Strange restarts...

[tater]

OK so i have this great new computer..which has been running perfect non stop since i got it...however the other weekend it would run out of ram and lock up while playing counter strike (was at 512mb ram)..SO i get to looking over newegg and i then decide to order 1gb more ram (dual channel kit 2X512mb)..so thats nice and all...but now the pc kinda just randomly shuts down when it so pleases...i cant figure out why... click the link on my signiture to see a detailed list of my parts...The PSU is a 430 watt single rail 12v 18a thermaltake purepower and the primary hard drive is a 6 year old 20gb western digital (those 2 are the weak links in the chain)..everything else is basicly brand new.....i think either the hard drive is dying, or the PSU is just running out of power and giving up...lol now i got enough 300+ watt PSU's laying around i can very easily just rig 2 of em up for hdd's + fans + dvd rom and let the 430 take control of motherboard, cpu, and vid card

 

[Wile E]

Provided that it's not dying, that psu should be fine. X300's don't draw enough to tax it. I would check the ram personally. Run memtest on one stick at a time to see if any are bad.

 

[p-jack]

yea a quality 430W psu should have ample power for your system, maybe some other component is dying/not seated properly. the ram is a good place to start imo....

 

[tater]

only thing in it that isnt less than 1 year old is the hard drive. next in line on age is the PSU which is prolly 6 months older than the main portion of the computer...and the main portion of the computer is less than like 3 months old .....how would you go about running a mem test?

 

[Namslas90]

Check to make sure the memory is supported by mobo;

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/FileList/MemorySupport/motherboard_memory_m55sli-s4.pdf

Then check mobo manual for proper Ram slot configuration, you might have to take out the third non matched stick.

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Support/Motherboard/Manual_DownloadFile.aspx?FileType=Manual&FileID=17329

 

[Namslas90]

Take out the old 800 stick and put the two new ones in slot 1,2. You should be allright. Three sticks puts that mobo into ddr(not ddr2). The mismatched stick is messing you up, because the timmings are so different. Your board only supports 2 or 4 stick confugurations to stay in ddr2.

 

[Fox34]

This could be a simple mistake, but is your compy entering thermal shutdown?

 

[tater]

maybe..idk but i did a 3 hour burn in on the processor i watched the temps for the longest time..core temp never went over 49C and everest home edition never went over 37C...(dont ask me why 2 different programs are reading 2 different amounts)....my motherboard is configured to only shut down when it hits 60C

 

[Fox34]

hmmm sounds dumb but maybe your game puts to much strain on it and causes it to overheat. O wait! go into your bios and disable "restart on system failure" I bet you that you are BSODing but when you have it "restart on system failure" it flashes the BSOD so fast you cant even see it then it just restarts. See if you can disable it then play your game and tell me is you BSOD

 

[tater]

theres an incredibly large chance its not the games overheating it..like i said i did a burn in for 3 hours straight and it stayed rather cool.... (i think everest is right in my temps...its closer to what the bios say than core temp)...i added a dab of arctic silver 5 and i really havent tested that yet...But ill try doing what you said when i turn the comp back on later tonight

 

[Wile E]

I still say it's a ram problem. Either you have a bad stick, or like Namslas said, your mismatched setup doesn't play nice with each other. Take out the old 512 stick, and see if the problem disappears.

 

[PVTCaboose1337]

Those temps are scaring me... what cooler?

O, nvm stock... those are quite high though...

 

[Fox34]

Did you try what I said? And there prob. right its a RAM problem, you could also try cleaning up your timings(dont know much bout it, never had to)

 

[tater]

OK this is honestly making me mad enough im just gonna send the ram back. I removed the 512mb chip i had in it prior to this upgrade and it restarted randomly...i even changed out hard drives to make sure it wasnt that..(it did help alot in my opinion)...OK so maybe its the power supply or bad ram.,..next thing i think ill check is hook a 2nd psu up to run hdd's and lights

 

[Kursah]

You should definately run a memtest on your sticks...that would give you a good idea if it's RAM related or not. And you don't have to swap out and unhook equiment to do it. So it may save you time right now for a diagnosis...
Of course the best method is to test 1 stick at a time...but even that is less work than swapping HDD's and PSU's...you should give it a shot before making rash decisions.

 

[tater]

within post #4...

.....how would you go about running a mem test?

I have no clue how to run a mem test...never had to do it before, also im about 100% sure its the ram...the pc has been fine up till this upgrade except for the fact it was running low on ram at all times

 

[Kursah]

...google memtest

Also click the link in my sig, scroll down to links and click on OC Stess/Stability Programs link...it'll be there.

 

[GIGGLA]

To run Memtest download Memtest86 Version 3.2 and burn it on a cd, reboot to that cd and it starts automatically you will see it on the screen it is blue and shows information/test progress etc. When you restart or turn on the computer- if you don't see the message "press any key to boot from cd" - then you may have to go into your bios and under boot settings select cd/dvd drive as the first boot device.

My advice is the main power plug that is going into the motherboard- Turn the power off then I would gently wiggle it then see if that has fixed it if not then turn the power off and carefully unplug it and plug it back in(the main motherboard power plug) then see if it's fixed. This has fixed my problems of my system unstabley rebooting before because my 3.3v was dropping to low and not getting a good enough connection.

Actually only try the wiggle/unplug thing if memtest reboots-or you can't figure out how to burn the dang memtest image to a cd(which I had problems with sometimes heh. If memtest reboots during testing then I would try the wiggle/unplug idea. If memtest shows red errors than you quite possibley might have a bad stick of ram.

p.s. when I was having these problems where a wiggle/unplug would fix it- 15-30 minutes of Memtest or a Sandra 10 loop memory burn-in either of these would cause the reboot. So I run one of those two tests to make sure it is fixed. Good Luck

 

[tater]

i found some other program to test it (test in progress) but ill run the ram through that one too..

 

[Kursah]

Let us know how it goes! Memtest86 is still the standard out there...so what other program are you using? I'm sure it'll work fine, but the boot iso memtest is still the standard for OC'ers.

Good luck dude!

 

[GIGGLA]

Yeah if the program that you are using now to test, is running after you have booted into windows it probably won't test all the ram. Memtest is good because it runs the test without having to run windows thus testing "all" of the ram chips.

 

[tater]

lol retarded as anything...I just got out of 2 hours of flawless gaming (counter-strike: source), not a single problem. The minute i get out and go to check my temps w/ core temp and everest....computer crashes...SO thats basicly it...im gonna stick my old 512mb in there...if it doesnt crash ill know wut the problem is...come monday ill be setting up for an RMA...i think ill just get my money back and save for a 2gb chip of gskill

 

[rhythmeister]

Did you load optimized defaults after changing ram? Are the timings correct according to SPD or have you set them manually?

 

[Fox34]

When windows is booting, press F8 and disable "Automatic restart on system failure." Then next time your comp restarts, you will be able to tell if your BSOD'ing