new pc problems...

[tzetsin]

well, my laptop broke down, so instead of buying a new laptop i built a smallish pc that i could cart around with me. here is a list of parts

asus formula striker 2 780i
2 x 1gb crucial ballistics
2 x 8800gts
antec 850w
intel q9450
3x 150gb wd raptors

my excitement with the new pc has been ruined now by the umteenth thousands of problems i've had with it so far... in all my years i've never had a pc with as many problems as this one...

first. intermitent boot failures. 4 out of 10 boots fail at post.

second, slow hard drive transfer speeds in raid 0 ( 100mb/s with 3 raptors is really quite bad)

third, disk failures, i broke the raid array down to test single drive performance, all drives show up when installing windows but as soon as windows finishes the first part of the install and reboots, i get disk read failure, ive tried all three drives seperately and in different sata ports with the same problem.

fourth, I was going to remake the raid drive but the raid bios decided to go by impossibly fast and there is no way i can get into it.

i tried resetting the cmos, something ive not done alot of so i could be doing something wrong, (though theres a clear cmos button on the back of the io panel i tried that didnt seem to do anything) i pulled my G card, removed the battery, switched the jumper and just for shits an giggles i tried to boot the computer with the jumper in the clear position since clearing the cmos didnt actually seem like it was doing anything as all my settings were still where i left em before i tried to clear, and it booted up right up to the point where i was getting the disk read error. I'm not sure, but with the jumper in the clear an the battery out, shouldnt it NOT boot?

fifth, Unlinking the cpu and the ram to run the ram at 1066 causes no post 1066 is the rated speed for my balistics and changing the ram i have in my other computer, wich is the exact same type doesnt help any. an the ram works great at 1066 in my other pc too.

i've got the system down to one gcard, one stick of ram, and one raptor now, i'm going to attempt installing windows again, and try flashing to an older version of the bios, any other suggestions would be much appreciated.

[DK2]

sounds like you've done everything, I feel for ya buddy.
My only thought, maybe the MB is flaky, hard to say really.

[sswilson]

Did you bump the Dram voltage up? Those ballistix need more than the stock 1.8V to run stable.

Try them at 2.1 or 2.2V.

[tzetsin]

i bumped up the vram to 2.0v and it still failed to boot pretty much every time i restart the computer it fails. i have to hard reset then turn it back on. strange thing is every time it fails it will work the second time, and if i shut it down then turn it on it will usually work but if its just a restart it pretty much fails every time. this striker board has an lcd poster and it shows chip init every time it fails. I just tried putting a light overclock on it to see if it makes it worse. i'm not happy with this setup at all, so many seemingly unrelated problems its hard to find a place to start.

i've got the drives in raid again finally, but now i cant install windows because i get the blue screen before its finished...

this was supposed to be my new king rig but its turning out to be a little handicaped ;P

[sswilson]

I'm still thinking RAM issues since the backup sticks you have to test with are also Ballistix. Could be that board doesn't like them at all... maybe it's a secondary timing issue. I'd still suggest trying the mem at "auto" timings but with the voltage set to 2.2 to see if that clears things up for you.

Other than that... it's pretty well a crapshoot between RAM/Motherboard/CPU.

[tzetsin]

i think my lemon turned out to be a super tuned alcohol burning V12 monster.... she just wouldnt run at all with all that regular fuel i was pouring into her. Stock speeds = unstable groping potead teenager; Overclocked = Super slim swedish supermodel lol now thats racy! Really, i upped the fsb to 1400, just a modest overclock from 2.6 to 2.8 and the whole rig just seemed to smooth out and pickup speed. I had the memory from 1.8 to 2.0, i know these sticks run at 1.8 becuase i've ran them in my asus p5ke un overclocked for quite a while before, but i wonder about the voltages on the mobo considering the processor or ram, or both were unstable at stock voltages. System hangs, random blue screens periodic reboots and failed posts. Thinking back on it low volts could cause all that. Now that i've got a working operating system on it and (so far) stable computer i think i'll be doing a few tests in that area.

Any other suggestions?

[sswilson]

Could be that either your older motherboard overvolted the mem, or this one undervolts.

Everything you're talking about sounds like undervolted components to me. It's a pity there aren't any decent third party apps which can read Vdimm. Sounds like you're on the right track though.

[tzetsin]

well i'm kindof at an impasse, my chips has a dead temp sensor so i'm going to rma it, but the board doesnt seem to want to run anything at stock volts, i can run one dimm not two, wont post with two of any of my 6 dims in any slot and thats with 2.2 volts, i can run a single gpu fine but when i run sli i get random blue screens so i'm assuming its getting undervolted as well. i've tried booting to windows with stock volts but its a no go. so if i'm going to rma my processor tomorrow i want to rma my board too, but could it be the power supply? how can i tell? should i just take my whole pc down to bcom an say "look, it dont work not enough volts, which part do you want to replace?" lol like that would work... how do i prove which part i need to rma?

[sswilson]

If you bought the parts local that might be the best bet. It would certainly save you the hassle of trying to figure out what component is wonky.

[Nodscene]

I tend to agree with what everyone is saying here. Seems like a power/voltage problem somewhere down the line. Almost reminds me of the issue I had with my girlfriends computer. Blue screens constantly, not able to install windows. Checked the memory, it was bad so replaced it. Same problem again, tested ram it was fine. Returned the motherboard thinking it was that and put in the new one with the same issues. I swear I spent about 20 hours trying to figure out what was going on. I finally brought it over to my place and it worked like a charm. Turns out it was the powerbar that was causing all the problems. I gave her one of mine and its worked like a dream since then.