Chronic bluescreen, monitor resolutions, and upgrade possibilities.

Shadows · 2012-07-07, 11:31 PM

ASUS P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI x 16 ATX Intel Motherboard
core 2 duo E6700 conroe 2.66GHz
9800GTX
4 gigs DDR2 800
XP 32-bit

Was moving my computer one day, going down a flight of stairs, and tripped on the dog running under my feet. That PC went for a ride all the way down those goddamn stairs...pieces of the case shattering and flying everywhere. But the chassis remained intact! I was sure that thing was done for, but after straightening out the cpu heatsink fins, it came right on and ran like nothing had happened.

The only difference is that, ever since then, I get the bluescreen of death, and then it restarts. This happens every couple of days, or several times a day, depending on usage. It's been nearly 2 years.

Thought it was the hard drives and I used some program to test them. The SMART report came up with all kinds of errors. Had 3 WD raptors in RAID 0 and they were all trashed. Replace the drives with a single older 7200 rpm drive that showed 0 errors on the SMART test. Bluescreen problem didn't stop. Maybe i'm not using the right application to test the drive and the old one is damage too? It wasn't in the case when it took the fall.

If it was the cpu, wouldn't it just not work at all? And if the mobo was damaged I'd think it wouldn't even hit the post screen. So that leaves RAM or the HDD, right?

Another issue I have is with my display. Used to use a samsung LCD 22" that ran a native res of 1680x1050 (i think that was it, you guys will know i'm sure). Looked great. Had to sell it a while back so I needed a new one later on. Got a deal on a 22" samsung LED TV. It runs at 1360x768, because when I do 1920x1080, it gets kinda blurry and the color seems off. It's hooked up using a cable with DVI on the PC's end, and HDMI on the TV's end. What am I not getting here?

The above issues are what I really would really would appreciate any feedback on. As for the following question on upgrades, I'm just curious. Thanks in advance, for any help!

I've not paid much attention to PC hardware in a few years so I wanted to get an idea of what's out there. I'm not looking to buy soon, PS2 retail release at the very earliest. So I'm not in desperate need of advice, but would appreciate input from anyone who doesn't mind talking about this kind of thing. I understand prices will drop quite a bit in that time, but I was hoping for just a ballpark figure.

I understand this is a theoretical build based on speculated requirements of a game that's still in development, but humor me.

For the purpose of this, budget is whatever it'll take to run PS2 full-tilt. I don't need any fancy bells and whistles, just hardware strong enough to play the game at max video settings with smooth frame rate. Also will be used for web browsing, music, and maybe video/audio output to TV.

Would need a case, power supply, motherboard, cpu, probably faster RAM to go with new mobo, fans, cpu cooler, and of course video card.

I'd be able to use my old hard drive and dvd drive. Mouse, keyboard, and monitor are covered as well.

Monitor was discussed earlier on, and I'm happy with it for now.

Running XP 32 bit...is it really worth it to put up the cash for 7?

Would like to have HDMI output. Not worried about super fast SATA or USB, as the one on my current mobo is fast enough for me. SLI I don't care about but who knows, maybe in the future?

Will probably overclock, at least a little bit. Always have in the past, but ran into trouble with overheating when I got too far. Which brings me to my last question:

Liquid cooling. Always was weary of it, thinking it's a real easy way to ruin an expensive PC. However, I like the idea of being able to buy stuff cheaper and overclock for higher performance...and actually have it run stable. Don't have any clue what the real risks are, how much it costs, or how difficult it is to install. Can someone shed some light on this?

Vancha · 2012-07-08, 06:34 AM

What error does the bluescreen give you?

As far as rig, I've got it to $760-ish.
Intel 3570k
Biostar TZ77B
G.Skill Value Series 8GB
Antec Neo Eco 520w
Rosewill FUTURE case
AMD HD 7850

I wouldn't have thought a 7850 would hit max settings smoothly, but then a 670 didn't seem to have any issues at E3, with a higher resolution and less optimization than there'll be at release, so who knows?

Edit: Also, don't buy windows 7.

Rbstr · 2012-07-08, 10:14 AM

On the blue screen:
It could be overheating, if you knocked a heatsink on the graphics card or CPU or even motherboard out of place you won't be cooling but a fraction of what you were before.

Try taking the whole thing apart and putting it back together again.

On the monitor:
DVI/HDMI are pretty much the same thing with a different connector. That shouldn't be your problem.

On upgrading:
I like it Vancha's well enough. But with your time frame you should probably wait and see. The 660 should be out soonish which might change things.
With a few more bucks you can bump up to a 670. Give us a fairly concrete budget and we'll throw something together for you.
For the OS you'll want 64-bit if you upgrade because of the RAM limit. By the time you order you might just be able to get a copy of win8.

Goku · 2012-07-08, 10:19 AM

My guess is that 22 inch doesn't actually support 1920x1080 only 1360x768. If thats the case hes would be wasting money getting a 670. In no way is that worth it.

Ailos · 2012-07-08, 11:09 AM

Blue screens can be caused by a memory leak - I get them occasionally with planet side when something fails to make it from ram to the page file on the HDD. Other reasons for the crash an include driver errors, and plain out application incompatibility. Windows XP is dropping off quite a few support lists pretty quickly - its more than 10 years old now after all.

In the cases of driver errors or memory leaks, 90% of the time its caused by a small short or a continuous loss of signal. The ram memory controller or the PCI bus may lose one bit out of every 10 000, but eventually that piles up, which is why it doesnt happen immediately after you turn on the computer but after some time. What are you usually doing when the BSOD happens? Is it a specific application, is it a couple days of standby (your PC doesnt turn off) or just every couple days (where the PC is automatically/manually shut down at night)?

