Problems

Post by **Roman Totale** » July 4th, 2008, 16:34

My PC is being a bit flaky at the moment - most recently either BSODing or just freezing up. I've got memtest running at the moment, but is there anything else that might be causing this?

In fact I've been thinking of upgrading for a while now. As I am a lazy cupcake I was probably just going to get a new rig "off the shelf" (the thought of building my own fills me with cold dread), so can anyone recommend some good ones? No budget yet, but if people could post a range of examples that would be handy. I've already got an 8800GTS so that doesn't really need upgrading.

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » July 4th, 2008, 16:40

most likely heat right now, http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/ is a good thing to check. (as is everest, which is on the floor somewhere)

I'd wait for a new machine if at all possible (intel make shiny new fast things soon)

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » July 4th, 2008, 16:41

oh, also worth taking the side off your machine and cleaning all the cat/dust/pubes out of the fans and heatsinks. pointing a desk-fan in the side can help too.

Post by **Roman Totale** » July 4th, 2008, 16:44

Yes, I've worried about the temp for a while now - the fans in there certainly sound like they're straining awfully hard.

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » July 4th, 2008, 16:46

That'll probably be part of the problem then

Post by **deject** » July 4th, 2008, 16:53

Write down what kind of BSOD error it is and search support.microsoft.com + google as it may give you some insight into what the problem is caused by.

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » July 4th, 2008, 16:54

deject wrote:Write down what kind of BSOD error it is and search support.microsoft.com + google as it may give you some insight into what the problem is caused by.

this is wise, as is using a camera so you don't have to write it down

Post by **Roman Totale** » July 4th, 2008, 17:00

No idea - happened when I was hammered at 4am this morning having just got back in from a work night out.

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » July 4th, 2008, 17:01

should've said.

check for kebab meat in the dvd drive

Post by **deject** » July 4th, 2008, 17:04

Dr. kitteny berk wrote:should've said.

check for kebab meat in the dvd drive

spoodie · Post by **spoodie** » July 4th, 2008, 18:51

Mine locks-up quite regularly as well, mostly on initial boot at the login screen. Reset and second boot usually sorts it. Today it even BSOD'd but reset itself too quick for me to see. Gave me an unhelpful error page when I booted again. Occasionally it locks up while I'm using it.

Temps are fine because I always run Everest on screen 2. Memtest passed. I'm blaming Colon as it started happening after I installed it, but I can't bring myself to uninstall it as it was so painful to install in the first place.

Any thoughts?

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » July 4th, 2008, 18:58

hard to know really, I'd check voltages on stuff and blindly poke about in the bios (but that's because I allegedly know what I'm doing, and can fix it after)

Random machine instability is a bitch, but it can usually be pinned down to voltages or temperatures.

Cold boot issues are fun too, but fortunately, they're usually fixed by letting stuff warm up for 2 minutes, mostly caused by unhealthy PSUs though, IME, if you have a multimeter*, use it.

edit:
*onboard stuff can be fine for measuring voltages, but if you're not getting logged in, it's useless, not to mention, a multimeter should be considerably more accurate.

Post by **FatherJack** » July 4th, 2008, 19:00

Dr. kitteny berk wrote: if you have a multimeter, use it.

Set to measure voltage, not current.

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » July 4th, 2008, 19:02

FatherJack wrote: Set to measure voltage, not current.

spoodie · Post by **spoodie** » July 4th, 2008, 19:07

I don't have a multimeter and neither do I have much idea of what to do with one if I did. The magic blue fire that feeds my equipment is a bit of a mystery to me.

It's not a big enough problem for me to worry about too much. I need some new bits (motherboard and soundcard) so I'll just start replacing things. Could probably do with an OS refresh as well. Maybe a shiny new gfx card ...

Post by **deject** » July 5th, 2008, 5:53

You can turn off the auto-reboot when it BSOD's by the way. Go to System Properties and click on the Advanced tab, then the Startup and Recovery Settings button. In the dialog box you can disable the automatic restart so you can grab the important info (if you don't know what to write down, the first and third bits here are what you need).

Post by **Roman Totale** » July 5th, 2008, 8:26

It's probably a combination of PSU and temp then. My PSU was a piece of cheap shit from PC World that has a tiny cooling fan (as soon as I took it out of the box and knew I should've taken it right back).

What CPU temp should I be looking at? It's currently running between 75-85 degrees C (and it's quite a cool day today).

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » July 5th, 2008, 8:49

less than that.

60c is a good number to aim for.

Lee · Post by **Lee** » July 5th, 2008, 11:10

I'm also having problems with my brother's PC. It won't turn on anymore, when you press the power button the light comes on and the fans spin up for a second then it turns straight off again. I've tried a different PSU and it still does it, and I've also tried using the onboard graphics because I think his gfx card is on it's way out but still nothing.

Any ideas? It's looking like it may be the motherboard or in the best case it'd just be the power switch. I'm probably going to end up having to take it to the local PC repair shop.

Lee · Post by **Lee** » July 5th, 2008, 11:12

Roman Totale wrote:What CPU temp should I be looking at? It's currently running between 75-85 degrees C (and it's quite a cool day today).

If thats your idle temperature I'd be worried. As berk said, 60 is a good number, but that should be your load temperature, idle should be less depending on the processor and what cooling you have.