OT: Help needed,my system becomes unstable

[Skybird]

Symptoms:

during the last two weeks, the system shut down completely (black death, power cut) two times while running idle, or running Words (so, no stress for the CPU). Two or three other incidents when it did not shut down, but started to reboot suddenly.

Three or four times, the booting sequence took up to 30 seconds to even start with showing the first BIOS screen.

Today, after having left a game (Oblivion), the desktop was heavily blurred and washed-out that I needed to reboot. But even the BIOS screens showed the same blurness and washing-out. I cut power and waited three minutes, started again then: blurred and lots of white noise. Again completely shut down, and waited some more minutes. Booting went fine again.


Setup:

I run my tower with an almost open back and a room ventilator behind it, it is more silent, and very effective - I feel a gentle flow of air at the front's openings with my hand.

I have inserted a new graphics card two weeks ago, and equipped it with a new cooler.

System was stable since 1.5 years.

It is very hot over here, room temperatur often above 27°C. That'S why i open the wide side of the tower, too.


My thoughts so far:

The new graphic card (nVidia 6800) needs more power than the AC can provide. It is a 350W device. However, one would assume that the problems would appear when the board is under maximum stress, what is the case when playing Oblivion, and I play it a lot, currently. However, the problems never rose when playing Oblivion. Sometimes, they even started when the system was in idle.

Overheating. The CPU cooler is an Arctic silent 4 (P4, 3.0). The CPU has a temperatur of 37-38°C in idle. It was no problem in the last 18 months, or last summer. The graphics board is equipped with a Zalman VX900 at around 2200 rpm. when touching the copper fins, they are handwarm. Again, one would asusme the card overheating when under stress (Oblivion), but it runs Oblivion well.

Hard Drive.

RAM (2x512).

Any other thoughts? I am clueless and don't know what to do. I checked cables and connections. Cables inside are nicely bound together.

Could it be a power problem, or a colling problem? Can anyone make sense of the symptoms described?

[mog]

I'm far from an expert, but:

1) It certainly does sound like overheating
2) Removing the side panel of your case could actually be detrimental by disrupting airflow from the front to the back.

[jumpy]

The new graphic card (nVidia 6800) needs more power than the AC can provide. It is a 350W device.
I have a 6800gt card which is essentially the same as yours. Before I bought it a couple of years ago I had a look on somewhere like toms hardware gude for a review. I seem to recall it being mentioned that the card required at least a 400w psu to run correctly without risk of crashing.
If the motherboard cannot get enough power due to the graphics card hogging all the juice, could that cause your machine to crash?

Worth a shot maybe? Besides, you can never have too mahoosive a power supply :p

I wouldn't have thought you could get a serious temperature issue with the side of the case off... but having said that :-? what's the manufacturers operating temp for the cpu?
My case has 2 120mm case fans at ~ 3000rpm and an 80mm cpu cooler at 5500rpm. Recently it has been pretty hot here, hotest so far this year, and current temperatures are: case-36c cpu-56c which is a little above average for my machine due to it being gernerally hot.

Maybe not relevent, but how old is the 'backup' battery on your motherboard?

[Skybird]

Graphics boards consume the more power and produce the more heat the more busy they are. I am irritated that the problems do not appear when the system is performing heavy duty, but is at idle. I have had no problems so far while playing Oblivion at max details and high resolution. If the card is undersupplied, one would expect it to fail when doing this or Far Cry or Il-2. but it does not. at least not until now. I had the crashed when the system was at idle, or running words.

The side of the tower is open, and the back is very much open. From the corner of these two open sides a 25 cm ventilator blows diagonally into the tower. The ventilator and the wall are arranged in such a way that the airstream flows from back to front. It reaches all areas inside the tower. Ypu can feel the air easily coming out at the front of the chassis when holding your hand there. I do like that since years, and with two earlier systems as well. Never had problems with cooling.


I will need to wait for a period of colder days then, and see what changes then. Maybe when I am done with Oblivion I reinstall my older FX5900 card which served all other sims and pruposes well. If the new card, despite the contradiction of working well under stress, but failing when working nothing, is the porblem, the symptoms should disappear with the old card then.

No way I am willing to buy computer systems with AC beyond the 500W limit. Changing from 200W to 350W already marked an impact on my electricity bill that was to be felt.

