BSOD again

[lightice]

The funny thing is, that now when I run memtest with all chips, I don't get errors.

It's really weird, I really wonder what is going on.

And thanks Carl - I appreciate the help.

 

[CarlTR6]

You are very welcome. Maybe the changes that you made solved the problem?

 

[lightice]

Nope, this happens intermittedly.

There is a chance it will occur again. It's like once the system starts running stable, it can go on for quite a while before anything happens.

But if I boot from cold/unplugged senario, it can freeze/bsod continuously.

 

[CarlTR6]

I see. We will wait for the hardware experts to come on line and take a look.

 

[Pirl]

You mean +0.1v NB right?
Because auto = 1.1v , if I add in +1 then it's above 1.6.

I'll try the suggestion out Pril, but for now I need to get some work done. :s

Yes I do. +1.0v would be disastrous... I'm glad that I didn't cause you to do that. :shock:

I was thinking in +10 divisions (which I thought were 0.2v each rather than the 0.02v that they actually are.

I see. We will wait for the hardware experts to come on line and take a look.

It seems to be an issue with at least some of the P5Q series (although I believe I read that something similar happens with some Gigabyte P45 motherboards too)

 

[CarlTR6]

You mean +0.1v NB right?
Because auto = 1.1v , if I add in +1 then it's above 1.6.

I'll try the suggestion out Pril, but for now I need to get some work done. :s

Yes I do. +1.0v would be disastrous... I'm glad that I didn't cause you to do that. :shock:

I was thinking in +10 divisions (which I thought were 0.2v each rather than the 0.02v that they actually are.

I see. We will wait for the hardware experts to come on line and take a look.

It seems to be an issue with at least some of the P5Q series (although I believe I read that something similar happens with some Gigabyte P45 motherboards too)

Thanks for that information. I was not aware of it.

 

[lightice]

Well, for a few days it was running fine, no crashes, no BSOD, startup went well no freezes, until I completed all my assignments. And today, when I switched it on, i got the same problem. Freeze (no BSOD) at windows.

Reboot, won't go to post.
After I switched everything off for a while, switched it back on, a message came out "Overclocking failed" Press F1 to enter Bios, F2 to reset to default.

The thing is, I never overclocked, Everything was set to auto. ??

Immediately I ran memtest and got a ton of errors -> 4 chips

Pulled out 2, running 2 chips on the yellow DIMMS and it's been 7h 39min, no errors.
DRAM timing is not the speced ones, it's now at 5-5-5-16 (auto)

 

[cybercore]

After I switched everything off for a while, switched it back on, a message came out "Overclocking failed" Press F1 to enter Bios, F2 to reset to default.

It happens sometimes, due to wrong bios settings or due to hardware failure.

Immediately I ran memtest and got a ton of errors -> 4 chips

Pulled out 2, running 2 chips on the yellow DIMMS and it's been 7h 39min, no errors.
DRAM timing is not the speced ones, it's now at 5-5-5-16 (auto)

Well it could also be if the sticks require different settings. Or if motherboard can't handle the amount of total RAM installed. And of course, in case those 2 sticks you pulled out were actually defective - that was your cause then.

 

[lightice]

Cybercore:

Actually I tested those 2 I pulled out a few days ago. I ran memtest extensively then and found no errors during the testing when running on 2 chips at 2 different slots. And various other combinations.

The motherboard can handle up to 16GB if I am not wrong. I'm only at 4GB.
It could be the RAM timing, but if that's the case it definiately points to a hardware fault because it's supposed to be running at 4-4-4-12 @ 2.2v.
Now it's auto @ 5-5-5-16 , not sure what voltage.

 

[cybercore]

That's what I'm saying, you got 4 sticks - are you sure they are identical?

 

[lightice]

Yes, they are all patroit RAM, I purchased 2 identical kits at the same time.
When I was using the previous motherboard I never had such issues. (p5q pro before RMA first time)

Before the P5Q pro, it was in another motherboard, also no issues at all. Ran fine for more than a year without BSODs.

 

[cybercore]

Either sticks are bad, or they were somehow improperly installed that time it showed errors, or might be something with the motherboard - I'm viewing the first 7 pages, how about bios upgrade?

 

[lightice]

I had these problems using the latest bios, and I downgraded to 2nd latest one and still having the same issues.
I don't think they were improperly installed because it would run fine for a few days and these errors will then pop up.
The computer isn't moved and it's just located on a table top, so no one would kick it. Or even move it.
I'm stumped lol.

 

[lightice]

Cybercore, I ran the computer for 14 days.

During these 14 days, if the computer was running fine for a few hours, it'd run well for a few days.

If I restarted it and it started BSOD/freezing, it'd continue freezing.

Yesterday I downgraded from the latest bios to one that was released sometime in dec 2008, I think it was 3rd or 4th latest version.
And I am running memtest, its been 17 hours now and no errors.

Previously, I think the 2 latest bios versions have problems.

Because even when I have not done anything to bios except move NB voltage to 1.2, it would give me an error at boot stating overclock failed.
And told me to press F1 to enter bios for setup, or F2 to set to default values.

Furthermore, once when I entered bios, I saw a smiley face, on AI.
Meaning the A became a smiley face. So I suspected that its probably a bios problem.

Now the memtest is still running, since I downgraded the bios, i will run it for 24h and report back.

 

[lightice]

Memtest has been going on for longer than 24h and no errors. Could this really be a corrupted bios provided by ASUS?

I'll let it continue running over night and check again tomorrow morning. By that time it'd be close to 34h.

 

[lightice]

36h passed on memtest, 40 full passes with 0 errors.

 

[lightice]

Well, the memtest doesn't say much, because win7 just froze again today.

And now I can't start the computer. It powers up, fan runs and nothing else. No post, no beep, no response on screen.

 

[lightice]

Now I can't even run memtest without it crashing.

It has crashed 3 times
1) i got 'interrupt error' and the thing froze.
2) Instead of showing me what RAM i had installed, the lower portion of the screen turned into lines of smiley faces
3) The whole screen showed vertical coloured lines