Strange PC happenings....

[HTM|Minion]

Well crap...

Last night my rig started crashing and I'm a bit puzzled by it. I wanted your opinions on what you think the problem could be.

what happens is this...no errors the screen just freezes and will remain frozen until reboot. Upon reboot it may freeze during the boot sequence, or it may boot normally.

Now, I did have some electrical storm damage a few weeks back, I lost my router and my external hd took a hit. I was able to recovery the hard drive, but I lost all my web backup files..which sucks.

Once when posting it threw me to a bios generated screen that said "your memory timings are too tight" But it then started normally. I've never seen anything quite like this..I want to blame the primary hd, but could this be memory related as well?

Heeeelp!

[HTM|Lunch_Meat]

Dang that sucks. The weirdest things can happen during an electrical storm or power surge.

Was looking around and all I saw relating to "memory timings to tight" was overclocking issues. Went on to say change timings in cmos.

When does the screen freeze? bootup, normal use, gaming?

I had weird issues when a video card was going out before, but never saw the memory timing thingy.

[HTM|Minion]

It froze while gaming, while booting once and while trying to backup files to my external hd.


As we discussed on the phone Lunch, the memory timings are set as custom in the bios per my corsair xms specs. Maybe I'll try using "by spd" settings and see if it helps.

I also forgot to mention once during boot the pc seemed to be loading the os, but the monitor never came on.

As I'm starting to build my new rig, I'll grab a macho power supply and give that a try if the memory timing stuff doesn't help. If it proves not to be the issue I can use it in the new rig.

Thanks for the advice...I'll get to the bottom of it sooner or later.

[HTM|Assraker]

Do you not have a UPS feeding power to your PC? Shame on you if you do not. Invest in a good one (about $100). Far superior to a surge protector, which generally does not stop electrical damage. PC's are far more susceptible to power fluctuations than anything else electrical, that is why I use a UPS. It stops surges and regulates power far better than a surge strip.

Sounds like your BIOS may be corrupt, which can be caused by a surge or fluctuation.

[HTM|Lunch_Meat]

Yeah good point. You can rezap your bios before you start spending money.
(SAVE SETTINGS FIRST lol)

His Ups is what got zapped.(but I'll let Min esplain) That reminds me I gotta get a new UPS the battery is going out and will cost more that a new one on sale. doh

[HTM|Minion]

Yeah....it was all on an APC battery backup/surge protector. I thought I had disconnected the entire ups when the lightning started striking close, but pulled the wrong plug by mistake. *edit* thinking back...I should have realized the alarm never sounded on the ups.)

I did however pull the cord from my power supply on the pc, but failed to realize that my external drive was still connected to both ac power and the usb port on the board...doh. I guess a spike came in through the usb and hit the pc...I know for a fact it hit the external drive.

[Freak]

I have corsair xms running per spec(of course my mb wont accept the dual chan.)without any ram probs.Sure sounds like hd prob.When my storage drive was failing my bios kept changing.I'd reset it only too freeze up again and have the bios change.Good luck man.

[HTM|Minion]

I've decided to gather pieces for my new core 2 duo rig and try the power supply for it in this machine first. I have a spare ide hard drive I can reload windows and UT on for testing if needed. I can also swap the memory to test that as well if need be as well as the video card.

Like I told Lunch earlier...I have very limited free time anymore...I hate to spend it troubleshooting my pc.

*EDIT* Just came home and fired the box up...played 1.5 hours of UT flawlwessly. This is too weird.

[HTM~ZenEye]

If your boot up fails during POST then the bios could be bad, maybe try re-flashing to the latest version. If you make changes in cmos and they don't take or keep resetting, then its probably your motherboard battery. Is the PC losing time? that would also be a symptom of a bad battery.

The HD, the memory, and other subsystems you'll have to test to see if they are going bad.

Gremlins love lightning...

[HTM|Minion]

The pc never lost time. As a matter of fact it's worked flawlessly for the last 2 days. Maybe it had an overheating issue, because all I did was blow out all the heatsinks...lol.

I'm backing everything up again just to be safe,I have a funny feeling about this hd.

[Freak]

My backup drive came back several times before it went completly out.It would appear to be fine for short periods.

[HTM~ZenEye]

All hard drives have a an age where they start to go, it is documented somewhere. Check the manufacturers website. Just like like bulbs they work for so many thousand hours then it's time to replace them.

I recommend that you get some removable drive bays for your new rig minion, they are like $10 a pop and make swapping out drives easy, especially if your going to do a RAID setup. Even if your not they are still handy.

[cUnNiNg_StUnTs]

Isn't there a utility in your BIOS to let you view the current temps? If it's a heat issue you should be able to see that. Also I would Google "everest home edition" download and unzip that utility it allows you to watch your temperatures.

[Freak]

I use pc wizard2006,really usefull utility that tells you just about everything about your pc.When minimized the temp still shows in the cornor of the screen.