A p4 of 3 GHZ is said to trigger the emergency shutdown at around 70°C, I recall from some Intel table. I am sure, and have checked that with a temp scanner as well ,that the CPU does not reach such levels. It is at 37°C in idle, and around 45-50°C under full stress.

Oh, and wanting to say that dust is not the problem, I keep good care of that, since the tower is open so often.

The battery is the one the sywstem came with: 1.5 years, a Lithium CRxxxx, often used type. In watches, this battery usually lives up to five years. but I will measure it the next time I start working in the inside.

[scandium]

The P4 will throttle if it overheats, so the shutdowns/reboots you are experiencing are not the result of your CPU overheating. I don't think its the GPU (your video card) overheating either. My money is on your power supply having gone flaky after you replaced your video card with one that would (especially in conjunction with the notoriously power hungry P4) push even a good 350W PSU to its limit, and perhaps beyond it.


By the way Skybird, the electricity used by a computer's PSU is not determined by the rating of the PSU; it is determined by the load placed on the PSU by the computer's components and the PSU's efficiency, and the way to save on that is to use computer components that use less power, or are at least more efficient (and thus any newer AMD CPU is to be preferred to its Intel equivalent), in conjunction with a high efficiency PSU (good efficient PSUs advertise their efficiency).

My recommendation is that you buy a high efficiency replacement PSU in the 450W range.

[Hellcat]

Sounds like a power supply issue to me, what brand are you currently using? I've had a generic brand psu's fail on me after 4 years of steady use.

ideally do you have any componets kicking around you can swap and test? like the old vid card. (edit i see you still have it!)

[kiwi_2005]

Sounds like symptoms of a overclocked CPU a overclocked cpu can make your computer crash evenwhen its idle. But you never mentioned you overclocked it, so check your PSU see if you can borrow another with the same watts and connect that up then see if the problems stop.

[Skybird]

No overclocking here. But today I had problems even to get booted. Needed to shake and to rattle the contacts a lot, and when touching and gently hitting the HD, it suddenly booted. Could such problems like mine be caused by a malfunctioning HD? I noticed that yesterday it had become very hot, while all other things were pretty moderate in their temperatures.

[scandium]

When it comes to PC components going flaky, pretty much anything is possible but I would be surprised if it was your HD. You can download a program like Disk Checker though and use it to check the HD's SMART data and to surface scan the drive for physical defects. Since its a free program to try there's no cost in using it to rule your drive out first.

[SUBMAN1]

In all my years of tech support, when something is not pinpointable (like that word? :D), it is usually the result of a flaky PSU. Your PSU is probably on the fritz. It is fluctuating its power and not able to keep the +12 V stable. Your 6800 sucks in a lot in off the +12, even in Word or Excel. Top this off with what amounts to likely an older worn PSU and you are a likely candidate for power problems. Now add in here that when bought new, the PSU only puts out its rated power at a given temp, and then add in all your hot components to raise this temp past normal, and you have another scenario where your PSU is backing off on its max power which will also result in weird things happening to your system.

Simple solution is, go out an buy yourself a 400 to 450 WATT PSU. Pay particular attention to the +12V rail and make sure it can deliver some decent amperage - like over 20 amps, prefereably 25 or more since this will allow room for growth. Most 400 to 450 Watt PSU's will have this much power. 350 or 300 Watt PSU's typically can't deliver this kind of power.

My system currently draws at least 30 or more amps on the +12 if that tells you anything. I bought a PSU that can deliver 42 amps because my end system will likely draw in close to 40 amps when I am done.

What happened to getting cooler and more energy efficient components as technology moves on? It seems that I am on a bandwagon of needing ever more and more power! Something is not right with this scenario!

-S

[tycho102]

Skybird:

If that's not your CPU temperature, or your GPU temperature, you need to check your memory.

Download Memtest86 and run that at the ms-dos prompt. You can also use just about any current version of Linux; Fedora, Suse, Knoppix, Overclockix, Ubuntu, Debian. All the Live distros (CD or DVD) include Memtest. You just run "linux memtest" at the command prompt, or choose "memory test" at the menu (such as with Suse).

Configure your memory to run "stock", and let memtest run for 10 hours or more. Don't bother with more than 24 hours. Overclocking instability will show up within the first 10 minutes. Defective ram can take 45 minutes to 10 hours, depending on the severity.

