ASUS AX800Pro

[Benjawa]

Howdy from Kuwait!!

Alrighty doods and doodettes, before ya flame me for posting about something that has already been posted, please take a look at the entire problem. And thanks in advance!!


When playing graphics intensive games, my computer has a rather annoying predilection to freeze randomly or the game crashes, or the computers says to hell with it and simply reboots. Now, I have read over the posts with similar issues and have gotten several opinions, but none seem to have me convinced. Anyway, below is a detailed system summary and some more detail after that.

I am running a P4 3.2ghz w/1mb cache (W/HT)
Using a MSI 865PE/G Neo2 motherboard.
ASUS AX800Pro (ATI Radeon X800Pro 256 DDR2)
2GB PC2700 RAM (Mixed brands)
2 125GB Maxtor HDs
SB Audigy 2 Ex Platinum
D-Link DWL G520+ Wireless NIC
1 Sony DVD+-RW
1 Liteon 52x32x52 CD-RW
Winblows XP SP2

The games that are crashing are The Sims 2, Star Wars Galaxies (JTL Expansion), Knights of the Old Republic, Doom3, and Half Life 2. ALL the fans on my system are running 100% (Checked this after reading one of the posts here, even replaced 2 case fans). Yet the system seems to act like it is overheating even though all the hardware monitors I am running say the temp stays well lower than any thresholds I set. All the drivers are updated, and the PSU is the same one I pulled out of another machine that was working fine (with the exception of the IDE RAID). I have, so far, tried 2 different PSUs. I have tried various combos of my 4 512 PC2700 with as little as 1gig. Nothing seems to stop this stuff. I have a sneaking suspicion it is Winblows XP SP2 that is causing this, but I backed it off from SP2 and that didn’t work. (Ran the repair from the CD which reset the system to pre-sp1). I also have an idea it may be just be XP Pro, though, because I didn’t have these problems when I ran W2K with the exact same system. All drivers and BIOS versions have been flashed, and re-flashed. (I even kicked it once, just for giggles, and then cried. Stupid thing is heavy). The Video card, while it could be bad, doesn’t seem to be the issue. I have placed a Nvidia Geforce 5600 from a machine that works into this system and it still happens. I am contemplating a sledge hammer and a liberal supply of force, but then I wouldn’t be able to surf and we CAN’T have that. Soooo, ideas, opinions, snide remarks, or politically incorrect statements that I can throw at this Model P.O.S. computer would be an ulcer saver. Thanks guys!!

Ben

 

[paparazi]

Benjawa
Two things I noticed with your list:

What power supply have you got running this heavy weight machine?
Also PC2700? and mixed at that.
P4 3.2 1meg is a Prescott? so 800fsb and ideally requires PC3200 (DDR400) to run synconously (quad pumped to 800)

Running asyncronously with your memory and bottle necked with PC2700 (DDR333) together with unmached modules, could possibly be your problem.

Martin

We like members to GIVE and not just TAKE.
Participate and help others.

 

[Benjawa]

Yeah, you might be right but I decided to run a floor fan into my case last night, just to see if heat just might be the problem. I dumbed down my graphics options on all my games and there hasn't been any reboots, but I didn't play all that long so I could have gotten lucky.


As for power, I am running a 400w generic. The PC 3200 RAM is on order (takes a while to get here in Kuwait from the states, 4 gig woot!)

Right now, I am thinking its a combination of heat and the RAM mismatch. Do you agree? Oh and thanks for your reply.

Ben

 

[pmonett]

In my opinion, your power supply is insufficient.
Not to say that 400W is not enough - maybe it is. The real problem is one of reliability.
Tom's Hardware has several good articles on PSUs and their reliability - you should read the articles and make your own opinion.

Getting the Right Power: 15 PC Power Supply Units
High Power For Power Users: 13 Power Supplies In The Spotlight
Inadequate and Deceptive Product Labeling: Comparison of 21 Power Supplies

For me, running a high-spec PC on a low-cost PSU is a recipe for problems.

Pascal.

 

[paparazi]

Benjawa
I will echoe pmonett's sentiments and say when we build systems at our shop we have to generally use the cheap generic supply that comes in our Codegen cases, this is because of cost and competitiveness, but, only with basic systems! any higher end system, with multiple hard drives and powerful graphics cards, we absolutely never use the cheap supplied units.
Even if this particular problem turns out to be something else I would still recommend that you buy a good PSU.

Antec, Enermax, FSP, CWT (channel Well Technology) Sparkle, Thermatake, Chieftech, Zalman, SilentX, etc

What programs are you using that will utilize 4GB of memory?
Martin


We like members to GIVE and not just TAKE.
Participate and help others.

 

[Benjawa]

UPDATE

4GB pc3200 RAM and a 500w Thermatake PSU later, and my system is finally stable. But, the above didn't exactly fix the problem. When I got all the parts in this weekend and slapped it all together, things zoomed right along and everything was great for about 2 1/2 hours. I was giddy, thinking I fixed it. Then wham!! It did it again. Anyway, to spare you the many minutes of cursing afterwards, I looked some more on the net and found that there are some noted problems with the X800 series and running LCD monitors off the VGA port. When I switched it to the DVI port, with the VGA adapter, things finally settled down and now it all runs smooth as a baby's....well anyway, for giggles I pulled all the new parts, went back to the old parts, and then plugged into the DVI. Guess what.....yeah no problems. SOOOOOOO, I got a smoking computer outta the deal, 400 bux lighter in the pocket, but the machine works. OH, and I tested it out with a regular CRT and had no problems either on either the DVI or the VGA. *Shrug* Thanks for all your help guys!!

Ben

 

[pmonett]

Nice to know your PC is running again. Even nicer to know what the real problem was, especially since I will soon be on the market for a new high-end video card. I will be more wary of this detail now that I know the possible consequences.

That said, I stand by my evaluation of your PSU and I am glad to see that you got a "proper" unit for powering your PC. I'm sure that in the long run, the choice will pay off in stability.

Happy computing !

Pascal.