PC Freezing & Black Screen.

OohSoHolly

I have a Dell 540MT Studio Desktop. I've owned it for just over 18 Months and have recently had a new motherboard, Heatsink and 2 new graphics cards installed in it.

Basically the problem i am having is that i'll be playing games, surfing the internet listening to music (no problem). Then all of a sudden the PC freezes, screen goes black and i get 'no signal' on my monitor.

I've updated my drivers for the graphics card, done a PC tuneup, and cleared off my PC any unused software. Theres no overheating, or strange noises from the Base Unit either.

One thing i have noticed is that the graphics card i have in my computer, the NVIDIA GeForce 9800GT has a recommended Power supply of 400w. My studio desktop has a 350w psu. Could this be the problem.

I do realise there could be a million things it could be but with my eliminations and the replacements ive had im slowly running out of options and hair!
Really am dreading ringing Dell AGAIN (still under warranty).

Any ideas?:p


Spec:

Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q9400 @ 2.66Ghz
RAM: Memory Dual Channel 4GB (4x1024MB) 800MH
Graphics Card: 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 9800GT.
HDD: 1TB Serial ATA (7200RPM).
OS: Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit SP2.

exup

when you changed the motherboard and heatsink, did you change the cpu? Maybe not too serious but if its the original cpu it may need reseating - Have you done the regrade/upgrade yourself or was it sent to Dell, or other computer shop?
The Bios of the new motherboard may need updating - the Dell website should have updated Bios for download and instructions on how to do it - but if you are not sure maybe worth getting someone who is ok with Bios upgrades.

If its for gaming then yes the PSU may be a little underpowered, and I would go for a 500W psu at least if I was building a basic gaming machine.

Are you still running the original operating system. original harddrives? You may get by with the hard drives and old op system which worked with the old motherboard. Personally for peace of mind, I would have backed up all the files I needed to, and then done a fresh install of the O/S if I had changed those components. A gaming machine does work a PC quite hard, even though it is just a game the sound card, graphics card, all the processes in the PC have to come together in sync and work their hardest to make the game playable.

OohSoHolly

exup wrote: »

when you changed the motherboard and heatsink, did you change the cpu? Maybe not too serious but if its the original cpu it may need reseating - Have you done the regrade/upgrade yourself or was it sent to Dell, or other computer shop?
The Bios of the new motherboard may need updating - the Dell website should have updated Bios for download and instructions on how to do it - but if you are not sure maybe worth getting someone who is ok with Bios upgrades.

If its for gaming then yes the PSU may be a little underpowered, and I would go for a 500W psu at least if I was building a basic gaming machine.

Are you still running the original operating system. original harddrives? You may get by with the hard drives and old op system which worked with the old motherboard. Personally for peace of mind, I would have backed up all the files I needed to, and then done a fresh install of the O/S if I had changed those components. A gaming machine does work a PC quite hard, even though it is just a game the sound card, graphics card, all the processes in the PC have to come together in sync and work their hardest to make the game playable.

The CPU is the original one, and the work was completed by a Dell Engineer who came out to fix it.

I wanted to try and rule out the possibility of software issues before i contacted Dell, it might be worth me doing a fresh install of Windows although i was hoping to avoid the hassle

Thankyou for the reply.

rich010273

I'd agree on the PSU not being enough. Upgrade it if possible.

exup

I would expect a Dell engineer to be OK, but if I had been doing a self build for instance I would have artic silvered (thermal compound) the cpu onto its new heatsink. After cleaning the old residue off first. (hopefully the Dell guy did too)
getting a bit tired now, off to bed soon - but narrowing it down.
If the cpu was overheating I would expect a complete shutdown as the system tries to protect itself.
badly seated memory sticks? unlikely, but it may be worth easing them out of their slots and back in again to make sure they are in OK. (as with drive cables, and power supply cables to the motherboard etc).
If the graphics card was overheating then sometimes you can get some wierd display artifiacts before the system goes down. although this can be also down to drivers or even direct X acceleration causing problems).

But if you give the unit a good check over and clean out any dust bunnies and see if its better, if not probably think about the PSU.
Hope you get it sorted soon, let us know if you get it running ok

closed

check gpu/cpu temps

http://www.ozone3d.net/gpu_caps_viewer/

http://www.gtopala.com/siw-download.html

OohSoHolly

Rang Dell today, three times. Spent a total of 3 hours on the phone!

First they tried to get me to purchase their software support at the small cost of £109 for 12months! Hmmm.

Second time they admitted that there was a fault with the combination of the graphics card and PSU and offered to send me another graphics card out. I then checked this graphics card they wanted to send me and it turns out it wasnt as good as the one i had.

Rang Back, was offered the ATI graphics card with a free keyboard for the inconvenience, then i was offered a "downgraded" graphics card with a refund for my original graphics card. I turned down both these offers and will be contacted by the Customer Complaints department tomorrow.

I didnt recieve the PC i payed for imo and their only comeback is that i didnt report the problem early (apparently my fault they suck at configuring pc's). So im going to try for something a little better than that tomorrow. Sadly a refund on just my graphics card wont buy me a new gaming pc.

CoolHotCold

A 400W PSU costs £20 (and even less wholesale), far less then whatever GFX card they are trying to replace. It should be easy for Dell to go "Yup the cost of our mistake is easily and cheaply rectified, so lets sort the problem"