********** IF ALL THAT PASSES ***************

It's your PSU or it's your mainboard's voltage regulators. Capacitors (notably, electrolytic capacitors) since 2002 have dropped in quality. China and Taiwan don't quality-assure their production lines anymore, leaving it up to the OEM's to fail test their systems. If you ever RMA a component and receive a replacement, you can see the results of this business philosophy for yourself. You'll see Sharpie marker slashes across the majority of caps on that component (such as a sound card or video card), indicating that the troubleshooter marked each cap as "good" during rework.

Your mainboard's power regulators, and your PSU, heavily depend on eCaps to supply "clean" power. Unclean power will cause those same "blink outs" like what you have described.

With a 350w power supply, at 50 degrees centigrade, it's only going to be putting out 250w or less. Usually 175w. That same 350w PSU running it's switches at 25C will put out it's full 350w. This is partially why people buy 500w power supplies; at 45C "typical" running conditions, it's still going to put out 350w of power.


======================
So, you will need to swap out a PSU, first. If you can borrow someone's for a few days of testing, that's the cheapest route. If not, you need to "upgrade" to something with a higher 12v current rating.

If memtest ran good, then it's not your processors, so it is most likely your mainboard's caps.

[porphy]

I go with the PSU theory as well. Had a incident almost like that a few months ago. I had overclocked my P4 a bit, and everything was fine. Computer was idle and late in the evening I was about to shut it down when I noticed it already was off. I was a bit tired and thoght I had turned it off earlier. Next morning it did't boot up. Dead. PSU had obviously died the "idle death" :roll: . Got a cooltek 500w and quit all OC. Now it's fine and more quiet than ever.

Cheers Porphy

[Wxman]

Power supply is only going to supply whatever the load is. IF there's no load, there's no draw. If the load is 200w, it'll supply 200w even if its rated at 500w. A 500w power supply will run cooler supplying 200w than a 350w power supply (it would last longer too). The bottom line: you shouldn't see an increase in the power bill because of larger PSU (unless you're talking about different computers one with 200w PSU and another one with 350w PSU. The 350w PSU will most likely be putting out 150w on a continuous basis (except at startup with inrush currents and so forth), while the 200w unit was probably putting out 100w continuously. So in that case, yeah, you'd notice that on your electric bill. BUT that is the difference between PII and PIV system.

A P4 with current video card should not run on anything less than 400w. If you put a 500w into a P4 system, it MAY draw 300w at startup, but run continuously at about 150w. So you're not going to see a larger electric bill.

My thinking its one of three problems:

motherboard failure
PSU failure
power mains powerWith respect to #3, if you're getting brownouts, or sags on the voltage that could cause problems. Spikes and noise on the line can fry components over time. A surge suppressor only handles current surge (it won't deal with over-voltage). The only way to ensure clean power is with a battery backup system. The deal with standby-by power is the same with PSU: you want the highest rated unit you can afford predominantly so that they'll last longer. A decent rated unit's battery should last about 5 years. Units rated too low won't last as long, because every time the PC is running exclusively off of battery, the run-time decreases (even if the battery is at 100% charge). So you don't want a unit that'll only give you 5 minutes of run time, you want one that'll supply at least 30 min (1000 VA or higher).

As far as mains quality, you'd be suprised at how often BBS will trip. If your lights often flicker, or go noticeably dim you're definitely a candidate for a BBS. Even if you don't see something like that, a voltage drop lasting less than 1/10 second (blink of an eye) won't even be visible in the lights. But how many cycles does a CPU do in 1/10 second? Furthermore, a PSU doesn't draw continuous power. In the U.S. we have 115v @50/60 Hz. So the PSU is sipping power at discrete intervals. A 1/10 second interuption is 6 cylcles that's an eternity for a PSU. All kinds of things can cause mains to go low: fridge, A/C kicking on, furnace, or even somebody turning on their table saw next door.

