PC crashing. Thinking PSU at fault.

[tom66]

Random crashes are getting more and more frequent now while I'm using my PC. Playing a video right now, it just locked up with sound buzzing, no caps lock LED response, had to hold power button down. It's happened a few times before.

Last time I cleaned the PSU (clogged with dust) I found it was full of Teapo so I think I'll recap them soon.

It is a reasonably built PSU with active PFC but uses an ancient half-bridge design to go for 500W output power. And did I mention Teapo?

Will consider measuring ripple under load... I'm thinking it's going to be transient response though in this instance...

[ben7]

Re: PC crashing. Thinking PSU at fault.

Random crashes are getting more and more frequent now while I'm using my PC. Playing a video right now, it just locked up with sound buzzing, no caps lock LED response, had to hold power button down. It's happened a few times before.

Last time I cleaned the PSU (clogged with dust) I found it was full of Teapo so I think I'll recap them soon.

It is a reasonably built PSU with active PFC but uses an ancient half-bridge design to go for 500W output power. And did I mention Teapo?

Will consider measuring ripple under load... I'm thinking it's going to be transient response though in this instance...

U were playing a video? I have random issues with flash player crashing my computer (laptop). Tried EVERYTHING, but haven't solved it yet. It does the same thing when it crashes, buzzing speaker sound, and need to do a hard re-boot to 'fix' the issue.

[tom66]

Re: PC crashing. Thinking PSU at fault.

Yeah, it was flash.

But it happens when running any graphics in general, anything that might tax the CPU or GPU. I think the GPU is OK, I have a spare one at home but that's 200 miles from here.

[tom66]

Re: PC crashing. Thinking PSU at fault.

Did it again, but this time with a BSOD, STOP error code 0x0000007F. Ugh.
I was playing flash at the time, but that's basically all I use the PC for.

[ben7]

Re: PC crashing. Thinking PSU at fault.

Did it again, but this time with a BSOD, STOP error code 0x0000007F. Ugh.
I was playing flash at the time, but that's basically all I use the PC for.

So what does this error code mean? I googled and found that is some sort of kernal trap error. Does it mean some hardware is bad?

[sienoki]

Re: PC crashing. Thinking PSU at fault.

Did it again, but this time with a BSOD, STOP error code 0x0000007F. Ugh.
I was playing flash at the time, but that's basically all I use the PC for.

That error code seems too indicate the following
STOP: 0x0000007F
UNEXPECTED_KERNEL_MODE_TRAP
This Stop error indicates a hardware problem resulting from mismatched memory, defective memory, a malfunctioning CPU, or a fan failure that's causing overheating.
General causes of "STOP 0x0000007F" errors
Ive spare PSU,s & ram etc..also run a chkdsc & check your registry etc

[tom66]

Re: PC crashing. Thinking PSU at fault.

I will check the PSU ripple with a scope when I get some free time.
It's possibly bad memory (will do memtest86), I don't think the CPU could cause the problem, and it's not overheating.

[ben7]

Re: PC crashing. Thinking PSU at fault.

I will check the PSU ripple with a scope when I get some free time.
It's possibly bad memory (will do memtest86), I don't think the CPU could cause the problem, and it's not overheating.

Its kinda the same issue as mine.

I never get crashes besides when watching flash based things :P

(yep, windows CAN be stable!)

My CPU is an AMD Phenom II triple-core. What is yours?

I have run memtest too, and no bad memory.
Mine isn't overheating either.

I think flash software just plain sucks!

[tom66]

Re: PC crashing. Thinking PSU at fault.

My CPU is an AMD Phenom II triple-core. What is yours?

AMD Athlon FX64 dual core (2.8 GHz)

I think flash software just plain sucks!

Well, we all knew that already!

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: PC crashing. Thinking PSU at fault.

HTML5 sucks even more than flash. I thought "good riddance" when Flash started to be phased out in favor of HTML5, but i went back to Flash in my youtube preferences, because while i can watch fullscreen 720p Flash videos no problem on my laptop, 720p in HTML5 lags and hiccups like crazy.

