Need computer help.

[Big Man]

I recently upgraded my computer and ever since I got it up and running I have had nothing but problems with it. For starters, when I play a game for about an hour or so, the damn thing will either freeze up or the computer will just suddely restart. When I download a file, sometimes it will say it's corrupted when I open it. So I deleted the corrupted file and download it again and boom, it works. I noticed sometimes a pic on a site will looked screwed up, yet when I delete the file and refresh and it shows up fine. Also, sometimes a webpage will looked screwed up with letters and images stuck in wired places but when I refresh it, it shows up fine.

WTF is wrong with this thing??? I updated the BIOS and the chipset drivers and I still get this BS. I have formated and installed everything 4 times already.

My setup is:

ASUS A8N-SLI motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 4200+ Dual Core processor
2 Nvidia GeForce 7900(SLI)
2 Western Digital 10,000 rpm HD (RAID 1)
4GB if ram (only shows 2.75GB)

 

[White96]

Hard to say, are you getting any error messages or anything?? the blue screen? Sounds like something possibly in the drivers but i can't be specific

 

[DesertMach]

I would check for driver conflicts, thats what it sounds like anyway, IE make sure you have the newest drivers for the OS that you have just upgraded to..

 

[Darkblade]

Hows the cooling in your system?, and can your MB handle the 4GB of ram? Ae you getting the drivers from their manufacters web-site? What ver. of windows do you have?

 

[Huachipato]

First thought is cooling - is it flowing a good amount of air over the processor? Is it breathing in cool air? I had similar issues - added like 5 fans to the box and that solved the problem.

 

[deannyc]

ya sounds like a cooling issue.

 

[White96]

Not sure if your processor has the software but some come with a monitor application where you can watch the temp and the amount of stress being put on it. Might have to just install it if you have the cd's for the processor. Just a thought

 

[JD_2001_svt]

If files are corrupting and your comp is crashing it could be a harddrive issue. Also could be bad memory. I had a bad stick of memory do it to me once. Could also be any of the above posts.

 

[98slowbra]

I was thinking the same thing, I bet it is a cooling issue, when I played games on my PC and they updated the video drivers for the game it made my video card work a lot harder, the game would freeze up after a while of playing and such, I put 5 more fans in the system and it ran great then and no issues at all.

 

[deannyc]

hah my comp used to overheat so often I had a vornado fan 2 inches away blowing directly into the case.

 

[illadvisedSnake]

....

My setup is:

ASUS A8N-SLI motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 4200+ Dual Core processor
2 Nvidia GeForce 7900(SLI)
2 Western Digital 10,000 rpm HD (RAID 1)
4GB if ram (only shows 2.75GB)

umm what size/model power supply are you using...

as far as registering the ram goes, I believe if using XP you need to activate a "4GB switch" to let windows allocate 3GB to programs and 1GB to operating system. Not sure if that has anything to do with it not registering. How its saying 2.75GB of ram I don't understand, I assume your using (4) 1GB sticks as that mobo only has 4 slots.... maybe you have bad ram, trying booting it up using it in dual channel mode with 2 sticks only and see what happens, then go from there. Did you adjust your ram settings at all? your ram may require more voltage.

 

[Big Man]

First thing, I have gotten the "blue screen of death" a few times. Once about the video drivers and the rest was something about the USB. I do have all drivers and Windows XP fully updated.

About the cooling, I have a total of 7 case fans, 4 on the front, 2 in the back and 1 on the side. The MB did come with software that monitors the CPU but I never noticed anything wrong.

I have moved around the ram sticks in all different ways and even bought new ram that was recommended in the mb manual. No difference.

umm what size/model power supply are you using...

as far as registering the ram goes, I believe if using XP you need to activate a "4GB switch" to let windows allocate 3GB to programs and 1GB to operating system. Not sure if that has anything to do with it not registering. How its saying 2.75GB of ram I don't understand, I assume your using (4) 1GB sticks as that mobo only has 4 slots.... maybe you have bad ram, trying booting it up using it in dual channel mode with 2 sticks only and see what happens, then go from there. Did you adjust your ram settings at all? your ram may require more voltage.

Im using a Thermaltake 560W power supply. How do I activate the 4GB switch? I am using 4 1GB ram sticks.

 

[illadvisedSnake]

actually my bad on the "switch" thing, I had to activate that on my work computer for the software to be able to recognize 3GB. You alter you boot.ini file...

your power supply is ok, but not bashing you... seems like you dropped a lot of money on hardware and kinda skimmped a little on the PSU, I would highly recommend something that is "SLI ready", typically these power supplied have more then one 12V rail and more effecient at powering those 2 monster video cards and RAID set up. I would recommed an Antec or an enermax PSU.

so you tried it with one stick of ram only?

did you try manually adjusting your RAM settings in your BIOS? what RAM are you currently trying to run?

I had a hard time with my A8n getting to run 2GB it runs 1 GB like a charm, but I tossed in 2 more sticks of 512mb and it didn't like it, I could not tune it in... it was very aggrivating, so I just stuck with 1gb.

 

[Big Man]

actually my bad on the "switch" thing, I had to activate that on my work computer for the software to be able to recognize 3GB. You alter you boot.ini file...

your power supply is ok, but not bashing you... seems like you dropped a lot of money on hardware and kinda skimmped a little on the PSU, I would highly recommend something that is "SLI ready", typically these power supplied have more then one 12V rail and more effecient at powering those 2 monster video cards and RAID set up. I would recommed an Antec or an enermax PSU.

so you tried it with one stick of ram only?

did you try manually adjusting your RAM settings in your BIOS? what RAM are you currently trying to run?

I had a hard time with my A8n getting to run 2GB it runs 1 GB like a charm, but I tossed in 2 more sticks of 512mb and it didn't like it, I could not tune it in... it was very aggrivating, so I just stuck with 1gb.

Im using the same power supply from my old set-up, but I see what you mean by skimmped alittle using it. Right now Im only using 1GB of ram I just bought. Its Kingston KVR400X64C3A/1G. I don't have anything smaller.

I'll look around for power supplies, thanks.

 

[illadvisedSnake]

here are you RAM settings, go into your BIOS and make sure they are at 3-3-3-3 the website says "1GB 400MHz DDR Non-ECC CL3 (3-3-3)" also set your DIMM voltage to 2.6v. that should help you out.

 

[Big Man]

Theres nowhere in the BIOS that says 3-3-3-3. :shrug:

 

[gump]

Theres nowhere in the BIOS that says 3-3-3-3. :shrug:

Big Man, look at the sites in my sig, i'd suggest majorgeeks.com, their help forums are awesome.

 

[illadvisedSnake]

Theres nowhere in the BIOS that says 3-3-3-3. :shrug:

I didn't see this last night... sorry, when I get home from work tonight I'll post up on where to access this in your BIOS if you still need it

the 3-3-3-3 is the timings for your ram. Its like tuning a car... in your bios there should be a value for DRAM settings I think its called... you must set it to user settings, then it will allow you to change the values