Also, surge protector doesn't filter the power either. So if you ever hear/see noise in the TV/stereo when the A/C, furnace, fridge kick in then there's garbage on mains that is abusing the PSU. Also, thunderstorms can have an effect on the power quality of mains throughout the grid. Lightning strikes on the grid have a way of propagating through the grid as noise (and even prolonged undervoltages sa the system deals with line condition). Over time that garbage can fry components. That's why a decent battery backup with power conditioning is always recommended. Its always a good idea to plug the battery backup into a decent rated surge protector too. While most battery backups have surge protectors built into them, if it blows the unit is prett much shot. However, an external surge protector can easily be replace. Furthermore, surge protectors go bad after time when they're dealing with surges. So its not a bad idea to replace a surge protector every 5-6 years outright. Protecting a battery backups built in surge protection with external surge protection is always a good idea.

[Skybird]

Thanks to all.

However, you cannot explain why the system so far is stable when being under full working load, both CPU and graphics card. It should be then when too instabile power supply shows the most obvious, since then the demand is the highest, CPU, graphics, RAM, and sound.

I now have the symptom - currently the only one - that when I started the system yesterdy and today morning, the LED indicating HD activity is on for 1.5 - 2 minutes, while the screen remains pitchblack and nothing happens, the monitor even switches back to standby mode. Then, all of a sudden, booting begins, monitor goes on, with the Windows loading screen, without displaying the usual BIOS screens. When I switch off immediately after that, and try to reboot, it is the same. However, when the system has run let'S say an hour or so, for longer time, and components are a bit warm, rebooting is done in the usual way, and reliable, and fast. Booting a really cold system= long time, rebooting a warm system (including power switchoff)= short loading time. I also have an old graphics board inserted now, which ran fine since 1.5 years, and before that in an older system. So far no effect from that change. I will put the new card back in, and run it and the fan with a separate AC from an old system for some days.

but somehow I have a feeling now that it neither is overheating, nor power supply. I just came back from town minutes agho, and have asked in the store where I bought the components and let them built the tower. The guys there are both freindly and good on their matter. They said that due to the circumstances of having a stable system even when maximum instability should be expected (full working load), the AC probably is not the problem (as long as it has no erratically appearing problem with broken internal hardware). And according to my description of how the system it set up (open, ventilator), overheating would be a surprise to be the cause of problems. Remains: motherboard problem, RAM problem, HD problem, soundcard problem (the latter I do not take seriously into account).

My tip is the harddrive now, the thing was very hot two days ago (it used to be cold, since it get's it'S share from the ventilator, and directly), at one, as described somewhere above. I could imagine that it received some kind of damage from that. But overall heat problems I cannot imagine to be the source of problems, the tower simply is too open and receives too much fresh air from a separate ventilator.
Will exchange the HD sometime this weekend, and let the system running all day for the time being.

I have no battery backup. the talk above was only about that small Lithium cell that motherboards are used to be equipped with. We also have absolutely stable power lines over here, no blinking, no blackouts or brownouts, nothing.

Never have built a system by hand myself, only decided on components, and let other do it. I can chnage a sound or graphics board or RAM bars, but a motherboard and all cables and AC - still quite impresses me.

Assuming I try a new AC - and I will not invest that money as long as it is not safe to say it is the AC causing the problem - could I trust in that if connecting connectors really matches by form, that the according device really gets the voltage and ampere it needs, then? Or do different power supplies in those many cables of a AC nevertheless sometimes have the same plugs?

[porphy]

Hi Sky

I'm no expert in these matters, but don't you think it sounds as if when you cold start the comp, your PSU is not up to it. When the components in it get warm, it stabilizes and runs fine and therefore cope with full load use. This also fits with the behaviour that it restarts just fine after some use.
HDD failures usally go with clicking sound and the drives spinning, but you don't seem to get that and the HDD should show problems when working, not only at boot I guess. I still think your PSU is dying, but perhaps a slow death. Not a heartattack like mine. ;) But it's hard to know for sure without changing parts around, it sounds as if you will have solved the puzzle soon though.
You could take the PSU to the shop and let them measure the output. I did that to be sure it was the psu that had gone out. Connecting a new PSU is'nt that hard as long you have documentation on your motherboard layout. From this you can figure it out, no doubt. Just check if the connector to motherboard is ATX 2.0, most PSU have a adapter if you run a older motherboard. The ppl in the shop should sort that out for you.

