Help0r !!!

[Wij]

My new p00t4h is mysteriously rebooting during games. Some more than others. CoD2 I can barely play for 20 secs. Others (Prey, Painkiller) I can get half an hour.

It never crashes or throws an error. No BSOD. Just a complete, instant reboot. I've checked the box in XP to tell it to display BSODs but no joy.

It was running OK (limited testing though) before I took it to a LAN. When it got there the heatsink had got a bit dislodged so the CPU (Core2 6400) overheated within seconds of switching on and rebooted at about 100 degrees C. But that actually made the case speaker whinge at the threshold level (70) as you'd expect before the chip decided to shut down. A reseat of the hsf with some new grease seemed to solve the heat problem. The case speaker hasn't made a noise since. Also, immediately after the reset, going into BIOS shows CPU temp of about 50. So it doesn't seem likely that it's overheating any more. The case isn't even closed. I'm even running underclocked (l33t).

The gfx card (X1950 XTX) seems to be a little hot in idle (over 60 in 2d mode) but I've no way of seeing what it's getting to ingame. It's supposed to be a good cooler though. It's got plenty of airflow. If it can't run games then it's not much use is it. If the gfx card was the problem I'd expect to see some corruption before a reboot sometimes. Never seen any at all.

I'm on XP SP2, with just the security Windows updates. I'm running the Catalysts that came with the card as official ones still don't support X1950.

Gigabyte 965P-DS3
Core2 6400
2Gb Geil ULL 800MHz DDR2
Sapphire X1950 XTX 512

Help me Soapy-Wank, you're my only hope !

 

[inactionman]

Sounds like when the HSF got dislodged it may have caused some damage to the motherboard/case/cpu.

If XP isn't giving you a report it's certainly a hardware issue.

One Q, although your probably not going to silly enough to scrimp on this, you got a decent PSU?

You might want to run prime for a bit, see if that causes a crash.

 

[TdC]

finally ditched the old one eh? that's certainly a nice upgrade!

I'm a tiny bit inclined to scream "heat" though. The fans really are spinning on your diverse coolers aren't they? is the gfx crowded up against something?
Possibly you could take out every card and reseat it. Also, even though your c2 chip must have had a thermal cut-out, I'd take it out, clean off the paste, reapply and reseat the cpu and it's cooler. That way you're really sure it's not that.

Also the thought just occured to me: reseat your psu connections. Check the fans on the psu really are running. Iirc you will need a stable 30 amps on the 12V rail. Got that?

 

[Wij]

OK - point 1 - PSU

I've got this case and PSU.

 

[TdC]

any chance of testing with another psu?

 

[inactionman]

Nice case, a friend has that.

Yeah, reseating everything would be a good idea. But to discount the graphics card as an issue, download prime (http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft.htm) and get it to use both of your cores, for an hour or two (good stability test this). If this causes a crash, it's something to do with the cpu/general heat. If not, start looking at the cooling on the graphics card.

 

[Wij]

Nice case, a friend has that.

Yeah, reseating everything would be a good idea. But to discount the graphics card as an issue, download prime (http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft.htm) and get it to use both of your cores, for an hour or two (good stability test this). If this causes a crash, it's something to do with the cpu/general heat. If not, start looking at the cooling on the graphics card.

Cool - will try tonight...

 

[Trem]

We had this and it was a bios setting (we only use Gigabyte mobo's as well). *thinks what the setting was*................ go to BIOS > power management setup > disable PME event wake up.

May be something totally different but it give it a go.

 

[Wij]

We had this and it was a bios setting (we only use Gigabyte mobo's as well). *thinks what the setting was*................ go to BIOS > power management setup > disable PME event wake up.

May be something totally different but it give it a go.

Oooh - wtf does PME event wake up mean ?

(Is it to do with getting the fuck out of bed and to work to avoid a Pre-Menstrual-Earbashing on special weeks ?)

 

[Trem]

No bloody idea luv but it fixed a very similar problem to yours and it is only a problem on Gigabytes it seems.

You owe me a reach around if it works.

 

[TdC]

you can use that to send a "magic packet" networking thingy to your poota to power it on remotely. it's needs a network interface chip that supports it, amongst other things.

 

[Wij]

ok - Prime95 ran fine all night but PME disable didn't stop CoD2 crashing within 10 secs.

I'm gonna try memtest86 next but I'm not expecting any problems (memory is underclocked atm).

I'm thinking that it's either the gfx card or the power.

I'll try reconnecting all power cables first...

 

[Trem]

Did Prime95 run ok before you disabled PME event?

Why don't you download ATI tool and raise the fan speed on the card(if it has a fan).

 

[Wij]

Did Prime95 run ok before you disabled PME event?

Why don't you download ATI tool and raise the fan speed on the card(if it has a fan).

Never tried it before I disabled PME sorry.

I might give it a go. It's supposed to be automatic though. 60+ at near-idle seems high to me :/ Even so, I'd expect corruption, not instant reboot.

 

[Trem]

I would think the problem would be in this order -

1. Ram
2. Mobo
3. Heat
4. GFX
5. Wij jis.

 

[WPKenny]

Have you checked that all the fans are still spinning.

My mobo died on me recently and I'm not sure if it's related but when I took everything to bits and poked a few things I found that the PSU fan had stopped spinning. I gave it a nudge with a pencil and it started up again.

Have you checked the fan's spinning up ok on the graphics card?

 

[smurkin]

Aye, I like mem and psu. Particularly,psu - I recon the increase power consumption during your game is causing a freak out.

I'd be surprised if mem would cause a reboot withput some error popping up ----irc not equal to, etc.

hEAT? GPU, I'd expect artifacts first then the system hangs. CPU - could reboot, I suppose.

 

[Trem]

I have the same case and a fairly similar setup, i have a 7900 gainward gfx though. I am thinking the PSU is up to the job in these cases.

I have an Asus board as well.....not so similar now I think about it.

 

[Wij]

ok - memtest and prime all run fine - no errors.

I'm thinking power tbh - I'll try re-seating all connectors first...

 

[Moriath]

blow the dust out of the thing ..

I bet its heat

 

[Wij]

Well, I fitted a Zalman LED cooler which I had to remove the mobo and reseat a load of cables to fit. Now I'm running at 2.9 GHz (from 2.1) and under Dual Prime95 with the side of the case ON I max out at 60C. No more crashes in games. Running lovely.

Will try going a bit higher in a week or two

Core2 ftw \o/

 

[Tom]

My GPU is currently sitting at 56 C, so I wouldn't worry Wij. It has a Zalman flower fan thing on it.