Bsod

stevieray, check your cpu speed and temperature in the bios as shown here:

I had a few obligations in the meat world to attend to... I'm back home now, running all of the tests y'all suggested. I'll post the results in an hour or two.

Heh. It looks like a computer store in here. My desktop's got its memory pulled out; my laptop (vista) is installing the new service pack and rebooting like a madman... I had to set up my old xp pro desktop on my bar!

Hammerhead786 said:

stevieray, check your cpu speed and temperature in the bios as shown here:

How do I use the snipping tool in BIOS... before I let Windows open?

I finished running the memtests on my RAM... no errors found on any card or in any slot.

I tried to run the recommended HD test, but I couldn't find a WD test that'll run in Win7.

I disabled UAC so I could access the minidumps. Ran WhoCrashed, and here are the reports:

Attachment 12119

Attachment 12120

I googled the problems... narrowed it down to RAM... or a video driver... or a processing error... or bad karma...

I checked out CoreTemp64. The temps are a bit too high, but not close to the limit. They should be 10 degrees lower under these minimal loads. I keep the core temps on display in my task bar, and I've never seen it hit 50... its usually in the 30's, with spikes up into the mid 40's under medium use.

Attachment 12121

I'm gonna poke around some more... see what else I can find.

Your processor speed is definitely not right. Here's mine using CPU-Z:

Hammerhead786 said:

Your processor speed is definitely not right. Here's mine using CPU-Z:

Yes. I noticed that late last night. It runs at 2/3rd speed about 90% of the time, and jumps up to full speed every 10 to 15 seconds. Notice the multiplier changes too.

Attachment 12129

Attachment 12130

Could this be some sort of power-saving "green" setting in BIOS?

Most certainly. If you look in the advanced bios features you should find the following:

...how you find your 35 degree temperatures to be "a bit high" :) I have a q6600 at work that, on stock speed, hovers around 40 and as it is now (oc'd to 3200) never goes below 45. Same goes for another of my work computers which is a q9450 (50 - 55 @ 3.2 Ghz) and my home i7 920 running at 3.5 Ghz... I think 35 C for q6600 on stock is pretty good... at least I've never seen it run cooler (ok, so I may be using crap coolers, but the one on the q6600 is the V-shaped scythe, the q9450 has a Zalman 9700 on, and the i7 has an ASUS "something 81" on it... can't seem to remember the name).

Are you using the drivers for your video card that Windows itself installs from Windows update? I've found that the current WHQL certified drivers that are available on nVidia's site at the moment cause my computer to crash EVERY time I log off a user... That's on a GFX 280)

Elooder: I'm basing my view that the temps are a bit too high on, well, very little at all.

When I was weighing different CPU's before I built this thing, I went by the Intel-run user forums to see what people were complaining about. That's a habit I picked up while searching for av/as/fw suites -- magazine/website recommendations are good to know, but the real poop is on the user forums... see what they are talking about, and how responsive the staff is, and make your choice based on that.

Anyway, I noticed the intel gurus were generally running in the mid-twenties at idle, mid-forties at full load.

Looking around, it looks like most folks get core temps in the same range as us... higher than the Intel guys, but still within parameters. But still, I'm planning on replacing the stock cooler before I try any overclocking.

As to the video driver, the original one that came with the card is the most current, so I'm using it. nviddmkm8.15.11.8585. The device manager seems to like it... who am I to argue?