[Skybird]

Hi Sky

I'm no expert in these matters, but don't you think it sounds as if when you cold start the comp, your PSU is not up to it. When the components in it get warm, it stabilizes and runs fine and therefore cope with full load use. This also fits with the behaviour that it restarts just fine after some use.
HDD failures usally go with clicking sound and the drives spinning, but you don't seem to get that and the HDD should show problems when working, not only at boot I guess. I still think your PSU is dying, but perhaps a slow death. Not a heartattack like mine. ;) But it's hard to know for sure without changing parts around, it sounds as if you will have solved the puzzle soon though.
You could take the PSU to the shop and let them measure the output. I did that to be sure it was the psu that had gone out. Connecting a new PSU is'nt that hard as long you have documentation on your motherboard layout. From this you can figure it out, no doubt. Just check if the connector to motherboard is ATX 2.0, most PSU have a adapter if you run a older motherboard. The ppl in the shop should sort that out for you.

Good thought, I think that is a realistic possebility. Now that you say it I remember that some weeks ago the fan in the PSU did made some kind of noise. I needed to repeatedly shake it a bit in order to get it running smoothly again. Since it has not come back, I forgot about it completely.

I keep that one in mind, thanks.

[Skybird]

I recalled the type of PSU wrong, anyway. It is no 350W, but a 420W device. I think I mixed it up with the PSU in my former system.

http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/2139/img07938xa.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[Wim Libaers]

I have no battery backup. the talk above was only about that small Lithium cell that motherboards are used to be equipped with. We also have absolutely stable power lines over here, no blinking, no blackouts or brownouts, nothing.


1. That battery doesn't matter. You can even run computers without that battery, but you'll probably have to reset the time and other BIOS settings on every cold boot.

2. You mean you do not have any obvious instability. That you cannot easily see the instability doesn't mean there are no brief errors, or slow fluctuations. (i.e. errors that occur to fast or to slow to be obvious without measuring equipment)

3. It is possible for a power supply circuit to be more stable at high load than at low load. But I have never worked on any PC switching PSU, and there must be many different designs out there, so it's impossible to say if this would be the case for your system, and I don't know if there is a type of damage that will cause such instability when a PSU in good condition would not fail.

[TteFAboB]

That's a very clean CPU case for someone who runs a tower fan in the rear.

I have to clean my entire case at least once a month or every two months, I always wanted to switch to liquid cooling just to be able to weld shut my case and stop any dust from getting in but the entire liquid system is too much of a hassle and the risk far too great.

Do you put air-filters in your tower fan or do you live in a negative-pressure vacuum sealed enviroment?

[Skybird]

No, i just clean it regularly and take care when doing so. When you run an open tower and put a vent near to it, you really need to have an eye on the dust level :)

[NEON DEON]

Hi Sky,

I was wondering if you could post a dxdiag file and your complete systems specs?

It might help to see what the OS is saying about your computer.

[Wxman]

Sounds like you should be good on the PSU capacity. Whether or not its operating w/in specs would only be guessable if your motherboard has SM bus and monitoring utlility can function.

I don't think cooling is suspect either, considering the open case. However, open case does present the potential for ESD. Do you have an animal in the house? Electro static discharge (ESD) can wack components so schell wie einnen Blitz und Tod Schlag. Most technicians work with wrist straps. However, this is not absolutely necessary if one grounds themselves by touching the chassis (with PSU still plugged into mains) prior to disconnecting unit from mains and touching any components withing system (and being very carefull while working on the system no to suffle feet on carpet). Touching running water stream from faucet is also good way to ground oneself (do this if you have to walk away from workaread and system is apart). Only handle board components by holding board at PCB edges (do not touch surface mounted components). Its o.k. to touch anything inside box while its running provided one drains any accumulated charge before so doing by touching the chassis first (PSU must be plugged into mains for this to be effective though). Never remove/insert anything from system board while its plugged in (or running).

All identical shaped plugs coming from PSU should have identical rated power specs. Although a bad contact within some connectors could be at fault.

Do you have a HDD utility, such as Norton Disk Doctor? I'd run it (or the Windows equivalent scandisk) and see if it finds any major problems.

Your problem strikes me as electrical, in that morning sickness seems to be the main problem. Also, at idle computer components may cool sufficiently to break contact.


