What PSU?

[Gray]

Right, bonjour... Ive got this problem at the moment which ive narrowed down to 2 things, the Power Supply, and my memory.

I did manage to fix, as i say the problem which was hampering me in the other thread, but shortly after a new problem cropped up, was getting BSoD's again, this time with the error message "IRQ_LESS_THAN_EQUAL".

I did Googling, and found it was one of many things, all relating to hardware. That wasnt a help at all, as it could mean any part of the computer was having problems.

Anyway, few days ago i got so tired of it, because i thought the problem was because maybe the computer needed a nice clean format. I did that, and heyho! Everything was fine, until i installed all my drivers, then *bam* got hit with a BSoD again.

I knew the problem for this, so i changed the IDE/ATA drivers, that problem was sorted, then come the problem which forced me to format in the first place.

This then brought me to the conclusion that the problem now that it was a definate hardware fault again, and as it was a clean install, the problem was recurrent.

At this point, i again suspected my hard drive as being the problem, but the Drive Fitness Test stated everything was fine. I relised the problem only happened after installing the drivers for my Motherboard (MAINLY the IDE Channel drivers). I asked, and found that the drivers i had were really old, i downloaded the new Abit drivers, which had the IDE Channel stuff on, and my PC failed to boot.

Shite, i got into Safe Mode successfully, and i changed the drivers back to default, problem solved, well, i could load up Windows anyway.

I then decided it MAY be a BIOS problem, so, i updated my BIOS, but again, the problems come back. The Hard Drive was no longer on my list of suspected faults, so i took to maybe the Memory being a bit dodgy.

I changed the Settings of my memory from 8-3-3-3.0 to 11-3-3-3.0, and again the problems kicked in once again. This was starting to become an issue and i was getting pissed off that i couldnt find the fault.

Then, i relised with some more conversing, that *maybe* just *maybe* my PSU couldnt handle the load on it, and just crapped out. It did make sense, when i was doing searches for this error message, it did say most of the problems did relate to the PSU.

So im thinking whether or not to maybe upgrade that as well, see if the problem is sorted, but its a lot of money to be throwing away especially if it doesnt sort the problem out.

Current Spec (again):

Abit NF7-S v2.0
IBM Deskstar IC35l040avva07-0 (40gb / Primary)
Maxtor 6 Y120L0 (120gb / Secondary)
2* 512mb Kington 3200 DDR Memory (Kingston kvr400x64c3a/512)
AMD Athlon 3200+ (Not Overclocked)
BFG Geforce 6800GT (Not overclocked)
Windows XP Service Cack 2
Sky Hawk SH400A8H / 400 watts

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On a Side Note, after i updated my BIOS, i started getting a message on POST Boot saying "primary ide channel cable no 80 conductor installed" i cant figure out where the problem is coming from and why, ive checked Google to no avail :/

---

So anyway, does anyone recommend a PSU which should handle this system above no problem? Or do you think the problem is elsewhere?

PS// I run Drive Fitness Test and MemTest but no faults where reported

 

[Tom]

Gray, just add together the power consumption of each device, and buy a Zalman PSU to suit. I find it hard to believe that a 400W PSU won't power your computer, I survived for years with much more than that on a 300W PSU.

Personally I reckon either of these will do the job:

http://www.quietpc.com/uk/psu.php#zalman

Oh, and make sure you have an 80 pin cable and not a 40 pin cable, because they look the same but aren't.

 

[Xavier]

Have you checked ACPI? Open Device Manager, look under resources by type and check if any of your devices are sharing IRQs, that message can mean some critical components are sharing interrupts, OR that ACPI has crapped out and they're all on a single IRQ.

Xav

 

[smurkin]

Gray, just add together the power consumption of each device, and buy a Zalman PSU to suit. I find it hard to believe that a 400W PSU won't power your computer, I survived for years with much more than that on a 300W PSU.

Personally I reckon either of these will do the job:

http://www.quietpc.com/uk/psu.php#zalman

Oh, and make sure you have an 80 pin cable and not a 40 pin cable, because they look the same but aren't.

I dont think its that simple Tom, true if you exceed the total wattage...thats bad.

But there are three voltages provided by the psu for different classes of device....if you exceed your quota for just one of those voltages (ie you have say 32 hard drives all requiring x volts)...you go tits up.

 

[Jonty]

Hi guys

If you really want to calculate your power needs, try reading the Firingsquad's PSU guide. If you bear with the calculations, it can be quite helpful. There was some talk of PSUs and the like recently in Teren's case thread.

Kind Regards

 

[Danya]

Memory often draws on the 3.3 rail instead of 5V (but generally it's 12V you struggle for in any event) as noted in the firing squad guide but other than that it seems right on the money.

 

[Clown]

It's not always about how much power you have, its the quality of it. My 380w PSU runs all my crap fine.

 

[Gray]

Checked the IRQ bit...

