I need help. I recently upgraded my computer to the following specs;
Windows 7 (64 bit)
500GB sata Hard drive
4GB DDR2 ram
XFX ATi Radeon 4890 video card (1GB video ram)
Asus mobo PK5 series
700 watt power supply
It was a fresh install of windows 7. I installed my Steam account and I have a lot of games (thanks to the recent sale). I had a 320GB IDE hard drive before but I kept getting the same constant crashing problem so I removed the hard drive and installed this new one. The old one is NOT installed but I keep getting the same old crashing problems. It’s not like it crashes to desktop, no, it just completely crashes and I have to reboot or it’ll sometimes reboot itself. It’s extremely frustrating!!! I swear if it wasn’t for gaming, I would just buy a Mac. Today it crashed 7 times. Once when I opened, steam and internet explorer at the same time. Another time when I opened windows start menu. It crashed while I was typing the OP. My brother seems to think that it might be the power supply but I have my computer connected to a battery back up. It really seem to be random. It crashed while I tried to load steam’s Left for Dead and half life 2. I don’t think it anything to do with the drive either. I’m stumped. Any ideas guys?
Sorry, it seems to crash sporatically. Today it crashed 7 times. Once when I opened, steam and internet explorer at the same time. Another time when I opened windows start menu. It crashed while I was typing the OP. My brother seems to think that it might be the power supply but I have my computer connected to a battery back up. It really seem to be random. It crashed while I tried to load steam’s Left for Dead and half life 2. I don’t think it anything to do with the drive either. I’m stumped. I updated the OP with this info.
the battery back up won’t help the power supply in any way other than a power failure. a power supply that can’t keep up with needs of the pc wattage wise, can crash and reset itself. this has happened to me before and it would reset randomly until i upgraded the power supply.
I notice that you mentioned that your mobo was upgraded, but not your CPU. When you reseated your CPU (processor) and HSF (heatsink and fan), did you reapply thermal paste?
You may be getting a poor heat transfer connection between your CPU and your HSF if it’s been moved around a bit. PC’s will often shut down due to overheating as a failsafe feature, so that the components don’t receive permanent damage.
Also, ensure that when you turn on the PC, that all of the fans spin - especially the one on the CPU heatsink.
It may not hurt to try an individual stick of RAM at a time as well, assuming you have 2x2GB.
I actually didn’t upgrade my MOBO. I left that info there because I know some people might ask about it. I have an intel CoreDuo2 E8400 processor. The processor was never touched. I did however, blow out all the dust on the cpu when I replaced the graphics card.
Yea, the sporadic crashing falls in line with an overheating issue. Download this program called RealTemp and tell us how hot your computer is running.
Having the side panels off doesn’t necessarily mean your system will be running cooler, desktops tend to be cooler “closed up”(assuming fans are in place) so that there is pressure within the case to keeps things cool.
Unless of course you have a fan/air conditioning blowing across your motherboard
You might want to give your RAM a check, it could be faulty.
if a PC is overheating it wont, or atleast shouldn’t, restart immediately if its a current-gen mobo. Ram errors dont always give a BSOD in winOS’.
If you live near a bestbuy or whatever you can always just buy it, try it out for your tesing purposes then go back and return it saying “oops i bought the wrong one lolz”. try to get your money back or if anything a giftcard of the amount owed so you atleast can exchange it for somethng later
How is it crashing? Are you getting blue screen or does it just automatically shut off without anything?
**If blue screen comes up: **
Is your Windows 7 torrented? They have a lot of ones out there that have loads of shit wrong with them. Try re-installing Windows 7 or getting an official copy. If it’s not that then your RAM could be faulty.
If just auto shutdonw, no blue screen:
Could be heating issues. Check paste between processor and fan. Make sure your power supply gives adequate power for your video card (check video card manufacturer’s site for required power ratings). Make sure you got a case fan in there that is taking out most of the air from the case. And put the case sides back on! Case fans don’t do jack if you don’t have the sides on your computer on. Download this and if you see a bunch of flames then you know it’s heating issues. Could be a faulty mobo even. Also check your power strip… if it’s a cheap ass one it will do that to you (I had this issue one time took me the longest time to figure out).
I’ve tried all the ideas above and it seems like it’s two problems. My power supply and the hard drive. Well, the hard drive really isn’t the problem. You see, the power supply is a “SUNtech” 680 watt power supply but it’s old and it was made to work with Pentium 4 processors. The power supply doesn’t seem to be giving the cpu and the hard drive enough juice, atleast not CONSISTANTLY. I checked the bios settings and it is set up (by default) to restart whenever there is a loss in AC power. So I think I need to replace the power supply. These sudden shutdowns are also gonna cause more problems on my hard drive if I don’t fix this problem soon. The ram is fine, the fans are fine, the video card is fine. I did have to get a few adapters to get my video card and sata drive to get power. Perhaps that’s what is making it shut off so much recently. Thanks for your help. I’ll keep this thread…* posted *(no pun intended) on how it all turns out. I’m sure this might help someone out in the future.
Jeez, this sounds a lot like what is happening with my new system, so I’ll just post in here instead of making a new topic. Have some specs:
Windows 7 64-bit
Gigabyte GA-MA770-UD3 ATX AM2+/AM3 AMD770
AMD Athlon II X2 7850 Black Edition Dual Core Processor AM2+ 2.8GHZ
Noctua NH-U9B LGA775/AM2/AM2+ Heatsink 4 Heatpipe Cooler
Corsair XMS2 4GB
XFX Radeon HD 4890 XXX 1GB 900MHZ
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB
Seasonic SS-650HT 650W
Coolermaster 690 ATX Case
Same kind of deal, bluescreening and crashing out of programs and games. I have already tried reseating and swapped-around my RAM, did a thorough virus-scan and I’m positive all of my drivers are up to date as I’m running a fresh install of Windows 7 and was even having issues while running Vista.
I haven’t tried most of the other things in this thread, though, Including using a single piece of ram or running memtest, so I’ll that and check back. Thanks in advance for any help
I have the same exact video card!. It pulls alot of power. I think my problem is the power supply so I’ll be purchasing one soon and I’ll update after I’ve done thorough testing. I’ve tried the memory test and stuff and everything is fine. Check your bios settings to see if it’s set up to restart with power failure or AC power loss.
lefty I think you hit the mark, Im pretty sure its your psu those suntech arent the greatest I bet one of the ps rails tour vid card is under powered. ALSO My old 4890 use to have similar issues you might want to check if you can get a replacement, I recently had those problems with my 5850 which booted up worked fine for a few then crashed But I just uninstalled the catalyst used driver sweeper and everything was peachy also if you are using 9.12 hotfix drivers they gave me problems, the regular 9.12 are fine.
Well, I got around to running some memory tests using Memtest+ 4.00 and one of my sticks of RAM is hooped. I ran tests on each stick, one at a time and in each slot, and the one stick encountered many many errors. So I guess that’s the problem with my computer at least. I got my RMA request submitted to Corsair and will hopefully hear from them soon, their technical problem walkthrough is actually quite good and immediately suggested that I return the set of 2x RAM to them to be replaced.
And yeah lefty, I’m loving this card so far. Up until I started having computer issues I was playing Dragon Age with all the settings maxed and it ran beautifully~