Disconnect each and every component from motherboard and reconnect/reinsert (component connections can get loose over time).
Run disk scan utility
disconnect unit from mains, remove CMOS battery, replace CMOS battery 5 minutes later, reconnect PSU to mains
run memory test utility
reflash BIOS (after initial flash, be sure to load default configuration, and then configure with system specific configuration). You could check to see if a more recent BIOS version is available and flash that, but I've seen flakey system problems disappear by merely reflashing the very same original BIOS. Why would a BIOS flash go bad? Uh, ESD? Dunno. Happens. I recently had my system unplugged from mains for three days. When I plugged it back in all sorts of strange issue cropped up during boot. After much head scrathing I figured the system was 6 years old, so I ran out and bought a new CMOS battery. That helped enourmously, but ultimately also had to reflash the BIOS before all the bugs got shaken out.
If all that fails to pinpoint/resolve the problem, I'd strongly suspect failure of a controller on the motherboard.

[SUBMAN1]

I recalled the type of PSU wrong, anyway. It is no 350W, but a 420W device. I think I mixed it up with the PSU in my former system.

http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/2139/img07938xa.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Notice it only has 15 Amps on the +12 - not good.

I have 42 amps on quad 12 volt rails.

[SUBMAN1]

Thanks to all.

However, you cannot explain why the system so far is stable when being under full working load, both CPU and graphics card. It should be then when too instabile power supply shows the most obvious, since then the demand is the highest, CPU, graphics, RAM, and sound.

I now have the symptom - currently the only one - that when I started the system yesterdy and today morning, the LED indicating HD activity is on for 1.5 - 2 minutes, while the screen remains pitchblack and nothing happens, the monitor even switches back to standby mode. Then, all of a sudden, booting begins, monitor goes on, with the Windows loading screen, without displaying the usual BIOS screens. When I switch off immediately after that, and try to reboot, it is the same. However, when the system has run let'S say an hour or so, for longer time, and components are a bit warm, rebooting is done in the usual way, and reliable, and fast. Booting a really cold system= long time, rebooting a warm system (including power switchoff)= short loading time. I also have an old graphics board inserted now, which ran fine since 1.5 years, and before that in an older system. So far no effect from that change. I will put the new card back in, and run it and the fan with a separate AC from an old system for some days.

but somehow I have a feeling now that it neither is overheating, nor power supply. I just came back from town minutes agho, and have asked in the store where I bought the components and let them built the tower. The guys there are both freindly and good on their matter. They said that due to the circumstances of having a stable system even when maximum instability should be expected (full working load), the AC probably is not the problem (as long as it has no erratically appearing problem with broken internal hardware). And according to my description of how the system it set up (open, ventilator), overheating would be a surprise to be the cause of problems. Remains: motherboard problem, RAM problem, HD problem, soundcard problem (the latter I do not take seriously into account).

My tip is the harddrive now, the thing was very hot two days ago (it used to be cold, since it get's it'S share from the ventilator, and directly), at one, as described somewhere above. I could imagine that it received some kind of damage from that. But overall heat problems I cannot imagine to be the source of problems, the tower simply is too open and receives too much fresh air from a separate ventilator.
Will exchange the HD sometime this weekend, and let the system running all day for the time being.

I have no battery backup. the talk above was only about that small Lithium cell that motherboards are used to be equipped with. We also have absolutely stable power lines over here, no blinking, no blackouts or brownouts, nothing.

Never have built a system by hand myself, only decided on components, and let other do it. I can chnage a sound or graphics board or RAM bars, but a motherboard and all cables and AC - still quite impresses me.

Assuming I try a new AC - and I will not invest that money as long as it is not safe to say it is the AC causing the problem - could I trust in that if connecting connectors really matches by form, that the according device really gets the voltage and ampere it needs, then? Or do different power supplies in those many cables of a AC nevertheless sometimes have the same plugs?

One more thing here - my mother in laws system started experincing similar things as you type here. The HD LED would just come on and hang the system forever, but it would eventually come back in her case. This again was a PSU issue, but was a Shuttle if you know what that is. Replaced the PSU with same model - fixed all the issues and works fine. PSU's go bad over time.

-S

PS. Run Seatools to see how the HD is operating. You can find it on Seagates site. If it reports everything is OK (like it did with my mother in laws system since I also thought bad HD) then it is not your HD.

PPS. Windows XP is very resilient to cracshing in circumstances like this by the way.