Topic: So, I finally built a rig.

[JacksRag(e)]

And it keeps restarting on me.  Just randomly, it'll be in the middle of running something.  Or it'll just be there.  Then boom, black screen and it restarts.  It's rather vexing.  I was wondering if any of you guys had any thoughts on what it might be.  I've done a clean install of Windows, everything is as it should be, I assume.  And we were pretty meticulous when putting the thing together, so before I go and return it all again, I decided to come here.  So, yeah.  Any ideas?  Here's what I got so far:

Asus P5N-E SLI motherboard
Intel Core 2 Duo E6300
2 x 512 mb OCZ DDR2-PC 6400 ram
PNY Geforce 7300 GT 256 Mb DDR2
and my old Soundblaster Audigy.

Far as I know, I can't tell what the problem could be.  I checked the cpu fan and it seems to be attached fairly secure.  So, I don't think it's the processor.  Maybe faulty memory?  Dunno.  Buh.

[iPPi]

Possible power supply problem or possibly overheating.  Really hard to say with random reboots.

[JacksRag(e)]

Mmm, I've got a gajillion fans in there at the moment, the power supply is fairly new, too, but it is a cheap-o supply, so maybe.  I checked my cpu's temperature in the bios and it was at 39 degrees.
After thinking about it a little while longer, I'm starting to think it might be the ram.  So, I'm gonna buy new sticks and hope it works.

[beo]

PSU or heat issues seam to be the most common causes of random hangs or reboots in my experience, but here's a few things that are probably worth a go:

• try a new version of the bios from asus's site.
• try underclocking the ram / cpu / FSB / etc (one at a time) in the bios.
• if you've got any old sticks of DDR lying about swap that out.
• make sure that the motherboard is grounded properly and not making any contacts with the case where it shouldn't be.
  
• try another graphics card if you've got anything compatible with the mobo.
• disconnect the power to all of optical drives (and remove everything else that isn't essential to the running of the system, including soundcard) to see if you're getting enough juice from the psu.

[Pugnate]

To get value from that rig you need to overclock it. You can hit 2.5 easily... but yea first thing is first. Random reboots are 95% of the time PSU problems. Especially in a case where everything else is stable.

Also issues with RAM normally show up when booting. Normally the system just BEEEEEEEEEEPS at start up when RAM is the issue.

OK find this program called CPU Z and run it. It will just give details on your rig settings. Do try to post a screenie if you can and I will see if there is anything unusual. Secondly find a program called ORTHOS stress test.

Once you find it, run it and you will see a bunch of tests you can run. Just run the RAM test for a few hours. Don't run any other program please... it will be a good way to find out if the RAM is the issue, which I am sure it isn't.

After you are done, download the latest nvidia drivers and go to the overclocking options. Run the video card test demo. If the PSU is the issue it will restart during this particular test.

[scottws]

In my case, random reboots were solved by just reseating everything.  I was so frustrated I moved all the PCI cards around, reseated my video card, reseated all my RAM in different slots, reseated my IDE/SATA cables.  Completely corrected and hasn't happened for almost a year now, on the same 4 year old PSU.

[JacksRag(e)]

Hmm, ok, so I turned off the "Automatic Restart" option and let my computer idle until the crash last night.  And sure enough, when I wake up, it's crashed and I've seen my very first BSOD on XP.  It gave me a "Bad_Pool_Caller  Stop 0x0000000C2 error."  So, now I'm just trying to figure out where it's coming from, but not sure how to go about it now.  Bah.
Thanks for all the tips, though, guys.

[JacksRag(e)]

Well, I went and switched RAM, but yeah, nothing really changed, still getting random restart issues.  Buh, I took a screenie of CPU Z in action, so here it is.


And I'll try scott's suggestions, too.  We'll see how it goes.

[JacksRag(e)]

Yea, I think I've given up on this machine now.  I'm gonna take it apart and return it.  We'll see how that turns out.  Probably go with a different board and a 6400 over a 6300.  Ah well, hopefully the new machine doesn't have the same problems this one had.

[gpw11]

Sorry for the late reply, but it sounds like bad memory.  If you still have the system download memorytest 86 and burn it to a bootable CD.  Boot that off a restart and let it run a couple cycles.  If you get a ton of memory errors you've got at least one bad stick of ram.

[JacksRag(e)]

Ah well, I gave up on the system.  It kept restarting and just had all these stability issues.  I just went and returned everything.  I'm starting with a fresh slate again.  Just bought all the pieces, and will put them together tonight.

Intel Core 2 Duo E6400
1 gb Patriot PC6400 800 Mhz RAM
Visiontek Radeon X1600 Pro
GIGABYTE GA-965P-S3

and yea, so we'll see how this one turns out.  Dang.

[Pugnate]

I've been reading about a lot of compatibility issues between DDR2 RAMs and mobos.

[scottws]

So, how'd the new system turn out?

[JacksRag(e)]

Well, after about a week of fiddling with it, I went with a totally new system and it's running like a beauty right now.  I figured the P5N-E and the DDR 800 ram were having some issues, so I downgraded to the cheaper P5N-SLI and went with DDR 667 ram.  I upgraded to the C2D E6400 and a 7900 GS, so now my rig is flying, for the most part.
And turns out my school offers the academic version of Vista for much much cheaper, so I went with that, for the hell of it.  And it's been pretty good, so far.  All the games I play run well and no compatibility issues yet.  No issues with the soundcard, either.  Seems like Creative fixed it well enough.