when it rains it pours. major issue. power?

[Bman10]

I agree UD! A bios upgrade on a system that your not sure is stable would be foolish. The slightest freeze up or shut down would cause you more headaches then you would know what to do with.

[skylog]

Originally Posted by Bman10

I agree UD! A bios upgrade on a system that your not sure is stable would be foolish. The slightest freeze up or shut down would cause you more headaches then you would know what to do with.

i agree too. i was hesitant to do it for so long. i was only really talking about at some point when the system is more stable.

[skylog]

Originally Posted by Bman10

I thought it might be the memory.

i am also tending to agree. i have been issue free for about 30 hours other than the time issue, which appears to have more or less settled itself.

[skylog]

Originally Posted by uddarts

http://forum.corsair.com/forums/showthread.php?t=38201

i would start with the bad stick in the slot that the good stick is now running in. be prepared that it may not post. if it should test fine, move it to the other slot that you had been using.

thank you for the link and the advice. that was the route i was looking to take, however, i was concerned the system would be unstable and i would see the problem reappear.

here is a link to the ram, but i have the 4gb kit.

as for the time issue, it had gotten to about 2 minutes or so late last nite and it has gotten to about 2.20 as i type this, so, it appears to be somewhat "under control." i am going to try to run memtest tonight, but i may not have time to get it started. i will certainly update

thanks again

[uddarts]

here is a link to the ram, but i have the 4gb kit.

perfect! and you've set the vdimm to 1.9v?

later


ud

[skylog]

Originally Posted by uddarts

perfect! and you've set the vdimm to 1.9v?

later


ud

you know, i do not think i ever changed it when i put them in last year. not from the bios, but everest is reading 1.8 on the voltage. interesting. you think memtest first, see what the results are then perhaps up the voltage, or should i be upping the voltage now regardless?

i should add that when i cleared the rtc memory all my settings defaulted in my bios. i have not gone in there and changed anything, save the default time. i just wanted to run things for a few days to see if things were ok. to try to pin the problem on the ram, then test the ram and see where i stood there.

thanks yet again

[uddarts]

this all began before you cleared the bios but just to be certain we cover everything, i'd set it to 1.9v. my guess is memory86 will error with both vdimm settings with the one stick that we suspect to be bad.


ud

[skylog]

Originally Posted by uddarts

this all began before you cleared the bios but just to be certain we cover everything, i'd set it to 1.9v. my guess is memory86 will error with both vdimm settings with the one stick that we suspect to be bad.


ud

well, here we go. as i said earlier, this has just come at the worst time, work has me buried and time is a luxury i simply do not have. ud, to answer you question, yes, i cleared the bios as a result of all these issues. i also changed the voltage AFTER everything that i am about to tell you.

so, i have done nothing (with regards to fixing it) with the system more or less since monday. everything has been fine. normal use, normal shut downs, startups...everything. just a little while ago, while checking a few things online, the system became sluggish and froze. it went from being crazy slow to the cursor and everything becoming frozen. in about a minute. i had to do a power button shutdown. i restarted, system came up fine. after a few minutes, the same thing happened. it froze. i restared, but i got the "no keyboard/malfunction" prompt. i have a usb keyboard. i did a few shutdowns, restarts, plugging and unplugging the keyboard. nothing. the last time i had the power issue again. the 5 seconds of startup then the power dies. i unplugged the power from the back of the system. let it sit a minute. plugged it in, it was fine other than the keyboard error. i shut down again, plugged my ps2 keyboard in, it went to windows. once there, system was fine. i plugged in my usb keyboard and it worked fine. i did a few shutdowns and restarts and used the system a bit here and there. everything was fine. i have restarted since and have seemingly had no issues. i went into the bios and set the voltage to 1.9.

now, at this point i am at a loss. from the bios and in windows, the voltages are seemingly solid, although the +5V standby is reporting as 4.68 in everest. that said, the time issue seemingly was gone as it was the same 2.20 that is was after monday. there was no change. now, while i was having the issues tonight, the system was off about 15 minutes or so AND the computer lost those 15 minutes. at this point i am leaning towards the motherboard. i know this is not based on a concrete reason at this point, but my power supply is sending the right voltages (although i have little knowledge reagarding this) and i had the same issue with the power, albeit only once, with the "bad" stick of ram out of the system. i know i will just have to test both sticks to see what that shows. it just seems with the time issue, ram issue, usb? issue perhaps it could be the board. i am also at a loss how i can use the system fine for three days and then have a lockup that leads to several issues all at once and then seemingly disappear.

anyway, i was sure we were on the right path, as it turns out...no so much. i think i am going to rip the system apart if i can find the time and do a crazy cleaning of the system just to see if perhaps something is causing the board to have an issue. i am grasping for straws at this point. i will also get the ram taken care to try to determine if that is an issue once and for all. now, i brought this up earlier, after all of this is done and i am still stuck, is there any chance a bios update could fix this? could a bios get corrupted? just trying to think of everything.

thanks again, but i undestand if the book i wrote is too much to get through.

skylog

[Windrunner]

I'd stop looking at your bios. Your bios is copied into memory at system startup. Your bios is EEPROM. It's the most secure storage medium on your system as far as data integrity barring a CD-rom.

You did run memtest86+ for 12 hours at minimum, with no errors, with all memory installed? It takes 12-24 hours for most errors to show up.

At this point I'd consider taking a multimeter to your PSU, unfortunately I don't think there are any consumer grade multimeters that will graph its measurements over time. The on board voltage measurements are inaccurate.

They're not even good for voltage differences. My 5V rail measurement on this system fluctuates wildly from 1.68V to 6.0V, enough that it would have shut down this system. You have to take a multimeter to it. (In my case, my voltage is completely stable by an analog multimeter)

The next thing I'd do is to check my hard disks. Progressive slow-downs then lock-ups could be a result of your hard drive dying out from under you. It's a mechanical device so hard drives have a tendancy to come to life then die again. When a hard drive dies in windows, the OS doesn't cut out instantly. It'll run with what it has in memory for awhile, then lock up completely. ( This is just from my experience with dying HDDs. Might be an interesting experiment to yank power to an OS drive in an old PC. I know what I'm doing with my weekend! )

Unfortunately the best test for a hard drive is writing the entire thing to 0s a few times, the second best test would be to use the tools for your brand of hard drive to pull S.M.A.R.T. info from it. You could also use speedfan to check it within windows. http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php

Lastly, I'd go back to your PSU. What kind of power strip is it on? Is your air conditioner / refridgerator / freezer coming on around the time it goes off? Is someone working with power tools or other tools with engines in them?

It's a longshot, but did you happen to install a CPU driver for your system? Try changing your power profile to "Always on" instead of "Minimum power management" or whatever it is. Some CPU drivers dynamically underclock your system, and some systems just don't do well with that.

I would not go near flashing your bios. You can actually run a system with the bios battery out (if the default settings work for it). If you're worried that it's corrupt, have it restore default settings.

Edit: I'm not meaning to be rude LOL, I just realized that butting in on a thread like this may be a bit uh, rude. I saw 'flash bios' and 'unstable system' and panicked.

[uddarts]

the more the merrier.



ud