Also, the blue screen can actually tell you where that loss of signal is: at the very top of the screen, it will say something along the lines of "Fatal Error at bus 0x0F3: driver data missing at blah blah blah." That line will basically tell you which component caused the crash. Try to read it really quick the next time it happens.

Signal loss can also be caused by overheating - when silicon transistors become hotter, their conductivity decreases, and they may bleed over current when they're not supposed to. Generally, no silicon chip should be hotter than 75 C. Above that, you are bound to run into troubles. You can monitor your temperatures using core temp and GPU-Z while your computer is running. Leave both programs on while you try to use your PC and see what happens. If you see the temperatures go up on either, that could be a clue that something's wrong.

Finally, it could be a chip set on your motherboard that had its hefatsink nudged in the fall that could be overheating. If you cannot spot the problem using one of the above methods, open it up and look for any loose parts that are seemingly crooked. If its a loose heat sink, reapply some thermal paste and resecure it.

As far as cooling for your next build: it all really depends on how much over locking you're thinking of doing. Most modern components are able to over clock themselves a little bit when they can - e.g. sandy bridge and ivy bridge use turbo boost to automatically push themselves up to 500 MHz faster when they sense a load and there is spare power. You can tune it to make it more aggressive without using any kind of special cooling. You can over clock most cpus to 4.5 GHzusing a $25 aftermarket heat sink. And you can buy self-contained liquid coolers that can help you move the heat away from a troubled area.

I have been thinking about putting a serious over clock on my current system, to, but my own search has shown me that it is really easy to find the parts to overclock a CPU. But finding liquid cooling for a gpu is a lot more difficult. Basically, that requires custom-built cooling solutions where you have to assemble it washer by washer. The alternative pre-built system cost as much as a new PC.

Last but not least, remember that when you start putting over clock on your components, your power draw will get disproportionately larger with each step. And you void any manufacturer warranties. With that in mind, I would rather spend a bit more up front on higher-end components so that I don't have to over clock until their warranties expire.

Shadows · 2012-07-11, 01:14 PM

Originally Posted by Ailos

Blue screens can be caused by a memory leak - I get them occasionally with planet side when something fails to make it from ram to the page file on the HDD. Other reasons for the crash an include driver errors, and plain out application incompatibility. Windows XP is dropping off quite a few support lists pretty quickly - its more than 10 years old now after all.

In the cases of driver errors or memory leaks, 90% of the time its caused by a small short or a continuous loss of signal. The ram memory controller or the PCI bus may lose one bit out of every 10 000, but eventually that piles up, which is why it doesnt happen immediately after you turn on the computer but after some time. What are you usually doing when the BSOD happens? Is it a specific application, is it a couple days of standby (your PC doesnt turn off) or just every couple days (where the PC is automatically/manually shut down at night)?

Also, the blue screen can actually tell you where that loss of signal is: at the very top of the screen, it will say something along the lines of "Fatal Error at bus 0x0F3: driver data missing at blah blah blah." That line will basically tell you which component caused the crash. Try to read it really quick the next time it happens.

Thanks a lot for the help, everyone. It seems rather random when the bluescreen occurs. In the last 2 years i've not used my PC for much other than web browsing, and the only game i've tried in that time is the free month of planetside they just recently gave us. I didn't see the BSOD any more frequently playing PS all day than i did looking at web pages. Many times I see it bluescreen when it's just sitting idle and i'm not even using it. I notice initially because the monitor will give me the "no signal" message as it's restarting.

As far as reading the error code, I doubt it. The bluescreen flashes for about one second. If there's a way to make it hang around for longer, I'm all ears.

With the beta coming up real soon, i'd like to get this dealt with and welcome any kind of help!

Vancha · 2012-07-11, 01:47 PM

Originally Posted by Shadows

As far as reading the error code, I doubt it. The bluescreen flashes for about one second. If there's a way to make it hang around for longer, I'm all ears.

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/tipstr...utorestart.htm

?

Shadows · 2012-07-11, 03:34 PM

Thank you, vancha...i'll take a look at it next time it happens.

Ailos · 2012-07-11, 05:45 PM

The amount of time the BSOD appears for depends on how long it takes the system to write the crash dump file, which in turn mostly depends on how big your RAM is vs. the speed of your HDD.

The crash dump file itself is written in binary, but you can use this software locate and view the crash dump file, and even see the original BSOD. Vancha's method will also be good enough for this, without you having to install any additional software.

Basically, the information we need is at the very top of the page, and will say something like:

1st line: "A problem has been detected and Windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer."
2nd line: "The problem was caused by the following file: cat64.ini"
3rd line: "DRIVER_CRASH"

Further down at the bottom of the page, it'll actually tell you the IRQ address of the device driver or the memory page that caused the crash.

Shadows · 2012-07-19, 02:26 PM

ok this is what i've seen so far:

Any input would be great. Thanks a lot, guys.

Ailos · 2012-07-20, 06:36 PM

All of those errors point to your RAM malfunctioning. It's possible that the RAM sticks got knocked loose in the fall. Try to reseat them and see if you keep getting that error.

Shadows · 2012-07-21, 12:16 AM

Originally Posted by Ailos

All of those errors point to your RAM malfunctioning. It's possible that the RAM sticks got knocked loose in the fall. Try to reseat them and see if you keep getting that error.

ok i'll give that a try. If it doesn't work, aren't there some free programs out there that test the RAM to see which sticks are bad? Any recommendations?

Thanks again for the help...I really do appreciate it!

Rbstr · 2012-07-21, 11:08 AM

http://www.memtest.org/