computer is insane

Ferris

hi,
first of all, thanks to everyone who has made any suggestions during the ongoing saga of my frankly insane computer. now, as with star wars and all good epics, there is a new chapter.

after convincing myself that the constant BSOD i was experiencing were caused by memory or mboard issues, i returned the pc to the manufacturer for diagnostics. they returned it to me denying any problems with RAM or the mboard (a dubious claim, i think), and advised me to reinstall windows xp.

i did this, put on sp2, and it ran well for a few days. then one day i was using nero... i shut down the program and all of a sudden my monitor went into standby mode. the computer had not reset itself as it normally does during a crash, but it didn't seem to accept any input. i had to press reset to access the pc again, at which point it rebooted and carried on working fine.

now today, this strange behaviour has happened twice more... once when i exited msn messenger from the system tray, the other time when i closed acrobat reader. i am puzzled. i am certainly not being plagued by the same BSOD i was previously, but this new quirk is puzzling and annoying.

any ideas?

my system:
athlon 64 3200+
asus k8v mboard (latest bios)
1024mb ram
asus nvidia geforce 5900 128mb video card
160gb maxtor hd
d-link wireless card

thanks.

NellyLock

it could be ur pc overheating...with weather like it is today it is certainly possible, what is the ventalation like around the case etc, the machine would certainly need a fair ammount of cooling...

just a thought

T4i

hmmm.

I keep going back and reading the bit about ur monitor going into standby.

hmmmmmmmm.

Does this happen often?

Look into the temps. Asus should have a little piece of software to tell you CPU temps. Are they ok?

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download3301.html - Asus PC Probe.

Also, in BIOS I would try disable these two if not already disabled.
*System BIOS cacheable
*Video RAM cacheable

NellyLock

could potentially be graphics card over heating as well

T4i wrote:

hmmm.

I keep going back and reading the bit about ur monitor going into standby.

hmmmmmmmm.

Does this happen often?

Look into the temps. Asus should have a little piece of software to tell you CPU temps. Are they ok?

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download3301.html - Asus PC Probe.

Also, in BIOS I would try disable these two if not already disabled.
*System BIOS cacheable
*Video RAM cacheable

Ferris

T4i wrote:

hmmm.

I keep going back and reading the bit about ur monitor going into standby.

hmmmmmmmm.

Does this happen often?

Look into the temps. Asus should have a little piece of software to tell you CPU temps. Are they ok?

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download3301.html - Asus PC Probe.

Also, in BIOS I would try disable these two if not already disabled.
*System BIOS cacheable
*Video RAM cacheable

hi, thanks for everyone's suggestions. i am downloading the asus thing, but to now i have been using programs called Everest and Speedfan, which give the temps from the various sensors in the PC. nothing seems particularly high...
motherboard: 29c
cpu: 33c (up to 45c observed under torture test)
hd: 38-42c
there is one other sensor which i think is the graphics card, which comes up as 32c

as for the monitor standby thing, it has happened three times now, always when i've just ended a program. prior to the reinstall, i was getting regular random BSOD, but this behavior seems to have replaced those (i have set my crash settings so it doesn't auto-restart on BSOD).

what are the bios settings you mention, t4i? i have never heard of them... what do they do?

thanks again.

T4i

ok ur temps are fine then. And with you saying torture test I take it youve run Prime95 or equivalent?

I take it you dont have any errors reported via torture testing?


Just a thought, do you have everest and speedfan startup/running at the same time? May these be confliciting because both trying to read the sensor?

The BIOS settings I mention are;
*System BIOS cacheable - The BIOS caches itself to RAM - dont need to....
*Video RAM cacheable - Video memory is cached - dont need to.....

These two settings make such a difference to stability in my opinion. These options were for older p.c's with low amounts of memory.

Someone might be able to give a proper explanation but trust me on ur setup you do not need them.

Have you got a virus? spyware? hijackthis will give you a good log of stuff loaded into RAM etc..

Its looking to me like software/driver or PSU problem. Depends how you answer my questions.

drlight_2

Have you looked at your power saving options, control panel.
you say nothing seems to work when the screen goes off, have you tried hitting the enter key?

bbb_uk

T4i wrote:

The BIOS settings I mention are;
*System BIOS cacheable - The BIOS caches itself to RAM - dont need to....
*Video RAM cacheable - Video memory is cached - dont need to.....

These two settings make such a difference to stability in my opinion. These options were for older p.c's with low amounts of memory.

I agree they are not needed.

Are any errors being reported to the Event Viewer? Click Start > Run > and type 'eventvwr' and press return.

It does sound like a graphics card problems and/or the driver for it though. Booting into Safe mode would rule out the driver for the graphics card but of course as you are aware, not a lot of things run in safe mode.

blinky

What power supply are you using?

Ferris

T4i wrote:

ok ur temps are fine then. And with you saying torture test I take it youve run Prime95 or equivalent?

I take it you dont have any errors reported via torture testing?


Just a thought, do you have everest and speedfan startup/running at the same time? May these be confliciting because both trying to read the sensor?

The BIOS settings I mention are;
*System BIOS cacheable - The BIOS caches itself to RAM - dont need to....
*Video RAM cacheable - Video memory is cached - dont need to.....

These two settings make such a difference to stability in my opinion. These options were for older p.c's with low amounts of memory.

Someone might be able to give a proper explanation but trust me on ur setup you do not need them.

Have you got a virus? spyware? hijackthis will give you a good log of stuff loaded into RAM etc..

Its looking to me like software/driver or PSU problem. Depends how you answer my questions.

i have run prime95 with varying degrees of success. however, i have never managed to get it to run longer than about half an hour without a "rounding error". i pointed this out to my OEM as an indication that there was a hardware problem they should fix, but they refused to accept it. i have read a reference to the suggestion that prime95 has problems with athlon 64 bit processors?

occasionally run everest and speedfan at the same time, but i don't think they've been running everytime i've had this problem.

as for those BIOS settings, i can't even find them on my BIOS! what sort of heading should they appear under?

yes, i have tried pressing enter when the monitor goes to standby, but there is no response. my idea is that something is "switching off" my graphics card, killing off the signal, but i don't know how or why.

i'm using a 450W power supply, i think (i'll check when i have more time!)

eventviewer is reporting nothing apart from a "system error" (the box that asks you to submit data to microsoft) after every startup following the monitor going to standby. incidentally, when i do submit these errors, they invariably return to say "error with a device driver", which is decidedly unhelpful.

does any one know how to analyse minidumps?

thanks again for all your help, people.

T4i

I'm not sure about Prime95 having 64bit problems, I'll take your word for it.

Those BIOS settings should be in something like 'Advanced Chipset Features'

Maybe its the RAM on your graphics adaptor thats to blame........

Have you tried going back to the drivers that came on the CD with graphics card? Also, what chipset drivers are you using? You could have a dud AGP driver.....

This is what I'd do tbh, reboot to safe mode, uninstall in this order;
1) Grpahics Driver
2) Chipset Drivers

Reboot into safe mode, click device mgr and show all hidden devices. Look for any strange or bad hardware. If its all clear then I'd dl the latest VIA chipset drivers for your mobo and install. Reboot and install the latest nvidia gpu drivers.