Problems Galore

D

DanMattia

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 22, 2005
Messages
354
When all else fails, where else to turn to but the [H]ardcore?

Since August of 2005, when I built my PC, I've had nothing but trouble. Early on, all my drivers decided to somehow delete themselves. That was fun.

I've never been able to get my crappy RealTek AC'97 audio drivers to work correctly. I've never been able to run a successful test of 3dMark. And now, every single game I own crashes and BSODs, minus the blue screen.

I need help, as you can tell. I'm either going to sell this PC if I can't get it working and buy a Mac, or I'm going to fix it. And I'm losing patience with fixing it.

Let me detail the problems I'm having right now.

1) All Source-based games, Need for Speed Most Wanted, Dawn of War, and every other game and mod I've played crashes and BSODs. The screen goes black, the sound loops, and the computer sort-of shuts off. I then have to force a manual reboot, and am sometimes told by Windows that a fatal error has occurred.

I've tested the processor and RAM and they're both fine. 3dMark will not finish a test without crashing.

2) I emailed BFG Tech because I think my vid card's causing the crashing, and they said to update the motherboard chipset/BIOS, or that my PSU needs to be replaced. I updated the motherboard chipset and BIOS, and upon rebooting, I was presented with the GRUB interface...how that got there I have no idea. I have not restarted since.

In this update, my audio drivers were updated. I have the onboard A8N-SLI Deluxe sound, the AC'97 drivers. Now my 5.1 surround sound speakers don't work.

Here're my specs:
A8N-SLI Deluxe
AMD Athlon64 3200+ Venice
BFG Tech GeForce 6800GT 256mb
2x Corsair ValueSelect PC3200 RAM
WD Caviar 250gb SATA-II
Maxtor DiamondMax 200gb ATA133
Stock 420W PSU (Kingwin MutantX Case)
Windows XP Home SP2

I'll copy and paste a dxdiag if you need it.

Any help is immensely appreciated. This is my work computer, so I need it running as soon as possible.

Thanks a ton.
 
Have you properly set your audio codec settings in BIOS? I don't know much about your mb, but in some Asus boards, there are two options. You have to set that to AC 97.
 
Update:

PC was booting to GRUB because BIOS magically reset to booting from my other HDD, which had grub installed at one point.

Also, could my PSU be causing the video card crashing problems? Should I try for an RMA and if the RMA doesn't work, buy a new PSU? Or should I just buy a new PSU?
 
This really sounds like you've got a hard drive ready to commit seppuku. Does swapping out the hard drive for another fix the problem?
 
Actually, I did already, and it didn't.

My newer IDE hard drive I was using started crashing about a month ago, shortly after buying and installing my SATA-II (which was used as storage for awhile). I figured I'd try and put everything on the other HDD and see if that was the problem, and they still continue. So, with either hard drive, the problems are still there.
 
I;d say your best bet is to get a different mobo, and start swapping part by part into a new rig. Start w/ the basics, run your tests. 1 stick of RAM. Vid Card, 1 HDD, CPU. No CD drives, etc. Fresh windows install. New PSU. If it runs, then put everything back into your old rig minus the stuff you left behind. Then put in the 'extras' part by part, and run 3dmark each time. That way you might tell what is causing your problems. If you can't find extra parts, then you're kinda screwed.

Edit: I noticed you're using the PSU from the MutantX case. I have that same case, and that PSU sucked. I put it in a friends ancient PC and it crapped out in a few days. Try a different one.
 
I don't have money for new parts or a new PSU, so I'm trying to do this as cost-effectively as possible.
 
Sounds stupid, but did you remember to plug in the additional molex connector to the video card?

Also, your 12v rail is very low, I would seriously consider trying a different power supply.
PSU voltages (420W PSU, stock):
Vcore voltage: 1.39v
3.3v voltage: 3.23v
5v voltage: 4.91v
12v voltage: 11.45v
Click to expand...
 
Everything looks plugged in. There's a little molex connector on my motherboard that has nothing plugged in. I'll check better when my PC's off, but I'm pretty sure it's in there.
 
There may be your answer. Plug that sucker in. You might not be supplying enough power to the CPU and mobo?
 
DanMattia said:
Everything looks plugged in. There's a little molex connector on my motherboard that has nothing plugged in. I'll check better when my PC's off, but I'm pretty sure it's in there.
Click to expand...

I have that same board, and if it is a standard 4 pin molex connector you are talking about (right above the vid card area) than you don't need to plug it in. If memory serves, that is only used for extra power when running in two cards in SLI.
 
It does sound like a power issue.

btw, if you want to get grub off of your other hd, do fdisk /mbr, it wipes over the master boot record. I've done it numerous times on hd's what were partitioned for dual-booting and it never hurt windows, it just nukes the bootloader.
 
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