PC randomly became unstable

Guest2

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A couple of days ago I was playing Starcraft 2 beta and my PC decided to just turn itself off. Since then it has blue screened a couple of times, froze in windows, and froze with a constant audio loop. There has also been a problem with the audio where it wouldnt play anything and winamp said "no device detected" despire it showing in hardware manager. Yesterday it crashed just in the BIOS too

My CPU is overclocked but has been fine for the past 4 or so months. I reinstalled audio drivers, ran HD tune to test for bad blocks and reverted back to a clone from 1st april.

The worse thing about it is that its random, I can run prime, prime blend etc and it will work then just randomly turn off and restart when broswing the net

I'm going to plug my CD drive in tonight and run Memtest and its currently running Prime95@stock CPU settings. Is there a possibily that the PSU is on its way out?

PC Spec

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Corsair H50 with 2 Noctua P12 fans in push/pull
4GB OCZ@default settings
5770@stock
Xonar Essence ST
4 SATA hard drives
Hiper 580w PSU Type-R
 

skippy2421

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aaaahhhh it's you again, what have you done now? :p

Anything showing in the error log?

I find it hard to believe it's the PSU if it's doing this on non intensive things as well but i could be wrong, strange things those power supply contraptions.

I'd definitely run memtest as your first step. Have you changed anything in your rig recently? software or hardware wise?
 

Guest2

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skippy2421 said:
aaaahhhh it's you again, what have you done now? :p

Anything showing in the error log?

I find it hard to believe it's the PSU if it's doing this on non intensive things as well but i could be wrong, strange things those power supply contraptions.

I'd definitely run memtest as your first step. Have you changed anything in your rig recently? software or hardware wise?
Click to expand...

Not hardware, software, stuff is going on and off all the time. Think I installed Dirt 2 with its rapture rubbish and GTA4 with rockstar games and all the other tripe that came with it. I did go revert back via a clone from the start of April, there was no problems then.

God I hate PCs
 

Ch3m1c4L

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id put my money on memory. lots of memtest, sometimes errors dont get picked up until several passes etc.

I mean, ofc it could be your oc, ambient temp rise/slight change in volts now components are older etc.
 

Guest2

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CPU (was) overclocked but memory was at default setting (5-5-5-15@400DDR) I left my pc running prime small fft this morning on stock setting, i imagine if it hasnt restarted yet then its something to do with a heat issue, maybe the fact my case is cramped. Or a slight bios change is needed on something like CPU PLL, termination or MCH core volts

If its restarted then its memtest test
 

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Will do, the radiator on h50 looks a bit more clogged than usual. I fear it might be the PSU, we shall see what prime has done when i get home
 

Guest2

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Update - My computer had restarted yesterday when running prime with stock cpu settings so I hoovered the pc out then ran memtest with default memory and cpu settings. It spat up loads of red errors after a few minutes. I then tested 2 sticks for 20 minutes and they were fine, then the other 2 and they were fine too. Went back to 4 and failed again :confused:
So I swapped two over in the slots and memtest was fine after 30 minutes.

I then ran prime blend with default cpu & memory settings. It restarted after about 5 mintues :confused: I opened the side of the case and moved my pc forward a bit (the psu fan was blowing against the back of my desk) This time prime blend ran fine for 30 minutes.

I set cpu back to 3.6ghz, left the side of my case off and blend ran fine, then small fft ran fine as did 3 games of Starcraft 2.

Strange that the ram should error, then i swapped them around in slots and was ok. That and maybe the memory, northbridge or something else getting too hot. My case is only a Sonata 2 so things are a bit cramped. Load temp with prime95 small fft used to shoot up to mid 80s which I was fine with but since hoovering out and leaving the side panel off the highest I have seen is 64c!

Anyway, this morning I started Prime95 off again with cpu overclocked, hopefully it wont have restarted itself when I get home
 

EsaT

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Guest2 said:
I then tested 2 sticks for 20 minutes and they were fine, then the other 2 and they were fine too. Went back to 4 and failed again :confused:

Load temp with prime95 small fft used to shoot up to mid 80s which I was fine with
Click to expand...
More DIMMs, more load on Northbridge. (and more heat)

And that's very high temperature.
(Prime doesn't even load CPU fully)

And that PSU is still cheap Chinese bling bling ping pong and case meant for web surfing/word processing PC.
 

Guest2

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EsaT said:
And that PSU is still cheap Chinese bling bling ping pong and case meant for web surfing/word processing PC.
Click to expand...

lol :D

However bling bling ping pong cost me £80! Its been fine for 5 years so its not too bad. Case, ive had for about 5 years too

I have tjmax set at 10c so to me anything up to around 85c is fine (will be more like 75-80c.

Maybe the case it is meant for web surfing but that was also pretty expensive, I dont want a full tower because they are big, ugly and take up too much room. I have seen people with water cooling, crossfire and i5/i7 in micro cases so in comparison its not too cramped
 

adrichardson81

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5 years is about as much as I'd expect from a Hiper PSU. Do yourself a favour and upgrade the PSU (650w Corsair TX is a smart move, or pay a bit more and go modular).

Nothing wrong with mATX cases for gaming - the Sonata 2 is fine provided you use all of the fans. I ran a (very) overclcoked 8800gtx and an e4400 (@ 3ghz) in a mATX Silverstone for years...
 

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Whats the different between modular and non modular? Is my hiper non modular because i cant disconnect cables from the back of it and modular you can?
 

Guest2

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Edit - Could the problem be the North Bridge on my motherboard getting too hot? I heard it controls the memory . This would explain why I had memeory errors and computer seems to work fine with the side panel off. I have MCH core set to 1.36 volts in BIOS
 

EsaT

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Guest2 said:
However bling bling ping pong cost me £80!

I dont want a full tower because they are big, ugly and take up too much room.
Click to expand...
Obviously someone took some profits after that Chinese hobby shop made it...
Although they might have failed to use Fuhjyyu crap capacitors used in that Antec SmartBomb generally bundled with that case.

Sonata II's cooling is very mediocre... and opening side panel makes multiple HDDs very fast very hot, neighbour has that case. (and after four months died SmartBomb)
Same size case could have lot better cooling if properly designed.
 
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