troubleshoot new computer problem

[Sutterkane]

I recently put this together for a friend:

seagate 250gb hd
logisys mid tower case with intake and external fan, and 420w psu
sony dvd/cdrw combo
DFI ultra infinity nforce socket 939 board for dual core procs
athlon64 x2 3800+
1gb patriot ram kit 2x512
ati x1600 vid card 256mb pci-ex16
xp home

The computer just crashes randomly. I know this doesn't help much, but it's pretty much all I can get out of her. There's no blue screen that I am aware of either. She had her bf look at it, and he thought it was the hd. Being a seagate, i doubted it, and brought in a 20gb samsung that's worked for me for 5 years. i wiped it, and put her os on it and used the 250gb as a storage drive. it still crashed. personally, i think there's not enough power getting to it. After doing a complete reinstall, the computer is fine for around a day, but then it will start restarting at random times, around once or twice a day while playing wow. her bf said it crashes the most if you die a lot in wow. she had a friend other than me come by and look at it, and he thought it was a virus, but i seriously doubt that. I'm thinking about just getting an antec psu at around 480 watts, but I want to hold off until I get some second opinions before i start throwing 100 dollars around.

[thrash_head]

This is what i would check in order...

Heat issues (did you put thermal paste between the processor/heatsink?)
PSU (I would get a known good PSU from a friends or even your computer and stick it in)
Memory (stick one of your sticks of memory in it assuming you have pc3200)

Remember do these things one after the other, if you do them all at once you wont know what fixed it. I hope you get the problem fixed :(


Also, When you format it... Did you do Quick Format? If you did, go back and do a full format and see if it helps.

[andr3w]

well when u die in wow u get a really bright blue screen...maybe its the vga....sucking alotta power from the psu could possibly cause it.

u didnt put in a vid card of any sort just using integrated?

[Sutterkane]

my bad, i knew i forgot somehting. it's added in there now

[adamantium]

I'd say definitely a heat issue. My CPU fan started going out on my Alienware about a year ago and that's exactly what it would do, just restart randomly, especially when playing video games. Got a new fan/heatsink and put some new thermal grease on it, and it has worked perfect ever since.

[Dave]

Sounds like heat to me. Is it overclocked?

[ass*assassin]

sounds like a power supply issue to me.. seen this happen numerous times, especially with new cpu/motherboards.. sounds funny, but i have had a number of bad power supplies, right out of the box from brand new case and power supply combos.. it's getting to the point where i will not buy a case with an installed psu and i will go out and get a 3rd party psu now.. had too many of the 'stock' ones in cases go tits up on me..

[Nine]

sounds like a power supply issue to me.. seen this happen numerous times, especially with new cpu/motherboards.. sounds funny, but i have had a number of bad power supplies, right out of the box from brand new case and power supply combos.. it's getting to the point where i will not buy a case with an installed psu and i will go out and get a 3rd party psu now.. had too many of the 'stock' ones in cases go tits up on me..I've had stock psus so bad they wouldn't even allow for 3d rendering.

Logisys isn't exactly top notch either.

[Sutterkane]

i think i am going to go with a new psu and see how it works.

the reason i don't think it's a heat issue is:

-nothing is overclocked(at least that I am aware of)
-there is an intake fan on the side of the case
-there is a 120mm fan on the back of the case
-there are also fans on the chipset, cpu(default fan/hs/compound from amd), video card, and psu.

Plus I've messed with some things with the side of the case off, and touched a couple of components and none were overly hot to the touch. It also doesn't explain why everything works fine after a fresh install every time.

Another reason I think it might be power related is the graphics card doesn't have a direct power input to it like my 7800gt does. True, it's not as good a card, but it still needs plenty of power. Plus for the reasons nine and ass said. I'll let you know how it works out.

[Janus]

vote for power supply issue here. I don't trust logisys power supplies or any power supply that comes with a case, with the exception of Antec ones as most people know.

[ass*assassin]

just a note... i had another 'stock' power supply in a brand new case be bad.. i am having like a 30% fall-out of power supplies with new cheap cases recently.. As i stated, i am not buying anymore cases with psu's installed, i am going with seperate units from now on.. there is some serious issues with the power supplies coming out now from various chinese manufacturers.

[Maf]

PSU most likly since the brand you she has atm is a pos. I'd also say run Memtest86 (http://www.memtest86.com/) anyways just to make sure her ram is good. Let it do like 2-3 passes. Sometimes it takes a couple passes to get some errors.

[Sutterkane]

update: about 2 months ago I installed a new psu for her, a 500w antec. When I was over there looking at things, she showed me some hardware conflicts she was having and that windows was trying to install the sm bus controller and pci memory controller.

Does this sound like a bad motherboard or something? I'm really running out of fix options here.

Now she's having problems even loading windows on her machine because of the conflicts.

[Janus]

possibly downloaded or installed the wrong drivers?

[Nine]

Did you install motherboard drivers?

[Karnage]

just as a note, if a heatsink is not making contact, it will not be "hot".