@ tom66: I'd say test the memory before anything else. A bad PSU would cause spontaneous reboots or shutdowns. If you get the BSOD and it stays there without restarting, power is likely to be stable.

[tom66]

Re: PC crashing. Thinking PSU at fault.

HTML5 sucks even more than flash. I thought "good riddance" when Flash started to be phased out in favor of HTML5, but i went back to Flash in my youtube preferences, because while i can watch fullscreen 720p Flash videos no problem on my laptop, 720p in HTML5 lags and hiccups like crazy.

In theory, that's right. But the ideal part of HTML5 is getting rid of the silly Flash layer and letting Chrome or Firefox hardware render video directly. But it seems to be pretty stagnant, no idea what's going on, whether it's really going to work, so for now, I'm stuck using flash too. And while Flash on Windows sucks - on Linux it's absolutely awful.

@ tom66: I'd say test the memory before anything else. A bad PSU would cause spontaneous reboots or shutdowns. If you get the BSOD and it stays there without restarting, power is likely to be stable.

I'll do that. Need to find a CD to burn to run memtest86 unless I can wipe a memory stick.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: PC crashing. Thinking PSU at fault.

You can run something under Windows, say wprime or IntelBurnTest. I'm pretty sure there was a windows-based memtest thing too... Since you mentioned Linux, if you have any Linux boot CD handy, it may have memtest as a boot option.

[tom66]

Re: PC crashing. Thinking PSU at fault.

You can run something under Windows, say wprime or IntelBurnTest. I'm pretty sure there was a windows-based memtest thing too... Since you mentioned Linux, if you have any Linux boot CD handy, it may have memtest as a boot option.

I use Ubuntu on my laptop and Windows on the desktop PC.

I do have a portable USB DVD-RW drive somewhere, will have to dig it out. (My ThinkPad X201* doesn't have a CD/DVD, but I guess it's the penalty for a small laptop.)

*gift from brother (old work laptop), I couldn't afford one if I wanted it.

[tom66]

Re: PC crashing. Thinking PSU at fault.

I found this:
http://www.hcidesign.com/memtest/

I'm running it now... will see what happens.

[tom66]

Re: PC crashing. Thinking PSU at fault.

One pass, zero errors. Time to look elsewhere - I'll run it all night to see if it detects any other errors but it looks good so far.

[mariushm]

Re: PC crashing. Thinking PSU at fault.

Flash has issues with some video cards (and driver combinations) ... disable video hardware acceleration in Flash and you should no longer have problems (right click on youtube videos > settings > display > enable hardware acceleration)

Flash will still use 2d acceleration and some stuff to keep the cpu usage low.

Alternatively, you might wanna test beta versions of Flash: http://labs.adobe.com/

I've installed a beta version some time in the past which fixed some issues related to dual monitor setups and the betas worked great.

As for HTML5 and Unique's comments, that's basically because Firefox only did VP8 or Theora in HTML 5, and Google pushes his own VP8 codec which isn't as optimized for decoding and can't be played back in hardware.

In addition, VP8 streams are also higher bitrate - last time I checked a 720p mp4 was 3 mbps and a HTML5 ready VP8 was about 3.6-4 mbps, which was needed to maintain the level of quality.

[tom66]

Re: PC crashing. Thinking PSU at fault.

Well, it passed 3 tests.

I will try disabling hardware acceleration... but won't this slow down 720p/1080p playback? Yes, I know I'm pushing flash if I'm asking for 1080p but it can just about do it at 90% CPU.

VLC can play 1080p at about 10% CPU, so I dunno why flash takes so much to play 1080p.

[kaboom]

Re: PC crashing. Thinking PSU at fault.

VLC can play 1080p at about 10% CPU, so I dunno why flash takes so much to play 1080p.

Flash does more that "just play video," and it's not anything good.

I will leave the what to your imagination.