Troubleshooting the New PCs

[Zebgora]

It was going to be so perfect, new PCs, clear crisp graphics to play WoW with. Then the trouble started. Kriojha posted this I quoted on another forum to ask for help. Its to do with our new PCs. We can't play WoW reliably because we're not sure if the motherboards we got can support the kind of video cards. He installed drivers for the video card, but when its off for any time, and then turned back on again, Windows over writes the driver, reverting it back and making the graphic intense game not work. And it can cause my system to crash.

Anyway, Zeb and I are having problems with our comps. I have 2 choices it seems. Send the motherboards back and get one that supports the video cards, or send the video cards back and get ones that are supported by the motherboards. What gets me is that when they run, they run fine for hours. I'll think I've got the problem solved and then, next reboot, BSOD.

Originally, I had thought it was the system BIOS so that was updated. Then downloaded the latest drivers from EVGA. Then XP System Restore overwriting the drivers, so that was disabled with no effect. Then onto the Nvidia website to get certified drivers. Yep, same problems.

The recipe for this disaster is as follows.

EVGA GeForce 9800 GTX SSC 512-P3-N877-AR

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0GHz LGA 775 65W

ASUS P5E3 PREMIUM/WIFI-AP @n

CORSAIR XMS3 DHX 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600

Not looking forward to tearing them down and rebuilding.... again. So if you have a suggestion that would prevent me sending something back, I'm all ears.

Essentially what Im saying is that again I may have to miss raids this upcoming week if we can't find a solution. Or if the solution is to return anything, then I'll still be out of the game until its rebuilt. Believe me I hate the notion of that but we're not sure what else we could do. I know it maybe hard to fully diagnose without knowing other info like BIOS setup or other but if it helps we can post that info if you need. Thank you.

[Nawt]

Only BSOD on reboot or randomly? Might check the PSU (Power supply Units) and make sure they are large enough to handle the load. I know I've had some pretty funky things happen when mine were going bad.

Required Power Supply: 450 Watt/550 Watt that is the minimum requirement for those cards.

Keep in mind, I am NOT a trained professional. Just a gal with a hobby and to much time on her hands. (Did I really say that? <Scratches the last comment> )

[Maube]

Wish I knew a lick about computers =(

[Martok]

This is why I take my computer to repair shops. I know nothing of this jibbidy jab stuff you speak of.

[Perthes]

Only BSOD on reboot or randomly? Might check the PSU (Power supply Units) and make sure they are large enough to handle the load. I know I've had some pretty funky things happen when mine were going bad.

Required Power Supply: 450 Watt/550 Watt that is the minimum requirement for those cards.

Keep in mind, I am NOT a trained professional. Just a gal with a hobby and to much time on her hands. (Did I really say that? <Scratches the last comment> )

Im for checking up with the PSU here as well.. As the computers these days requires LARGE amounts of power so if you have too small of a PSU then sure it might run fine for a while and when it starts to run hard so the PSU cannot keep up and can make random BSOD's..

But then again..

BSOD's are most of the time RAM problems. I have had a few bad RAM problems, i mean i could start windows fine and it would work for a few min / hours and then suddenly BSOD

ALSO when you are getting your (B)lue (S)creen (O)f (D)eathIf you could, get the stop code when the BSOD comes up.. stop code is a code that could say 0x12341234 (0x12301230 , 0x12301230 , 0x12301230 , 0x12301230) when the computer errors out to a BSOD and on the BSOD error code comes. From that code I could prolly figure out where to start looking.

If your problem is the RAM see if you could test your RAM on a computer that IS working fine to see if it is indeed the RAM. If its not the RAM then yeah it could be your PSU. But check the stop code first so we can figure out where to start looking.

[Nawt]

Good point on the Ram issue Perth, but the chances of it being bad ram in BOTH machines? I'm more inclined to think it's something else. Assuming they have identical ram modules, could it be a banking error? Working off the "Matched pairs" theory, perhaps they are not seated in the correct slots? Just tossing out some idears here.

Could always download and run MemTest: http://www.memtest.org

That would at least rule out or confirm one area.

[Huato]

I'd check the power supplies too. If anything in the system has a voltage drop it can cause blue screens, including the RAM (ok, ESPECIALLY the RAM - if it sees too much of a fluctuation it will cause all sorts of wonky stuff).

In this day and age, there is no reason that a particular video card and mother board combination shouldn't work.

Now the other question that hasn't been asked - is this just with WoW or other applications too? If you haven't already, grab something like one of the 3d benchmarking programs since they will heavily tax the system - you should have the same result if it is something hardware related.

Edit: I see that it is happening in Windows too, so scratch that comment above about other apps. Have you pulled the nVidia drivers from nVidia themselves to see if that helps?

Edited May 19, 2008 by Huato

[Zebgora]

Only BSOD on reboot or randomly?

Actually it doesnt always BSOD. I am able to force the application to end using task manager, sometimes but it seems to inevitably bog the system down making mouse click responses slow if at all, like partial lock ups. Once the newest drivers are installed or the system restore is disabled (or anything else he tries) and when the game finally runs ok, it runs alright, presumably indefinitly. But then when you shut down the PC the normal way, then power it up its like no changes were ever done.

Huato: Honestly right now WoW is the only game we have installed in these new PCs (Its all we play really) And everything we have in the PCs is brand new. Our RAM cards are Corsair XMS3 DHX 2GB (2 x 1GB) I presume a top of the line model. And the PSU units are actually a new 850W model. And to answer your last question I believe Kriojha has in fact pulled drivers from nVidia several times but that seems to only be a temporary fix

[Huato]

What brand is your PSU? Even though it says 850w, it may not be able to produce enough baseline wattage constantly. The 850w is usually a peak number that it can only sustain for a few seconds.