PC Issues - Again

[Hamltnblue]

If the ram does clear it up I would run it for a few days or so before buying new stuff.  It will run fine but just a little slower.

Luckily ram is pretty cheap these days.  Also if you do wind up getting some don't mix brands and specs.

[butt]

If the ram does clear it up I would run it for a few days or so before buying new stuff.  It will run fine but just a little slower.

Luckily ram is pretty cheap these days.  Also if you do wind up getting some don't mix brands and specs.

Yeah, it ran over night w/out problem. going to reset the cmos as suggested, and see what that does.

I'll report back later.

[Hamltnblue]

If it's the ram the cmos won't make any difference
It won't hurt to try though
Also write down the settings before resetting it.
The reset procedure usually involves moving a jumper on the board for a few seconds

[butt]

I reset the cmos. Had to put the clock back on the right time date. Not sure what other settings you were talking about.

Hey Tarsier, what about my voltages to the ram as seen on the SS taken yesterday? Were they set at the right value? PS, when I do get this all ironed out, you'll have to school me on how to get to 4500mhz as well.

[tarsier]

Sure will, overclocking this chip is the easiest I have ever done.  There's really only 2 settings to tweak.  Multiplier and voltage.

The ram voltages were set to default, which is fine.  1.5 or 1.55 will be okay either way.  Yours defaults to 1.5 which is good.

Glad it looks like this is fixing your problem.  Ram is the cheapest of the fixes.

[butt]

Sure will, overclocking this chip is the easiest I have ever done.  There's really only 2 settings to tweak.  Multiplier and voltage.

The ram voltages were set to default, which is fine.  1.5 or 1.55 will be okay either way.  Yours defaults to 1.5 which is good.

Glad it looks like this is fixing your problem.  Ram is the cheapest of the fixes.

Yep, and thanks!

Keeping fingers crossed. Really do not have the energy for the old "hunt and peck" PC troubble shooting like I used to go through... Working on my PC has gone the way of turning wrenches for auto repair when I was a bit younger. Yeah, the fast cars were alot of fun. Just dont care to do it much anymore.

Now to hope the Patriot RMA process is semi painless. Hopefully no worse than Corsair.


EDIT:

Well piss... So much for the good vibe of success. Died mid RMA form fill in, lol.

 
And someone tell me this... WHy does the friggin OS keep showing the warning flag in the trey (windows action center)  telling me I dont have antivirus now after this crash.... Kept doing this shit earlier in the week when going through this.

Another thing the OS is doing when it dies like this, when I open a new tab, its not remembering "your most popular sites" - 10 boxes with past browsing history remembered.  WTF is going on? urrgh

[tarsier]

I'm not sure about the flag in your tray.

The internet history tends to reset itself whenever you crash, BSOD, or "restart improperly", so that's pretty normal.


Do you have a microcenter or tigerdirect nearby?  DDR3 is super cheap nowadays.  You could grab an 8gb set for under $50, IIRC.

I am feeling your pain.  Sorry man. 

[butt]

Actually, I ran the memtest on both sticks tonight. No errors.

On a side note, was nice to burn an iso w/ 7. Didnt have to go install a secondary burning program for a change.

So, if the RAM passed, guess I am running out of options. Guess I'll try swapping out the power supply tomarrow or Monday when time allows.

[tarsier]

Maybe give OCCT a try.  They have a power supply test built in.

I recommend the zip version as there's no installer or registry entries.

It will log your voltages when you run it (if it will run).

http://www.ocbase.com/index.php/download

Maybe a last thing to try before taking it apart?

[Hamltnblue]

By the way
Unless you are running a large air cooler or water I wouldn't raise it to 4.5 gig.
The little bit of performance isn't worth overheating it.  Go with something lower like 4.0

[butt]

Maybe give OCCT a try.  They have a power supply test built in.

I recommend the zip version as there's no installer or registry entries.

It will log your voltages when you run it (if it will run).

http://www.ocbase.com/index.php/download

Maybe a last thing to try before taking it apart?

Gave it a try.

One thing I see, is the 12 v is showing up @ a steady 8.18 v
Not good, right?



Is there another utility I can use to doubble check this result?

[tarsier]

Not good at all.  Do you have a multimeter?  I would put that on one of your unused molex (4 pin) plugs and monitor it from startup to operating.  The 12v really shouldn't go below 11.75.  The software monitoring isn't perfect, so you'll want to use a meter to make sure it's actually reading that low.

Don't send that ram out just yet.  It may have been failing memtest due to undervolting.

I would say, for sure, that your power supply is the culprit if you're actually getting 8v on your 12v line.

Speedfan can give you a second opinion as well, but it's still software monitoring, so it may be off as well.  Best bet is to meter it.

http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php  (hotlink in the "download" paragraph).

[Hamltnblue]

Sometimes the Bios will have the voltages as well.  If the voltage is 8.18 I'm surprised it's running at all.

[butt]

Speedfan shows it at 10.74


Will go look in bios to see if I can find a value.

"May" have a voltage meter. If I do, I'd probably need to look for a u tube vid on how to use it w/out electrocuting myself (I hate working around/with hot wires)

[tarsier]

Multimeter should be set to dc 20v.  Red lead to yellow and black lead to black.  IIRC there are two black wires, so the one that reads closest to 12v.  The only thing that can be done wrong, it to cross the test leads while they're touching the wires.  Pretty hard to do.

http://www.ladyada.net/learn/multimeter/voltage.html

Plus the molex plugs are all female connectors from the power supply, so they'll be super easy to test with the leads of a standard dmm (digital multi meter).

It really sounds like your power supply though.  I would recommend biting the bullet and swapping power supplies to see if it alleviates your problem, at this point.  I am pretty sure it will fix you up.