Hi all,
I’d like to ask for advice; I’ve run out of ideas myself and I need some help. Here is my story:
I’ve built my PC in January of 2005. The mobo is MSI MS-7125 (K8 Neo4) with Opteron 165. Power Supply is Antec Neo 480. Ram is Corsair 2GB DDR500. 3 hard drives. 2 optical drives. Ati 1800. SCSI card. TV tuner card.
CPU is overclocked from 1.8 to 2.7 Ghz (FSB 250Mhz, HTT 3x). Core at 1.4V, ram at 2.7V
System was rock stable for over 2 years until August of 2007. I mean I averaged like 2-3 reboots per month sometimes; no crashes ever. Computer was always on. Then in August ‘07 I had to go to Europe for 3 weeks and I’ve unplugged everything from the wall (just in case).
When I got back the PC was dead – the on/off switch had no effect. I’ve unplugged the PSU from the board and tested it with a tester – power supply worked ok. I cleared the bios with no effect, I’ve even disconnected the wires and shorted the pins on the mobo just to bypass the on/off switch… system was dead – and I’ve got pissed. At this point I did what I do in situations as such – I went outside for a cup of coffee. When I got back after 30 minutes to my surprise the PC was on (by itself) asking for DEL to go into bios.
Month went by and system was OK. Then out of nowhere I started getting strange BSoDs and full reboots. Long story short one of the memory pieces went bad – I mean dead, system would not boot with it. I’ve replaced memory with 2 new pieces (warranty swap).
Fast forward 3 weeks – I travel again, system down for a week; when I get back – PC is dead again (I was almost expecting that). Friend of mine suggests PSU could be the problem– I scratch my head – I had such a “fancy” Antec Neo PSU – guess what – with new PSU system boots with no problems (also one thing: about 2 weeks before PSU went dead there was a high pitched “piiii” kind of sound (not too loud) emanating from somewhere around the PSU/CPU area – couldn’t really pinpoint it; it never happened after the psu got replaced…)
One thing that puzzles me: the crashes happen at random: heavy system load or just browsing the net… when they happen it is a sudden “hardware” reboot - system reboots, stops at post screen and bios beeps continuously. The MSI LED error thingy says “error detecting memory”. If I turn PC off, take ram out, insert it back in… it seems to work again. Then a day later or a week later another reboot happens. (memtest32 and prime95 show no errors after many hours of testing)
Here is my question: my PC is overclocked like hell but those early Opterons easily do 3.2 Ghz with no problems plus it was rock stable all this time; my PC is water cooled and even under full load the CPU is about 48 C. (idle 38C) Memory is DDR500, which is exactly within specs at 250 MHZ fsb. I know that Athlons have the memory management build into them…. How likely is that the CPU is causing the problem (due to long time overclock ect.)?
The MSI mobo: it’s been on for 2 years 10 months non stop. I’ve checked the capacitors… none of them is bulging in any way… 2 of them next to the CPU are not perfectly straight (just slightly titled)… some of the capacitors are green, others are black….. I don’t want to lead anyone to conclusions….
Power supply is new, CPU has no errors in any test software, ram is new and also shows no errors… reboots are definitely hardware related… but the system does not just reboots, it displays post (or sometimes even black screen) and BIOS just beeps memory error. What do you think? CPU going dead? Motherboard? Capacitors? Thanks for any input.
Mike
I’d like to ask for advice; I’ve run out of ideas myself and I need some help. Here is my story:
I’ve built my PC in January of 2005. The mobo is MSI MS-7125 (K8 Neo4) with Opteron 165. Power Supply is Antec Neo 480. Ram is Corsair 2GB DDR500. 3 hard drives. 2 optical drives. Ati 1800. SCSI card. TV tuner card.
CPU is overclocked from 1.8 to 2.7 Ghz (FSB 250Mhz, HTT 3x). Core at 1.4V, ram at 2.7V
System was rock stable for over 2 years until August of 2007. I mean I averaged like 2-3 reboots per month sometimes; no crashes ever. Computer was always on. Then in August ‘07 I had to go to Europe for 3 weeks and I’ve unplugged everything from the wall (just in case).
When I got back the PC was dead – the on/off switch had no effect. I’ve unplugged the PSU from the board and tested it with a tester – power supply worked ok. I cleared the bios with no effect, I’ve even disconnected the wires and shorted the pins on the mobo just to bypass the on/off switch… system was dead – and I’ve got pissed. At this point I did what I do in situations as such – I went outside for a cup of coffee. When I got back after 30 minutes to my surprise the PC was on (by itself) asking for DEL to go into bios.
Month went by and system was OK. Then out of nowhere I started getting strange BSoDs and full reboots. Long story short one of the memory pieces went bad – I mean dead, system would not boot with it. I’ve replaced memory with 2 new pieces (warranty swap).
Fast forward 3 weeks – I travel again, system down for a week; when I get back – PC is dead again (I was almost expecting that). Friend of mine suggests PSU could be the problem– I scratch my head – I had such a “fancy” Antec Neo PSU – guess what – with new PSU system boots with no problems (also one thing: about 2 weeks before PSU went dead there was a high pitched “piiii” kind of sound (not too loud) emanating from somewhere around the PSU/CPU area – couldn’t really pinpoint it; it never happened after the psu got replaced…)
One thing that puzzles me: the crashes happen at random: heavy system load or just browsing the net… when they happen it is a sudden “hardware” reboot - system reboots, stops at post screen and bios beeps continuously. The MSI LED error thingy says “error detecting memory”. If I turn PC off, take ram out, insert it back in… it seems to work again. Then a day later or a week later another reboot happens. (memtest32 and prime95 show no errors after many hours of testing)
Here is my question: my PC is overclocked like hell but those early Opterons easily do 3.2 Ghz with no problems plus it was rock stable all this time; my PC is water cooled and even under full load the CPU is about 48 C. (idle 38C) Memory is DDR500, which is exactly within specs at 250 MHZ fsb. I know that Athlons have the memory management build into them…. How likely is that the CPU is causing the problem (due to long time overclock ect.)?
The MSI mobo: it’s been on for 2 years 10 months non stop. I’ve checked the capacitors… none of them is bulging in any way… 2 of them next to the CPU are not perfectly straight (just slightly titled)… some of the capacitors are green, others are black….. I don’t want to lead anyone to conclusions….
Power supply is new, CPU has no errors in any test software, ram is new and also shows no errors… reboots are definitely hardware related… but the system does not just reboots, it displays post (or sometimes even black screen) and BIOS just beeps memory error. What do you think? CPU going dead? Motherboard? Capacitors? Thanks for any input.
Mike
sure, your right, should have read it more carefully.
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