neurokrash Posted September 15, 2006 Posted September 15, 2006 Help! I built a new system, but I'm having problems and I can't narrow down the cause. The problem is that after running any 3D application, between a few minutes and an hour later, the screen goes blank then the system reboots. No hangs, BSOD, or anything like that - just *click* and back to the POST screen. I'm running everything at stock speeds, which in this case means ram timings of 800mhz 5-5-5-18 At first I suspected ram, since initially I was not able to get past POST at all when in Dual Channel (DC) ram configuration. If I moved one of the DIMMS to the non DC slot, the system would boot - while in DC mode it would hang with a flashing white cursor in the upper left corner after a successful POST. Swapping the positions of the DIMMS in DC mode allowed the system to boot properly, although this seemed to indicate a problem. In any case, I ran for a day or two with few problems, but then suddenly the system would blink out of existence. After this, I started testing everything. Performed full surface test on hard disk with Western Digital's tools with zero errors Tested Ram with Memtest for 8 hour with zero errors Tested CPU with SciSoft Sandra burn in test for 8 hours with zero errors Reinstalled WindowsXP 3 times - no change Tested both Geforce video cards individually - no change Tested both Corsair DIMMS individually - no change The case has lots of airflow, with 2 120mm fans and a 140mm PSU cooling fan, and rear exhausting video cards. The MSI Geforce cards have super ginourmous copper/aluminum finned heat pipe coolers. While troubleshooting, I identified some hot spots on the motherboard (some of the chips/one with a heatsink) and aimed blowers at them to cool them from 127/150 degrees f down to about 100 each. This did not help stabilize the system. I tried re-seating everything. In all cases, when running the other tests or 2D stuff, there isn't a problem, but if I run a 3D application for some period of time, the system goes BLINK and reboots immediately. I'm having a little trouble (could be denial) believing that both of video cards failed at exactly the same time. Can anyone suggest if this could be a memory problem? I don't know what can cause this sort of catastrophic crash every single time. I might have suspected Windows or a memory leak, but this seems to happen with every 3D application that I have tried. I'm puzzled by the Dual Channel problems that I was having, and don't understand why the ram would behave in memtest, but perhaps not while communicating back and forth with the video card. I don't know how I can diagnose and/or differentiate defective ram vs motherboard. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Corsair Employee RAM GUY Posted September 16, 2006 Corsair Employee Posted September 16, 2006 Please make sure that you have the latest bios and then load setup defaults and set the memory voltage to 2.2 Volts and test the system with http://www.memtest.org to be sure and please note you may have to Disable Legcay USB when running http://www.memtest.org.
neurokrash Posted September 17, 2006 Author Posted September 17, 2006 Hmmm... My motherboard does not go up to 2.2v. I think that I bought the wrong model. I don't know why this one automatically selects 800mhz when the board specs don't seem to support this. Thanks!
Corsair Employee RAM GUY Posted September 18, 2006 Corsair Employee Posted September 18, 2006 Then I am sorry you will not be able to run these modules at their tested settings with out the Voltage set to 2.2 Volts and with this MB I doubt it will run the memory much over 750 Mhz Even then, I would set the voltage as high as it will let you but not over 2.2 Volts and set the memory Frequency at 667 Mhz.
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