Planetarion Forums

JammyJim · 21 Dec 2002, 17:24

Right. So far after building this MONSTAR of a pc i have installed the Asus utilities, Ut2003 demo, a few other game demos, 3d and pc mark, photoshop and some things transferred from an old hard disk

ive updated winxp pro to service pack 1 and downloaded all neccessary updates for security etc...

HOWEVAR

i decided to add IIS and also Net monitoring tools. Just before this i had installed the drivers for my secondary onboard lan from 3com (which i hadnt installed before). it restarted and everything was dandy.

i also changed my configurations settings in the bios back to optimal and turned the fsb back to its 'normal'. basically taking it off "agressive" and putting it back to the "stable" settings.

Ut2003 hasnt worked since i installed it. It claims it needs more virtual memory to run but the swap file is 1gig and therees 55gig free on my hard disk atm.

Ut crashed so i restarted. The pc then went into a restart loop everytime i went into windows. after removing iis and turning the pc completely off i managed to get it booting back in. However oinstead of just restarting it now told me explorer has caued a 'fault' and had to be shut down. Leaving me with just the wallpaper and no applications or startbar.

After much hassle i finally managed to get back in (through debug mode and safemode restarts) and uninstalled EVERYTHING except for the winxp service pack updates that couldve caused instability. IIS went. Network monitoring went. Ut2003 went. All other game demos were uninstalled and i disabled the 3com lan Adapter.

All seemed fine this morning. However i get back, turn on and explorer tells me that it cannot find "Kernal30.dll" and this was a rather large problem. I hit the reset button and then explorer says it has caued a fatal error and has to be shutdown.

I decide to turn the power completely off. I restart and it lets me in like nothing has happened.

WTF IS GOING ON???

21 Dec 2002, 17:30

prolly a PSU problem

JammyJim · 21 Dec 2002, 17:32

320w psu powering

AMD Athlon 2100XP +
512meg DDR Ram
WD 80gig 7200rpm (special edition thingy)
3 case fans
Sony CDRW
and the mobo

surely it doesnt need more??

meglamaniac · 21 Dec 2002, 17:42

Read the stickied PSU thread JJ (the first link in it does work now).
It is quite possible you're expecting far too much of that PSU, especially with all those fans.
You also neglected to say what graphics card you have - a GeForce4 Ti4600 128Mb for example draws a very substantial ammount of power, especially with all that DDR RAM.
512Mb DDR RAM is also quite power hungary.

I'm running:
AXP2000+
90mm fan @ 1200RPM cooling the chip
512Mb PC2700 RAM
2x7200 RPM HDDs
CDRW
DVD ROM
GeForce3 Ti200 64Mb
SBLive
TV/Radio card
Standard NIC
2 onboard USB hubs (all 4 ports in use (2 joypads, scanner, webcam)).
No case fans
All that is running on a 420W PSU. That is erring on the side of caution, but I wouldn't want to run that setup on 320W.

The only other immeditate option is memory/chipset trouble. My machine used to do some very similar things if you ran the RAM at 333Mhz (PC2700 speed) even though it was PC2700 ram. This turned out to be because the chipset was getting too hot and couldn't cope - that's now sorted and I can happily run at 333Mhz instead of 266Mhz (PC2100 speed).

Check your power before you blame the RAM though.

JammyJim · 21 Dec 2002, 17:57

the thing is that due to the processor being only 266 compatible the fsb is only set to 266.

so the ddr isnt running as fast as it could.

ive just run a system restore and it seems far far far more stable now. i restarted and nothing bad happened...

dont know if itll hold but i may invest in a new psu when i order the geforce on monday. 500w or summing. so i shouldnt have to upgrade for awhile

meglamaniac · 21 Dec 2002, 18:09

Er, JJ - my CPU is also 266Mhz FSB.
There's an option in the BIOS (on my Asus A7V333 anyway) called CPU/Memory Ratio.
If you set it to 1:1, the memory bus runs at the CPU bus speed (266Mhz, PC2100).
If you set it to 4:5, the memory bus runs at 5/4 of the CPU bus speed (333Mhz, PC2700).
If you set it to auto, it guesses the right one (so 4:5 in my case, as I have PC2700 RAM).

Also, the more output the PSU has, the more heat it generates and the more fans it needs. Hence, a 500W PSU is going to be a noisey bugger (not to mention expensive).

JammyJim · 21 Dec 2002, 19:39

its actually a 350w thing and the memory is running at its intended speed. (pc2700)

im still getting program errors in windows. im wondering whether i a full reinstall of xp might do the trick.

i came back up after restarting and then going to eat and "ctfmon.exe" had crashed.

all the things going wrong are windows apps that run in the background

services.exe
ctfmon.exe
lsass.exe

are the 3 main culprits.
im wondering whether they might all be corrupt due to ut2003 crashing the pc at an inopportune time...

