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Thread ID: 85008 2007-11-26 09:33:00 Stability problems - freezing etc george12 (7) Press F1
Post ID Timestamp Content User
615392 2007-11-26 09:33:00 A customer bought a few-month-old computer to me today. The symptoms were that it was randomly freezing.

I booted it up (cold, hadn't been on for hours at least) ran memtest86 on it and left it going. When I got back, it had gone through two complete passes with no problems, and then brought up a bunch of errors and hung. That looked like overheating to me, so I went into the BIOS and looked at the temperature - about 50 degrees.

I booted into Windows and ran Prime95 (one instance on a quad core PC, set to use 800mb of RAM out of 4GB), while keeping an eye on the temperatures. The voltages remained well within spec and it never got above 50 degrees (though it idled at 45). However, Prime95 would report an error every time, saying:

"Rounding error - expected 0.4 or less, got 0.5" or words to that effect. Sometimes it would instead say "got 0.47643647145" etc.

What would you guys suggest is the problem here? Perhaps the BIOS has got the temperature wrong? Or, God forbid, it's one of those motherboard flaws that only cause trouble when warm.

Ideas? I have never seen a stability problem quite like this...

Edit: The mobo is a decent Asus board.
george12 (7)
615393 2007-11-26 11:33:00 Well something is obviously faulty. (duh)

But, just because Asus are good, doesn't mean they can't fail.

Which motherboard is it? check for BIOS updates that refer to CPU temp monitor changes

PSU perhaps? some el-cheapo brand?

Google suggests RAM, check the timings?


I'm sure someone else would know what that error points to, I'm just guessing :D
Agent_24 (57)
615394 2007-11-26 11:42:00 A customer bought a few-month-old computer to me today. The symptoms were that it was randomly freezing.

I booted it up (cold, hadn't been on for hours at least) ran memtest86 on it and left it going. When I got back, it had gone through two complete passes with no problems, and then brought up a bunch of errors and hung. That looked like overheating to me, so I went into the BIOS and looked at the temperature - about 50 degrees.
.

so be practical take the side off and repeat the test then try it again with a couple of different ram sticks.
apsattv (7406)
615395 2007-11-26 12:24:00 I'll do that tomorrow. I really hope it's RAM - I have a spare stick I can swap it with if it's just one faulty stick.

I'm not really in the motherboard-replacing mood!

The PSU is fine I'm sure. It's a ~$140 unit wholesale and the voltages don't fluctuate under any amount of load.
george12 (7)
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