I just built my new computer, and thought it was going to be the thing dreams are made of, but it turn out to be the things nightmares are made of.
Specs are:
COOLER MASTER RC-690-KKN1-GP Black SECC/ ABS ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
Thermaltake toughpower W0105RU 700W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply 100 - 240 V CE, CB, TUV, FCC, UL, CUL, and BSMI certified
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz 2 x 4MB L2 Cache LGA 775 Quad-Core Processor
ASUS P5N-D LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 750i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard
XFX PVT94PYDF4 GeForce 9600 GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - (x 2)
Patriot Extreme Performance 8GB (4 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Desktop Memory Model PDC24G6400ELK
LITE-ON Black 20X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 20X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA DVD Burner with LightScribe
I am going to go step by step and be as in depth as I possibly can so that I don't miss anything that might be relevant, because I really don't know what the problem is. And if it seems kind of wasteful just buying new components like I describe later in this post, my brother needs a new computer, and I figured it would be quicker to buy the new parts and once I narrowed it down just RMA mine, and we would have the parts to build him a second computer.
I started to put together the computer, and everything was going fine during the build, I made sure to use an antistatic wrist strap as not to mess up my new computer, I tried boot it up and the fans came on but no video, after shutting off the computer and unplugging it, I checked all the cables to make sure that they were all plugged in only to find after the fact that I forgot to plug in the power to the processor. So i plugged it in, and the system posted fine.
I installed windows, worked great. Installed all the drivers and thats when things went south. I started getting random BSODs(Blue Screens Of Death). After searching the internet for answers I found that there was an issue with the RAID when using a SATA Optical Drive, but you can use the drivers for the 6 series that resolves this conflict. So i used those drivers for a while and I thought things were great when the BSODs disappeared.
I started playing World of Warcraft on my new computer, and after about 1-3 hours I would get a black screen and I would have to hard reboot my computer. I thought maybe it was a fluke so i just restarted and kept playing. But it happened again, and again.
At this point I turned off the system, opened up the case looked around to make sure that none of the cables were loose and tried it again. Same problem black screen about 1-3 hours into my game. At this point i shut it off and open up the case and check again to make sure that nothing is loose. And to my horror the Heatsink/Fan assembly for the CPU is loose, so i fiigured that I had fried the processor.
I went on newegg bought a new one, because the warranty was up. Got the new CPU the next day, and I swapped that out for the old one, and made extra sure that the Heatsink/Fan was on there good this time.
Boot the system up, started playing World of Warcraft and it works fine, for the 1-3 hours and then it black screened again. And I had to hard reboot the system again.
At this point I am pretty sure that the problem is not the processor. So I try the next piece, I replace the video card, I bought another one off of newegg, because I had thought about going with SLI in a little while anyways, so I figure that if I bought another one and it fixed the problem that I could just RMA the first and it would be faster, but if it didn’t fix the problem, I could just have SLI when I figure out what the problem is.
Got the Videocard the next day swapped that out. Started plating my game, ad it worked fine for the 1-3 hours, and it black screened again, and I had to hard reboot the system.
At this point I’m thinking maybe there is something wrong with the power supply so I went only and bought a power supply tester, got it the next day, hooked it up to the power supply, tested fine, no problems. So I’m pretty sure that the power supply isn’t the issue.
I figured lets try the next piece. The motherboard it must be the motherboard. So I bought a new motherboard, and swapped that out, booted it up, and started playing my game, only to once again have it crash 1-3 hours into it.
At this point I’m thinking maybe it’s a cooling issue and everything is overheating and shutting down in order to prevent damage to the system. So I installed SpeedFan, and even when I’m playing World of Warcraft, I checked all the temps and nothing is above 50 C. So I don’t think that is the issue.
I went online and found that many others with motherboards with the same chipset, the nForce 750i are having similar issues. And some of them said that updating the motherboard drivers fixed the problem, so I updated the drivers and now it just locks up. I am thinking maybe if I update to the newest 6 series drivers, maybe that will fix the problem, but from here I really don’t know what to check next, so any suggestions would be helpful I have done some reading online and found out that there are many others with the 7 series chipsets are having similar issues. So if you have had any experience or have had similar problems and know of anything that would help me, I swapped out the optical drive for an IDE one, and that worked for 1 day, I was able to play for 5 hours before I decided I was done for the day, and that worked without a problem. But the next day I went to play, and it wasn’t 20 minutes before it black screened. So I restarted, checked the temp logs, check the event log, and nothing looked out of the ordinary. Played again and I got maybe 20 minutes, again, restarted, and tried again to check the logs, and nothing.
At this point I am just confused and frustrated and don’t know what to do, but at this point I am pretty sure that the Motherboard is the source of the problem.
Questions:
1. What do you think is the source of the problem?
2. What would you do to solve the problem?
3. If the issue is the mobo, should I change motherboard completely, and if so should I downgrade to the nForce 6 series, or change to the Intel Chipsets, and if so which Mobos or chipsets do you recomment?
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. And thank you for taking the time to read my post, I know that it is quite lengthy, but I wanted to make sure that I didn’t miss anything, and if you can think of anything that I did miss or if you need more information please just let me know and I will be more than happy to post it.
***UPDATE***
Was watching a .wmv yesterday on the system, and the video went all crazy purple and green speckles. And then the system froze. Sound kinda like the nvidia Video Corruption Bug with the 7 series, but not sure, and once i tried to close Windows Media Player, the system locked up.