lankeyluke Posted October 21, 2009 Posted October 21, 2009 (edited) I recently formatted and re-installed vista ultimate on my PC, It was working fine for about a week until programs randomly crash. When this happens I can still move the mouse and highlight stuff on the desktop but get the loading circle when i right click and can't load any programs. Somtimes i can close just the offending programs after about 5 minutes of waiting for them to responsd and carry on, but somtimes i get a BSOD. It seems to happen as i open and have open many programs at once, and occasionly in games but much less frequently. I think/hope its my RAM but thats where i need your help. Any ideas will be appriciated. My RAM OCZ SLI DDR2-6400 running at 760Mhz at 4-4-4-15-2t timings. I have checked my CPU tempreture when i have been running games and is is always below 71 wich is the intel thermal spec thing for it. Q6600 at 3.5 1.45v Many thanks Luke Edited October 21, 2009 by lankeyluke Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timmy94 Posted October 21, 2009 Posted October 21, 2009 Is your RAM running stock? Go to the bios and reset all your settings to see if that helps. If not, it may be a corrupt windows install. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
lankeyluke Posted October 21, 2009 Posted October 21, 2009 My RAM is running under stock speeds at the moment. also occasionly windows wont boot until i restart and then it works Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
_TheAlexO Posted October 21, 2009 Posted October 21, 2009 My RAM is running under stock speeds at the moment. also occasionly windows wont boot until i restart and then it works your OC on your 6600 might not be stable. just try reverting back to stock and see if it still does BSOD's Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wevsspot Posted October 21, 2009 Posted October 21, 2009 (edited) lankey, as already suggested i'd clear your cmos, reload optimized defaults and run some stress tests. primarily memtest for 8 hours to begin with. if it passes memtest then move onto Prime95, OCCT, IntelBurn (pick your poison). if you fail memtest then you may have to isolate whether you have one or more bad sticks of memory - which of course will require you to memtest each stick individually at stock BIOS settings. if all stress testing passes at stock BIOS settings but you still aren't stable start looking at things such as your hdd and even your hd sata/ide cables. a faulty hdd or bad sata/ide cables can cause some of the symptoms you are describing. back in the day the standard recommendation was to reset everything back to default, do a minimum system build with only necessary components, no usb devices etc. and check the results. Edited October 21, 2009 by wevsspot Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ocre Posted October 21, 2009 Posted October 21, 2009 lankey, as already suggested i'd clear your cmos, reload optimized defaults and run some stress tests. primarily memtest for 8 hours to begin with. if it passes memtest then move onto Prime95, OCCT, IntelBurn (pick your poison). if you fail memtest then you may have to isolate whether you have one or more bad sticks of memory - which of course will require you to memtest each stick individually at stock BIOS settings. if all stress testing passes at stock BIOS settings but you still aren't stable start looking at things such as your hdd and even your hd sata/ide cables. a faulty hdd or bad sata/ide cables can cause some of the symptoms you are describing. back in the day the standard recommendation was to reset everything back to default, do a minimum system build with only necessary components, no usb devices etc. and check the results. excellent post. I think memtest86 would be an good place to start considering you already suspect the ram. But before you go through the stress test arsenal i would check the event viewer for signs of HD errors such as "drive 0 has a bad block". Also the event viewer may give you a better understanding as to where the errors start and if it is a consistent order or a random occurrence. I use stress testing all the time to check for Hardware failure but this can also be misleading if your PSU is weak then when you put on the stress you will get crashes and it could lead you to think other components are faulty. So make sure you take that into account. It sounds like a HD or related connector issue just without any other to go on. That doesnt mean at all it is. Make sure you unplug any device or unneccary component plugged into your pc, then less you have while testing the more you can narrow it down. To let you know how wacky PC's can be, my PC started crashing and it was the strangest cause i have ever come accross. My 100ft network cord lost the clip that holds it in the pc. Well i knew it was broke, i got a 2 yr old who loves to jerk on cords. its been broke for a minute, but i would simply plug it back in on the rare occasion it lost a connection. Then blue screens out of nowhere. I wouldve never thought it was network cord related but i noticed the icon at the botton switching back and forth several times before it crashed. The cord came out so many times it not only was a broken clip, it had damaged the contacts in the ethernet plug so that when plugged in it barely made a connection that wasnt solid and eventually would lead to a blue screen. I replaced the cord and no more issues. But anywho, its just somrthing i never heard of or seen before in my over 13yrs in pc and repair Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
lankeyluke Posted October 21, 2009 Posted October 21, 2009 saying that made me think.the other day my pc wouldnt boot.it kept saying insert boot media.i checked my bios an my sata hd wasnt being detected.i fiddles with the wires and it booted fine.i will change the cables and let you know how it goes Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
lankeyluke Posted October 23, 2009 Posted October 23, 2009 I changes the SATA connecter, the SATA power cable and upped my southbridge voltage to 1.7 from 1.5, and so far no problems. Thanks a lot and i will re-post if any more problems Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wevsspot Posted October 23, 2009 Posted October 23, 2009 Good luck. Hope that fixes your issue. I think you're a little high on that SB voltage though. Speaking of weird causes for PC's acting flaky. I've got a similar story to ocre. Several months back my main rig started acting crazy. I tested everything. And I mean EVERYTHING. Or so I thought. After stress testing for hours, trying every component in another rig, and re-installing Windows twice, my machine was still acting weird. Guess what component I hadn't tested? My stupid Saitek USB keyboard....... All that time and effort and it turned out that my keyboard had gone wonky, causing my machine to BSOD, act like I was infected by a crazy virus and just plain being stupid. Keyboard replaced and problem solved Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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