Random Crashing

[jonjay]

My system is as follows:
ThermalTake V1000+ Black Case /
Vantec AeroFlow ~ VA4-C7040 Heatsink /
ASUS A7N8X Deluxe rev: 1.06 bios: 1004 /
AMD Barton 2500+ @2.2 (11x) (1.75vcore) /
Corsair Platinum PC2700 @200fsb /
LeadTek A250 LE TD 64MB /
Western Digital SE 80GB with 8MB Cache /

My system has been running fine on the speeds above for a while now. All of a sudden month back it started crashing in games and sometimes in windows. I thought it to be a heat problem as its summer. So I set my graphics card to defaults and it seemed the problem is fixed. However it started crashing again and when it crashes I hear my HD clicking, like it’s switching on and off. This happens just before the system crashes.

For 1 week the problem persisted until my windows got corrupted from a crash inside a game. I reinstalled windows and everything seemed fine, thought it may have been a software conflict of some kind. Although 2 weeks later it crashes and persisted to crash randomly, sometimes after hours of surfing, idling and game playing.

I therefore set all my back to defaults and the problem still persisted. Just the once when I first posted being in windows for 5-6 minutes. Again I hear a click from hard drive 2 seconds later a freeze so I gave up and went to sleep. Today my system has been fine not one crash…I been running all kinds of benchmarks, games to simulate the problem however it ‘seems’ stable. What could it be? I was suspecting my PSU? Its only 300w however it does seem to be good build quality compared to other 300w ones I have seen. Kind of hesitant to buy a new PSU just in case it’s not my PSU

I am really stuck as to what is going on in my system. Any ideas of help would be greatly appreciated.

[NAZCA M12]

From what you said you probably don't have the option of using spare parts right? Because if you do, you should start with the PSU. I've had that happen to me (the HD would just cut and restart over and over again) and in the end it wasn't plugged too well (but that was probalby because i ripped the disc a couple of times and used another one). I'd say you unplug your hard disk and use a different output from your PSU.

[kimh]

This is interesting....I have the same motherboard but using a AMD 3000XP+ with 400mhz FSB, ATI 9800 Pro and I also getting random lockups. I have 1GB Corsair 3200 running in dual band mode. I also experience the random lockups that are driving me nuts. I don't hear any hard drive "clicking" sounds or anything.

When I removed the SB Audigy and used the on-board motherboard it helped with the crashes slightly but it sill crashes randomly. I can't make it through 3DMark2003 on loop for the night. When I check it in the morning the machine is frozen.

Any ideas/suggestions would be much appreciated.
Thanks -Kimh

[Jon]

I had the same kind of problem... my computer would crash and when I rebooted, it wouldn't even get through post... the hard drive just clicked away. I have a bios readout which gives error codes and it said it failed on the device check. After much head scratching and rebooting it turned out that a wire had come loose in one of the molex connectors (which was only powering my neon string). It was only just about making contact, once fixed it has been running fine since.

[CaptNKILL]

Maybe its a bad hard drive. Ive heard of that model getting screwy after a few months of use. Wierd noises, corruption ect. You might want to try a full scandisk to see if its damaged. If it crashes during THAT, then you really have a problem :)

[reever2]

Try setting your ram speeds down to 133 mhz, it will sound unbearable but just do it and see if they stop

[prodikal]

My friend kept having random lockups with his corsair ram in an A7N8X so we upped the voltage to the DIMM slots and it stopped.

[ALobpreis]

If it's not a temperature problem, test your RAM with Memtest (www.memtest86.com). Make a boot disk (or boot CD if you prefer), boot from it and let it work. It may take a while, maybe 30 minutes or more, depending to your CPU/RAM speed and RAM size. It's the best RAM testing program I've seen.
If your RAM has errors, it will be listed in the middle of the screen, in a table. If you get errors, it could be a bad RAM, or a bad configured RAM (too overclocked or too low latencies, for example).

[Smokey]

Originally posted by ALobpreis
If it's not a temperature problem, test your RAM with Memtest (www.memtest86.com). Make a boot disk (or boot CD if you prefer), boot from it and let it work. It may take a while, maybe 30 minutes or more, depending to your CPU/RAM speed and RAM size. It's the best RAM testing program I've seen.
If your RAM has errors, it will be listed in the middle of the screen, in a table. If you get errors, it could be a bad RAM, or a bad configured RAM (too overclocked or too low latencies, for example).

I agree, I had games crashing, I ran memtest86 and I had errors. Sent back the stick and recieved a replacement and since havent had any games crash.

[joltcola]

That memtest program... how long does that usually run. I know you said 30 minutes, but I have it currently running on a system that reboots at random , and its been going at it for the last 1 1/2. =(

Just wondering if it is supposed to take that long?

-- jolt