Severe System Instability

[tzetsin]

i've never had any kind of problem like that with windows personally, and i've had a few whacked out operating systems in my day. I use vista 32 myself and other than having out of memory problems i've experienced no bsods or unusual system instability with it. But from what you've explained i cant see it being the OS, but you never know right. Try the psu, try resetting cmos, if no other hardware related tests point to a hardware problem you could always backup and format

[3.0charlie]

That's odd. We both have a very similar rig - check my sig, rig #2. I too had the same problem last week, couldn't overclock anymore, not even by 1Mhz, couldn't run Orthos nor Prime @ stock. I had to clear the CMOS and remove the battery for a minute or so. Now it's back at 490MHz.

I call this a hiccup.

[Salavat23]

I tried the battery trick, but that did not help:(

Could it be an OS issue?

BTW, I still have not tried switching the PSU.

[tzetsin]

did you switch the jumper or just remove the battery?

[Salavat23]

Originally Posted by tzetsin

did you switch the jumper or just remove the battery?

I just removed the battery for about 2 min.

[tzetsin]

*This is quoted from a post by SSWilson*

There are either two or three jumper pins on your motherboard for "clear cmos". If it's three jumpers, you need to move the jumper itself (with the power off) from pins 1+2 to pins 2+3, leave it for 15 seconds or so, and then put it back to pins 1+2. If it's only got 2 pins then you need to (again with power off) short those two pins together with a screwdriver or something similar (again for 15 seconds or so).

[3.0charlie]

Remove battery and short the jumpers to clear the CMOS. If that doesn't work, try a second PSU.

[Salavat23]

Also, I forgot to mention that the BSODs often mention problems with drivers.

So, I have decided to replace my BETA 169.25 drivers with FINAL WHQL 169.25 drivers for the video card.

But I still don't understand why Prime95 and Orthos produce errors after 1-2 seconds of starting the torture test.

Any ideas?

[tzetsin]

sounds like you REALLLY want it to be software related, well thats easy to test. start your computer when you see the windows logo shut it down manually before you get to the desktop, start the computer, it'll give you an option to start in "safe mode" start in safemode try prime95/orthos while using stock clock speeds if it fails still you KNOW its not at all driver related becuase safe mode doesnt load drivers. if it works perfectly then you can run system restore to a date before the stability problems and try for better stability there.

[3.0charlie]

If you wish to load the safe mode, start the computer, then press F8 until the option to select safe mode appears.