Structural Integrity · 21 Dec 2002, 19:44

I'd try a whole new install...
When I did a fresh install with this comp right after I got it (I had tons of error too, kernel errors, BSOD's) it turned out the Windows install failed every time. Later it turned out the memory was fecked.
If you fail to reinstall Windows you might want to take a closer look at the memory.

meglamaniac · 21 Dec 2002, 19:47

Sounds more like memory then.

Lower the RAM speed to 2100 and try it like that for a bit. In all honesty 2700 doesn't make much difference (for various technical reasons).

Luckeh!!!! · 22 Dec 2002, 12:56

there are also latency issues when running the RAM/CPU asynchronously, try running 1:1 for a bit.

Can you also tell me how many AMPS (A) your PSU supplies on the 12V rail?

It should be printed on a sticker stuck on the side of your PSU.

JammyJim · 22 Dec 2002, 15:34

i think its a memory problem.

when i ran flashpoint it brought up a rather brand spanking new bsod and told me that it had a memory problem in sector xxxxxxxxx (whatever the hell it said) and that i should restart.

keeps happening.

im gonna phone scan tomorrow and ask them either to replace the memory with some that actually works properly.

if that doesnt fix the problem then im buggered.

JammyJim · 22 Dec 2002, 16:13

right im now wondering whether it might be incompartiblity with teh geforce4 mx420.

flashpoint is running fine as long as i adjust the resolution down to 800x600 and has no crashes and problems....

THIS IS BIZARRE...

meglamaniac · 22 Dec 2002, 16:40

Did you try bringing down the ram speed yet?

Incidentally, this wouldn't happen to be a VIA motherboard would it?

JammyJim · 22 Dec 2002, 19:25

yus its running at 133mhz atm. its usual speed is 166. presumably it doubles it like the cpu speed to achieve its 'fsb' speed.

anything above 166 and it refuses to even boot. (have to clear cmos settings manually heh)

Mobo is Asus A7N8X Deluxe if your curious.

meglamaniac · 22 Dec 2002, 21:59

Hmm - sounds like very dodgy memory then.
My advice would be not to beat about the bush with DDR RAM - its tricky at best to run things at those kinds of speeds, and while so called 'generic' ram can cut it for SDR it seems a lot generic DDR doesn't make the grade.

I bought 2x256 PC2700 from Crucial when I was building my latest machine - you really can't afford dodgy ram. I even managed to persuade my parents to get some Crucial ram for the machine I built for them - and getting them to spend anything above the minimum possible is a minor miracle in itself.

As a thought, check the Asus site for BIOS updates and see if there's any reference to fixing memory issues with your board. Its unlikely to be the BIOS though, as there'd be plenty of complaints around if the board didn't work from new.

MT · 23 Dec 2002, 00:59

perhaps you might like to do an extensive soak test of the RAM before you give up all hope.

erm

You DID put them in the right slots didnt you?

JammyJim · 23 Dec 2002, 13:52

3 slots

1 black
2 blue

i have 1 set of 512meg PC2700 DDR.

i place it in the black slot.

this is where its meant to go :-)

Im gonna phone scan today and ask them to send through more of the stuff or refund it.

JammyJim · 23 Dec 2002, 13:52

Quote:

Originally posted by MT
perhaps you might like to do an extensive soak test of the RAM before you give up all hope.

erm

You DID put them in the right slots didnt you?

how do i do a soak test?

Gayle29uk · 23 Dec 2002, 14:12

Quote:

Originally posted by JammyJim
how do i do a soak test?

At the risk of giving out a crippleware link (I haven't checked it) this should pretty much cover it

[edit]And another possibly useless link (don't know if this will run under your OS) that just might be useful, well, for 30 days at least

I can't believe even tucows has no freeware tools

[/edit]

JammyJim · 23 Dec 2002, 15:22

ok i phoned scan tech support who were amazingly helpful (they knew what i was talking about for starters) who directed me at a memory checker.

it ran

PASS = 0
ERRORS 72,000+

it was still running and the errors were sitll pilling up.
SOOOOOOOOOoo in the new year i send the memory back. they refund the money.

right now im off to Pcworld to buy some overpriced equivalent memory that i can take back if it does go wrong.

i cant be arsed to wait till after christmas because i want to use my pc NOW GODDAMNIT

rightyho...

23 Dec 2002, 15:41

heh good luck

wanna paste the url of the memory checker to us please

JammyJim · 23 Dec 2002, 16:48

www.memtest86.com

works a charm!