| Forum Home | ||||
| Press F1 | ||||
| Thread ID: 58045 | 2005-05-19 19:31:00 | PC problems | Xihe (8160) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 356783 | 2005-05-19 19:31:00 | Ok.. I have a couple problems with my computer that may or may not be related. Before I begin, here are the system specs of my computer: Windows XP Home w/ SP2 ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe (BIOS version 1008) AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (Winchester) 1024MB DDR 400 (512*2, dual channel) XFX nVidia 6600GT Western Digital 200GB SATA-150 8MB-buffer(OEM) DVD-RW (IDE) 450watt PSU Also, I built my computer myself, and the system is around 3 months old. The first problem is that the chipset fan sometimes refuses to work. It's been doing this for a little while now when the computer starts from a cold boot, but restarting the computer would make it work. However today it still wouldn't work after a restart, so I took the fan out of the heatsink and cleaned it (I found the heatsink was extremely dusty). I put it back and it still didn't work. I tried turning it around a few times with my finger and restarted the system, and it worked. Should I replace the heatsink/fan, and if so what would be a good one to replace it with? The second problem is that I've been having problems recently with my computer randomly freezing. When it freezes, the hard drive light will stay on and it happens slowly over about 10 seconds. First the hard drive light stays on steadily, then certain programs that try to access the hard drive freeze, then eventually everything freezes but the mouse. The keyboard does not respond, but the mouse will freeze every few seconds and then move again. Also, if I was listening to music online, it will contiune playing even though everything else is frozen, until Media Player requests access to the hard drive (usually when the song ends). I have to push the reset button on the comptuer to get out of the freeze. Windows doesn't say anything about how the computer crashed when I restart, and everything seems normal except for the fact that all of my temporary internet files have vanished. Sometimes it will freeze several times in a row right after the desktop loads, and sometimes it won't freeze for a week. I've run antivirus, adaware, and spybot and they all turn up empty for anything that could be causing this problem. I don't know if these probems are related or not, but the SATA controller I'm using is the NForce4 one. NVIDIA Monitor shows that the temperatures are normal (33C for CPU, 46C for GPU), so it doesn't look like the CPU or GPU is overheating. Any help would be greatly appreciated... :/ |
Xihe (8160) | ||
| 356784 | 2005-05-19 21:35:00 | How many wires are attached to the chipset fan? If it's monitored it may not start up until the temperature reaches a certain level. The manual should tell you. If it is monitored there should also be a temperature reading, at least in BIOS (system) if not in the monitor running under Windows. The freezez could be heat related, but I suspect virtual memory or RAM problems or something working away in the backgound using lots of resources. Check you startup programmes (Start > Run, type msconfig, enter/OK > Startup tab. Check sceduled tasks. Check for malware, virus', etc. Check, Control Panel > Computer Management > Events > Applications and System events. Check that Windows is set to produce an error. Control Panel > System > Advanced tab > Startup & Recovery button > uncheck (if nec') "Automatically reboot" under System failure. Hopefully, you'll get an error next time it happens, which you can note in all it's glory. HAve you checked all the cables, seating of CPU HSF, RAM (done a memtest?), What brand of power supply is it. Run the hard drives disk utility (you'll find one on the WD website), check for errors and controller if it has the latter. |
Murray P (44) | ||
| 356785 | 2005-05-20 00:35:00 | There are 3 wires for the chipset fan. It's monitored, and seems normal when it is working. It shows the RPM in the BIOS, which is normally just under 8000RPM. In NVIDIA Monitor, the 'System' temperature is 37C right now, but I don't know if that's for the chipset, or somewhere else? I agree that it might be virtual memory, but I don't know about the RAM. The RAM seems to still work even after the system has frozen, since applications work fine until they request the hard drive, which is when they freeze. Once Explorer requests the hard drive, it freezes too. I've had Task Manager running when it froze before, and nothing seemed to be requesting much of the CPU at the time... The startup programmes seem normal, and I have no sceduled tasks. I checked for malware/viruses/adware and came up with nothing.. (other than normal adware cookies) I didn't see anything related to the freezes in the event logs either. I checked the cables, and everything is seated properly. I haven't done a memory test, but the memory seems fine.. The brand of the power supply is Just PC Inc. I checked for errors on the drive, and it didn't find anything.. Ugh.. what's wrong with this thing.. :/ |
Xihe (8160) | ||
| 356786 | 2005-05-20 00:51:00 | Is Windows set to produce an error message? Is it particular programmes or combinations of? Have you changed any software or hardware recently? How about trying the other SATA controller. |
Murray P (44) | ||
| 356787 | 2005-05-20 01:43:00 | Hmmm. Sounds related to your HDD. Well your MB has tons of sATA ports, try another one as has been suggested already. Turn off RAID in the BIOS, don't see how it matters really but I'd do it anyway, just to eliminate anything. Is it overclocked? Turn that off too if so. Then, I'd try another sATA cable and then another drive. |
pctek (84) | ||
| 356788 | 2005-05-20 04:47:00 | Yes, Windows is set to give an error message, but it still doesn't . . At first it seemed to happen when Internet Explorer was running, then it happened during a defrag, and soon it happened under any combination of programs, and yesterday it even happened while Windows was loading . For some reason it hasn't frozen today, but it probably will again in the next couple days . I didn't change any software/hardware at the time the problems started, they just sort of happened out of the blue . However, a couple weeks earlier I added a couple new case fans and DDR memory shims, but I wouldn't think they would have much to do with the problems, since the problems occured a couple weeks after . . I'll try another SATA controller, but the other one is the SATA RAID controller . My comptuer was overclocked 5%, for about a month and a half . I turned it off yesterday when the problems came back after a week, but the the comptuer still froze after it was turned off, and the chipset fan still had problems . I read that a lot of people are having problems with the chipset fan on the A8N-SLI Deluxe board . . So I'll buy a new chipset hs/f . I'll try the other things mentioned tomorrow, and hope that the problems will be gone for good . Any more comments and suggestions are still greatly appreciated . :) |
Xihe (8160) | ||
| 356789 | 2005-05-20 05:12:00 | Memtest. Do it from a floppy or safe mode. Whats is your virtual memoray set at. Control Panel > System > Advanced tab > Performance options (that's what it is in win2k, XP could be diff). |
Murray P (44) | ||
| 356790 | 2005-05-20 07:39:00 | I'll try another SATA controller, but the other one is the SATA RAID controller. Not the controller. Just another port - you have 4 + another 4 RAID. |
pctek (84) | ||
| 356791 | 2005-05-20 20:30:00 | Where can I get memtest? My page file is set at 768MB. Ok, when it freezes next I'll try switching the port and see if it helps. |
Xihe (8160) | ||
| 356792 | 2005-05-20 20:56:00 | Has it had these problems since day 1 or are they a recent thing? | bartsdadhomer (80) | ||
| 1 2 | |||||