

Anybody want to buy a slightly used motherboard? :smallsigh:

[Dispozition]

After another week of wrestling with my machine and another new motherboard, I've discovered it wasn't the processor.

Apparently performance Corsair RAM chips need more than 1.5V - I upped it to about 1.71 and everything works fine. I guess the Auto setting doesn't supply them with enough power.
Odd that Memtest didn't pick this up, but I guess it doesn't stress the RAM in the same way that trying to install windows does.

Anybody want to buy a slightly used motherboard? :smallsigh:

What chipset and brand?

[Brother Oni]

It's listed above: Asus M4A78TD-V EVO (http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=fcsXWSxnhzZE9rnR&templete=2).

I'm not sure whether the postage to Australia would make it worthwhile for either of us though as I'm in the UK. :smalltongue:

[Dispozition]

It's listed above: Asus M4A78TD-V EVO (http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=fcsXWSxnhzZE9rnR&templete=2).

I'm not sure whether the postage to Australia would make it worthwhile for either of us though as I'm in the UK. :smalltongue:

True, plus it's DDR3 so I don't want it for my silly build anyway :P

Postage rom the UK can be cheap...I've got some things posted over here for next to nothing.

[KoboldRevenge]

I've got a feeling that all the problems are the same:smalleek: