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Which bit of my computer is dying?
Posted: April 18th, 2009, 21:47
by Baliame
Something's about to die in my pc, and I'm not exactly sure what it is. Pretty often, Windows seems to go dumb: I can still move the mouse, everything appears as it's working as well, but nothing actually works, close buttons, minimize buttons, can't open task manager, etc. After five-six clicks, I hear a classic "you've pressed too many buttons at once" computer beep and it freezes up. Stuff also seem to take slightly longer to load.
I've connected this event to a few applications, for example it will inevitably lock up at startup if I let MSN load. IE does one out of two times, Firefox about one out of four. I reduced the CPU speed, see if it helps, but the lockups still occur with the same frequency.
Finally, there seem to be no other signs. CPU, MB, GPU temperatures are all normal, and there is no exceptionally high load on the hardware when it actually occurs, I could play 2 hours of UT3 before it decided to fuck itself. No weird noises from the rig.
Re: Which bit of my computer is dying?
Posted: April 18th, 2009, 21:51
by Dr. kitteny berk
Baliame wrote:I've not done memtest, I should go to the back of the class.
Posted: April 18th, 2009, 22:38
by Baliame
Done. It gave me some odd results though:
I ran it twice. The first time around there were no problems, gave me an error-free pass. The second time I had a lock-up at the 8-bit patterns - the exit key didn't to respond and the error counter just kept counting without stopping.
Posted: April 18th, 2009, 22:44
by Dr. kitteny berk
Could be that they warmed up?
try a stick at a time, at the makers suggested everything.
Posted: April 18th, 2009, 22:49
by deject
Dr. kitteny berk wrote:Could be that they warmed up?
try a stick at a time, at the makers suggested everything.
Yeah that sounds like a flaky stick of RAM to me.
Are you overclocking at all? If you are, try stock speeds as well.
Posted: April 19th, 2009, 10:49
by Baliame
I did a provisional memtest on both sticks (one at a time) and it didn't bring up any errors, although since the lockups mostly seem random, I'll try doing a few iterations in a row next time I get around to it.
I was overclocking my CPU and GPU, resetted CPU to stock speed earlier. GPU's still clocked, should I reset that as well?
EDIT: In fact, it's not, Catalyst seems to have reset it years ago.
Posted: April 19th, 2009, 14:17
by deject
Well, maybe your CPU and RAM speeds were locked together?
Posted: April 19th, 2009, 15:44
by Baliame
I reset the CPU speeds after a few incidents occured, so even if they're locked together, it's insignificant in my opinion.
Posted: April 19th, 2009, 16:02
by Dr. kitteny berk
did you try the rams in just one socket, or all the sockets you normally use?
It's entirely possible that it's not ram, but, well, I've done masses diagnostic stuff before, only to find someone didn't test their memory properly.
Posted: April 19th, 2009, 16:11
by Baliame
I only tried one of the sockets, I'll see if the other one brings up any results then.
Posted: April 19th, 2009, 17:05
by Dr. kitteny berk
Baliame wrote:I only tried one of the sockets, I'll see if the other one brings up any results then.
S'worth testing. could be that the socket fails after getting a certain amount of warm.
Posted: April 19th, 2009, 21:50
by cheeseandham
Posted: April 19th, 2009, 22:04
by buzzmong
CIIJASIIE?
Posted: April 20th, 2009, 11:26
by Dog Pants
Posted: April 20th, 2009, 13:23
by TezzRexx
REFORMAT.
Fixes all problems ever.
Posted: April 20th, 2009, 16:59
by Hehulk
I'm gona go out on a limb and say the bit you think is actually fine is dying
Posted: April 20th, 2009, 19:11
by HereComesPete
TezzRexx wrote:REFORMAT.
Fixes all problems ever.
Shut up
KV Tezz!
Posted: April 20th, 2009, 20:20
by Baliame
TezzRexx wrote:REFORMAT.
Fixes all problems ever.
Surprisingly, I tried that. It was due anyway.
Hehulk wrote:I'm gona go out on a limb and say the bit you think is actually fine is dying
Yeah, it
must be the cable that connects the power button and the respective pin on the MB.
*ninjafix.
Posted: April 20th, 2009, 21:44
by Hehulk
It must the cable eh? That sounds about right
Posted: April 21st, 2009, 7:05
by Baliame
You know, I just noticed something's missing. Might be a little nothing, but I thought about it and for a while now I haven't got the MB OK beep (that 1 beep) when I turned my computer on. Don't really know since when, might be a coincidence.