(ISA) 0 System Timer
(ISA) 1 Standard 101/102 Keyboard or Microsoft Natural Keyboard
(ISA) 3 Communications Port (COM2)
(ISA) 4 Communications Port (COM1)
(ISA) 6 Standard Floppy Controller
(ISA) 8 System CMOS/Real Time Clock
(ISA) 9 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System
(ISA) 13 Numeric Data Processor
(PCI) 5 NVIDIA(R) nForce(TM) MCP Audio Processing Unit
(PCI) 5 Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller
(PCI) 5 Standard OpenHCD USB Controller
(PCI) 10 NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT
(PCI) 10 Standard Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller
(PCI) 11 NVIDIA nForce Networking Controller
(PCI) 11 NVIDIA nForce PCI System Management
(PCI) 11 OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Controller
(PCI) 12 NVIDIA(R) nForce(TM) Audio Codec Interface
(PCI) 12 Standard OpenHCD USB Hub Controller


Thats the lot

Im mainly looking at IRQ 5, that Dual Channel Controller as well as the Audio... Hmmm

 

[Gray]

Took out one stick of memory (From DIMM3) leaving DIMM1 present.

problem still occurs :/

 

[tris-]

you can get a 400w for cheap. you dont need anything great unless you are going for silence. i run a A64 3000+, ATi9800pro, 1GB of corsair ram, 2 hard drives and 2 dvd drives. i am using a 350W psu that came with my case. never had a power issue in over a year.

 

[old.user4556]

Just to chip in on the PSU issue, i've used a 300w Aopen PSU and a 350w Enermax without issue on my two systems.

Too much pseudo-fear over PSUs. Jonty's recommended thread is a good read.

 

[Gray]

Hmmm, its only clicked just now again...

The problem seems to be happening on average after about playing one map cycle in Counterstrike, so say 30mins of play. While playing the game will either:

1) Just reset out of the blue and load up normally (Giving the error message in this thread)

or

2) The game will lock up for say, 5-10 seconds, in a sound loop, and crash to desktop, im then able to resume playing the game as normal until it crashes again

Now, it DOES happen when im doing other things as well, playing MP3's, or general browsing of websites *BUT* because i do play Counterstrike a bit, i can only see it happening consistantly while in game.

Could it possibly be leading again, back to the PSU, not giving enough power to the Graphics Card causing it to crash? Hmm... But as i say, ive tried it with out one stick of memory, and the PC did crash after i reinstalled my XP SP2

Hmmm

 

[Ch3tan]

Have you actually tried any different sticks of ram? Or different slots?

 

[Gray]

Only have these 2 sticks.

I tried with 2 sticks - DIMM1 and DIMM3 (Dual Channel)
and then
DIMM1 one its own

Still feel for some reason it maybe pointing in the direction of the PSU for some odd reason hrmm

 

[Ch3tan]

Well didnt you say on irc that memtest and prime95 were failing for you?

 

[Gray]

MemTest came back all clean no problems

I did an hour of Prime95 last night which didnt have any problems, but i left it running on the more intense one during the night and my system crashed... Dont know at what stage it crashed tho

 

[Gray]

k i think ive fixed it

I cleared the CMOS on the motherboard, then i went into the BIOS, set it to Fail-Saf defaults then Optimised Defaults, and then changed my memory settings to 11-3-3-3.0 again.

After about ohhh an hour and half or so everything was somewhat back to normal, no game crashes, no juddering and no BSoDs.

Bonus

 

[Gray]

Just a bit of a bump

:s

Been having the problems loads again, and again for days on end looking at what the problem of system crashes might be.

In any Half Life Games, after a certain amount of time the map im on will just crash to desktop doing a small sound loop in the process.

I checked Steam Forums, and Google, which stated that the drivers from Nvidia for the NForce Mobo's maybe the cause, ie, a sound issue. I downloaded (I THINK) the latest drivers, but it wasnt very clear on the website what was the actual drivers, so i ended up fucking up my sound good style, had to reinstall drivers from CD :/.. Then updated the right drivers, which didnt help.

I then checked some more, and the option in the BIOS called "Fast Write" may have been the cause, so i went into the BIOS and disabled it, but found that it still didnt help the cause (Altho at this moment, im not getting any BSoD... Just crashes to desktop)

I heard on some cards (May just be ATi tho) that there is an option in Windows itself with the drivers which may also need to be disabled, but i dont know if the same case is for Nvidia ones as well? Is it?

Also just now, incase there isnt, i turned off the Hardware Acceleration in dxdiag on my Sound, will try it later after work to see whether its been fixed or not.. But just wanna know about this Fast Write (For the moment anyway)

 

[Clown]

The sound loop is when your computer can't keep up with what it's being told. Like after you play C&C with 10005347832423462 units, and then quit, it takes ages to get back to desktop.

