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My computer has been randomly crashing. The crashes are kind of strange... The audio coming out the speakers studders, then the mouse stops moving, and then everything on the monitors stop moving. No blue screen and it doesn't unfreeze even if I wait a long time (20-30 minutes). I have to do a hard reset to get the system working. The crashes typically happen soon (5-10 minutes) after I start the system, but can happen at any time.
I reinstalled windows, installed every windows update, installed all of the latest drivers listed on Gigabyte's website, flashed the bios, and the problem continues. Nothing is overclocked except the GPU which is factory overclocked. I've got all of the cables tied down and tucked away, and the air flow feels pretty good. I've run memtest and some other diagnostics and nothing so far points to a problem.
System Specs:
OS: Vista x64 Ultimate
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3P
CPU: Core 2 Duo E6750
Cooler: Zalman 9700 CPU (With Arctic Silver)
Ram: 4x G.Skill 2GB PC2-6400
GPU: MSI RX3870X2-T2D1G OC Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB 512-bit
OS Drive: Western Digital Caviar 250GB
Storage Drive: Western Digital Caviar 750GB
Swap Raid: 3x Western Digital Raptor 36GB (In RAID 0 using windows software RAID)
Wireless card: EW-7128g
Power Supply: ZALMAN ZM750-HP 750W
Optical Drive: LG gsa-h62n
Case: RAIDMAX SMILODON ATX-612WBP (With the door on the front removed for better air flow)
Monitor: 2x 19' Hanns-G LCD
You don't list any temp readings?
Other than that, with all the drives & two OC'd video cards, you have quite a draw on the +12v. Since your PSU has multiple +12v rails, make sure the load is evenly distributed.
Also, make sure you have "automatically restart" disabled.
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Has this been happening from the beginning ? As a way of troubleshooting, you might try disabling the raid 0. Also are the hard drives sata, and if yes, what mode are they in in the bios ?
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I had a similar problem. Was solved by reseating the RAM sticks. Take them out one by one and reseat them. You may run a diagnostic check on RAM with memtest86 too.
Anupam
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Thank you for reading my question!
jam: I have the video cards and hard drives spread across the 12 volt rails. I also took some time to calculate the maximum draw of all the components in my computer and this power supply has more than 150 watts to spare. I also disabled "automatically restart".
What software should I use to measure the temps? Is there something that will log processor, video card, motherboard, etc temp? Is there a table I can look at to see if the temps are in the normal range?
kx5m2g: The problems have not been happening from the beginning. This computer has slowly been upgraded part by part, but the problem didn't start after I changed a part out, so that doesn't help too much.
The crashes still happen without the RAID attached.
All of the drives in the machine are SATA. What modes are possible? I will look in bios and see what is selected.
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If you're running raid 0, then the sata mode should be selected as raid. If not, I would select IDE mode.
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"What software should I use to measure the temps?"
Since you have a Gigabyte board, you should be using EasyTune.
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i keep having the same problem when playing any game (L4D, TF2) but it shuts off randomly during within 10-15 minutes of the game. I had this problem before and solved it with a bigger psu, now I have a 600w PSU and it just started up being again. It is wierd though, it has its own spurts, sometimes I can play the game for awhile fine, and it would be like that for the whole day and then the next day it would shut off countless times. ...i hate computer problems..
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One thing that's been discussed in these forums numerous times is that you should NOT base the worth of a PSU on wattage alone. Amperage is the key ingredient, especially on the +12v rail(s).
PSUs with multiple +12v rails were a great idea when they were 1st introduced (ATX12V 2.x standard), but that design is rapidly failing out of favor. The original idea was to have one +12v rail dedicated soley to the CPU & a 2nd +12v rail for the rest of the hardware. With the ATX12V 2.x standard, the max ampergae on any +12v rail is 20A. The problem is that the amperage gets "trapped" & cannot be used by the rest of the system. For example, if the +12v1 rail has 20A & the CPU itself only requires 10A, the other 10A is basically wasted...it's trapped on that rail. To overcome this problem (& because more & more hardware is drawing off the +12v rail), manufacturer's started adding even more +12v rails (+12v3, +12v4, +12v5, etc) but in doing so, the builder is forced to manually balance the load. If the load isn't spread out properly & any one of the +12v rails is overloaded, random restarts or shutdowns can occur.
To combat this, manufacturers are moving away from the ATX12V 2.x standard & are going to the EPS12V standard which doesn't have the 20A limit. PC Power & Cooling and Corsair are probably the two leaders with these types of PSUs. For example, they both have 750W units with 60A on a single +12v rail. This means that ALL that amperage is available...none of it gets trapped & there's no need to worry about balancing the load.
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