Rig problems - Bleh

[JN]

Ok guys, i wanna pick your brains on something here.

Since i switched back to water cooling and restored my previous overclock settings (which were 100% stable in the past) i've been getting BSOD's the first couple of times i try to start the rig up. They can be anything from IRQ_NOT_EQUAL to ntfs.sys crashes.

The strangest thing is that they occur mostly when the machine ISNT under heavy load. During CSS and SuperPI/Prime everything seems stable.

The only things that have changed in my system recently are:

- New W/C Setup - Load temps of 40oc

- New PSU - Tested rails with multimeter - all ok. Have even overvolted rails by 0.5v

This is what i've tried to fix it:

- Reinstalled Windows

- Swapped my x1800xt for a 7900gt

- Removed mobo and cleaned+checked every inch for anything burned out.

- Reseated waterblock and cleaned CPU (to make sure no AS5 causing a short)

- Tried a different soundcard

- Clocked chip down from 3.1ghz to 2.5ghz

- Tried 1 stick of ram (but ram seems fine as it Prime's ok).

- Ran hard disk stress tests

Can you guys think of anything else to try?

 

[PV5150]

What other info are you getting with the ntfs.sys crashes JIm?

 

[mr_fishbulb]

Have you checked your hard drive for bad sectors?

 

[JN]

What other info are you getting with the ntfs.sys crashes JIm?

Not much that i can remember. I'll try and take some camera pics of the BSOD's.

ntfs.sys is just one of many that are displayed tho, others include win32.sys (or sommit like that), and also i've had nvdisplay.sys.

 

[FarFarAway]

- Ran hard disk stress tests

Yessir

 

[JN]

Have you checked your hard drive for bad sectors?

Well i did a full scandisk check including the "scan for bad sectors", but to be honest it did the check in about 5 minutes - which i thought was a bit quick for a 160gb raid array.

Also have done the Hitachi stress tests.

 

[Dav0s]

can you try anotehr hard drive mate? or ry installing windows seperately in each drive instead of as raid.

 

[JN]

can you try anotehr hard drive mate? or ry installing windows seperately in each drive instead of as raid.

Yeah i might give that a go actually. I do have a spare hard disk laying about.

Its just real wierd that i can install windows without any issues, play games without issues..but when it comes to doing simple things. It screws up.

 

[PV5150]

I would have thought your IRQ error would have been a dead giveaway for underlying RAM issues, but you seem to be getting a broad spectrum of errors. Have you checked the 'Event Viewer' for error messages that might help determine the device or driver that is causing the error?

 

[Dav0s]

Yeah i might give that a go actually. I do have a spare hard disk laying about.

Its just real wierd that i can install windows without any issues, play games without issues..but when it comes to doing simple things. It screws up.

yeah computers are funny things mate lol, maybe it is certain sectors in disc, windows install tends to ignore those when installing. and it would only happen when it accessed these sectors, so would be pretty random.

the reason it wont crash in cs is that it doesnt acces the hard drive like it would when you are browsing the internet for example.

 

[|3ourne]

Check for power blips in the power supply. Sometimes the rail will be stable but then they will dip down and then come back up. Try keeping the multimeter on all the time to see if u can see a voltage difference if and when the machine crashes. I doubt its your hard drives. Although it sounds like an HDD error but I really dont think thats the case. What bios, memory settings , vdimm are you using ?? Do you have a fan over the tccd ??

 

[FragTek]

When I was getting errors like that everyone, and I mean EVERYONE was telling me it was the RAM. But I had my suspiscions about that because I could run memtest all day and all night without a single error.

Ended up being one of my Raptors was bad... Computers are strange creatures some times!

 

[JN]

@ PV: Yeah i've checked the even log, but there is nothing added before the BSOD appears

@ Dave: yea i know what you mean. i think i'll try a different HDD in there tonight, just to totally rule it out.

@ |3ourne: I've tried every BIOS right back from 310p to the very latest, nothing changes really.

I've tried a fan on the TCCD and had it running at 28oc - didn't make much difference. The ram is running at 2.8v i believe - but the setting hasn't been changed from when it was previously stable.

I'll stick a couple of multimeters on the rails and see if i notice anything abnormal.

@ Frag: Yea i remember u having similar probs. I'll deffo try a new HDD.

 

[PV5150]

Anything new to report Jim?

 

[JN]

Hard disk swap didnt work

A new BSOD came up about DRIVER_CORRUPT_POOL or something like that.

I'm worried now that its a motherboard issue, as a few days ago i noticed one of the fans connected to my motherboard running slower than usual. So i hooked it up to a multimeter and found that the fan header was only pushing out 5v. All other fan headers were pushing out 12v, and the settings for all the fans was the same...

Sounds a bit wierd eh?

 

[Dav0s]

hmm not good...

tried different chipset drivers?

 

[JN]

hmm not good...

tried different chipset drivers?

Ye, beta's, old ones, and no ones at all.

I'm seriously considering using this P4 630 test rig as my primary rig, as i overclocked ti to 4.2ghz on stock cooler last night and it was only 15fps lower in CSS stress test than my amd

 

[PV5150]

I'm worried now that its a motherboard issue

I know DFI uses quality Jap caps, but do you see any signs of dodgey ones?

 

[Dav0s]

Ye, beta's, old ones, and no ones at all.

I'm seriously considering using this P4 630 test rig as my primary rig, as i overclocked ti to 4.2ghz on stock cooler last night and it was only 15fps lower in CSS stress test than my amd

with my 6600gt? lol

 

[JN]

with my 6600gt? lol

erm no rofl..with my 7900gt in there