 

[Gray]

And any idea on how to get the "pc to keep up" with everything going on? Would it be a sound issue, a graphics issue, a CPU issue? More than likely all no doubt.. :/

 

[Jonty]

Hi Gray

Fast writes has traditionally caused issues with ATI Radeon cards, but only a very small handful at that (none of the current generation as far as I'm aware). I'd leave the option set to its default value unless you're sure it helps matter to have them disabled.

Other than that, all I can suggest is getting the latest drivers for all your system components.

First off, you'll need motherboard platform drivers, which for nForce motherboards are grouped together in what is called the Unified Driver Package (UDP). Currently this is up to version 5.10, and includes all the drivers you'll need for both the motherboard itself (e.g. the GART, memory controller, IDE etc.) and the onboard features (e.g. audio processor, video processor (if present) etc.). You will also need to install a small audio driver update after the UDP which is not present in the last package.

Secondly, you'll want to install the latest drivers for your graphics card. For nVidia, these are the Forceware 66.93 drivers or for ATI cards the Catalyst 5.3 driver suite.

You may wish to check that you have the latest BIOS update for your motherboard, which are available from the manufacturer's website (ASUS, MSI etc.). Finally, check you have the latest version of DirectX, currently DirectX 9.0c. Also check you have the latest patches for whichever games are causing you trouble and for Windows too.

Be sure to uninstall your old drivers before installing the new ones (or follow whatever instructions are provided).

Other than that, I'm not sure what to suggest, especially since your system was stable for so long. Is there any particular point (be it time wise or gameplay wise) which causes problems?

Kind Regards

 

[Gray]

Not particularly anywhere causing the problem, which is why its making it tonnes harder to find out what the problem is, and whats causing it.

I have "two" sets of problem at the moment, both leading to crashes.

1) The more common of the two;

Play a game of a Half Life Mod (Counterstrike (1.6), Day of Defeat). I play the game as normal, everything fine and then out of the blue the game will crash. Although i have just checked Google again for more information, and it doesnt seem to be a hardware problem - Its a Steam problem from all accounts :/

So no amount of formatting, updating drivers etc could sort it possibly until they bring out an update which *sigh* may not be for a while.

2) I think i may have sorted now, it hasnt happened in ages, where my computer just BSoD's me, but im waiting until it happens again before i comment to see whats happening

 

[.Wilier.]

Strangely enough Gray, I used to have the same problem with Source games, but not CZ.......seems to be OK now, but I get it now with BF1942

 

[Gray]

BSoD's still ocurring... that damn IRQL_LESS_THAN_EQUAL error :/

maybe it is my memory... hmmm :/ i might have to (reluctantly) possibly have to buy some new memory, failing that, maybe a new Mobo to get shut of this one, but that one would seem like more hassle as i dont want to upgrade just yet

 

[Gray]

lol bloody hell ;s

I checked a few forums, mainly to do with the Nforce Mobo, and found one similar to my problem..

"Try changing the CPU Core Voltage to the one above what you currently have" was something someone posted, the guy who had the problem then reported back "yea! brilliant thats sorted it! Not had a BSoD in ages now".

To which i excitedly checked, and restarted my PC, in the BIOS, and upped the VCore to 1.675v (The one above what i had). Everything started sweetly, but it wasnt the loading process i was interested in.

Loaded up a game of DoD, within 2mins (Quickest EVAH!) i got hit with a BSoD :/ "page_fault_in_nonpaged_area" booo, i checked Google, and found on MS Knowledge that it could be a USB incompatibility.

Well.. least it narrowed it down...

So USB i have:

Logitech MX900 Bluetooth Mouse
Alcatel Speed Touch Modem (Stingray)
Webcam (Not connected though)
HP PSC750 Multi Printer
Kodak DX3500 Digital Camera
Belkin USB BusStation Hub

Straight away i have to think about that Alcatel... Im forever connected to the Internet (When it happens.. Altho not fair test) but im sure i heard people having a few problems with driver issues in SP2 with this... And i have the latest drivers...

Hmmmm :/

 

[Gray]

No Bluescreens for about 24+ hours now, its all looking good.

But:

So uh.. this is bad yeah? heh After doing a test run on the Temperatures during a game of Counterstrike: Source, i think i seen were the problem was....

 

[Gray]

Hello all again, ;o

Yesterday i got a new PSU - The Enermax Noisetaker 485w, anyway everything was a breeze, only one slight concern was the fact that when i opened up Winbond, it instantly went Crazy-styléé and started beeping to hell.

It was due to the -5v Rail showing up as being 3.55v. I dont know too much about Electronics or voltages so got me somewhat worried :s.

I checked Everest and it did confirm that on the system it showed up as 3.55v.

I restarted the PC and went into the BIOS, and found a very interesting read out, as shown below:

Just hoping it dont damage PC... Its been on all night without any problems mind

 

[inactionman]

-62v on the -5v rail? Sounds like the psu may be faulty! Particularly as psu's just tend to invert for -ve rails!