New built computer FREEZES please help!!

[welchyboy]

Hello techs I have a very strange and frustrating issue. I have a computer that has been built from parts from new egg. With a few exceptions. I have an hp case which is stock and came with the original computer and a stock P4 3.0ghz processor. Everything else is new. This is what i bought from new egg...

ASUS P5K-VM LGA 775 Intel G33 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard - RetailModel #5K-VMItem #:N82E16813131187

1 x Western Digital Caviar SE WD1600AAJS 160GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

Hanns·G HW-191DPB Black 19" 5ms Widescreen LCD Monitor - RetailModel #:HW-191DPBItem #:N82E16824254005

1 x Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model BL2KIT12864AA804 - Retail

1 x Thermaltake TR2 W0070RUC 430W ATX Power Supply - Retail

I am using onboard video from the Asus board. I put everything together and installed XP S2 and worked great for a month. Then started getting lots of errors like recovered from serious error and it would automatically run chkdsk and restore lots of information. Sometimes it would start up and not be able to run any program files...couldn't find them but if i restart the computer it will work perfectly for like a day. I wiped the hard drive and reinstalled it and it would never last for more than two days. I would either give me the blue screen of death saying DRIVER errors or just freeze and not ever load windows. At times it would be in a continuous loop. It would come to the boot screen where you can choose normal boot or safe mode and no matter what selection you choose it will restart.

Once I saw the driver issue i started looking at the driver cd i put in and it was the Asus motherboard CD which in fact said VISTA DRIVERS ONLY. So i screwed up...wiped the drive put XP SP2 back on the system let it alone for three days with NOTHING installed. No drivers no software no internet. Worked ok for three days. Went to asus's website to download the drivers for that particular board for XP and still seemed to work. Put office 2003 on there and it restarted unexpectedly in the middle of install. But i blew it off and kept installing stuff. I installed and updated AVG then over night had windows updates installing. I wake up the next morning it is frozen on the screen saver. I restart and it wont boot up to xp AGAIN. I am at my wits end. Sorry for all the information I just wanted it to be clear and show all the things i have done. I have ran mem86 to test both memory sticks. I have ran a western digital hard drive scan to test the hard drive and neither came up with ANY problems. My trouble is it worked perfectly for 1 month with the vista drivers and everything.

Please if anyone can provide any information I will be so thankful. I don't mind reinstalling xp and formatting. Just let me know what i can try or do so i can start making some progress on this computer. Any help or thoughts is much appreciated. I thought I would throw this in just so everyone knows. I was also suspicious of heat because the place where the computer has been setup had no ac. Although after taking it to my house for 2 weeks the house was never any hotter than 80. If this could still be an issue please let me know. I will take anything i can get please. Pass this around or whatever. I need YOUR help. Thanks

EDIT: I have posted this topic on other forums please read for updated info at...

New built computer FREEZES please help!! - Computer Forums

 

[Ste]

Try one stick of RAM, for a day each..

 

[welchyboy]

I have thought about it being a memory problem however the problem is I have gone three days straight without a problem when i installed xp sp2 and nothing else. So if the computer can work great for three days straight I am not sure what swapping out memory for one day would do much good. However I am not totally saying this can not be a memory issue. This could be the case but not sure how to approach it, because when the computer crashes it really crashes. Pretty much unrecoverable. I even ran Ultimate Boot CD and did some chkdsk and recovery console, safemode, and last know good configurations. None brought the computer back to windows. I have in fact tested the memory with memtest86 or something and got no errors. I ran this with one chip for about an hour then tried the other chip for about an hour with NO errors what so ever. If you have any other suggestions or ways of going about this please feel free to share.

 

[KurrentEweser]

Run Everest in the background and monitor all the temperatures that it can find sensors for. What are the temperatures under heavy load after an hour?
It wouldn't hurt to increase your case cooling.

 

[Highlandcomp]

Have you looked at the event logs and see any issues? That could give
some clues. I would try swapping each mem stick and try a few days. Another thing I would try is bootstrap method. Strip the machine to bare minimum and test it adding component by component.

Good luck
sam

 

[welchyboy]

I can download everest and monitor the temps although i have installed speedfan which did the same i think. However I will try everything. I agree that it wouldnt hurt to increase the case cooling but I want to make sure this is the problem before doing so. I will format the drive and install xp again and see what the temps are.

Yes I have looked in the event viewer and never seen one problem except for attempting to download updates when I didn't have any lan drivers. I will give the one stick memory a try when I reboot. What I am going to do is format the drive again and put xp sp2 on it. I will install speedfan and everest on the machine first. Then I will turn off the windows updates completely. I will only install the chipset driver and the video driver for the motherboard. Then I think I will let it sit for a few days and see what happens. Possibly running memtest86 to check the memory. I will update everyone on the status. Please continue with the suggestions.

 

[KurrentEweser]

Any temperature monitoring program will do as long as it can read all the sensors.

Window XP SP2 should have the latest compatible chipset driver included. Don't bother with Intel's driver unless you get yellow icon warnings in the device manager after running Windows Update.

 

[SirCyber]

I have to be honest, it sounds like a heat issue. have you taken your heatsink off and reapplied thermal paste? when you moved your cpu last time, did you make sure that it was wiped really clean? your heatsink too? make sure that every connection is in tight, might be something there is loose/not seated correctly, these are the only things other than ram that I can think of that might be causing the problem, especially since it was running fine for a month

****EDIT****
after reading your post on the other site, I'm still not fully convinced that you may have cpu issues, however, another piece of possible advice. have you tried doing everything you've done on a different hard drive? just got to thinking and that, even though you've tested everything, something still isn't going correctly. whew! you've tested almost everything... have you, by chance, tried disabling some of your devices and re-inabling, doing updates on drivers, ect ect ect? what about the taking one ram stick out and then the other?

 

[welchyboy]

I totally agree with you!!! It was working PERFECTLY for a month to a month and a half with NO ISSUES what so ever. During that time period nothing has changed as in hardware changes or drivers. I installed everything and gave it back to the owner of the computer. Then installed programs on the machine, email clients, and use the internet but nothing relating to hardware. When i moved the cpu and heatsink to the new motherboard no i did not reapply thermal paste nor did i wipe anything off. I just swapped it over to the new board. I have gone over every connection over and over and everything seems to be in the right position and seated correctly. I have reseated the memory as well. I have reformatted the drive and have nothing on the machine but XP Sp2. I will put speedfan and everest on the machine. I think i might need the chipset drivers though because I do get about 6 yellow question marks. One is Lan, audio, video, modem, and i guess some chipset stuff. After installing the drivers I will shutdown take off the heatsink and processor wipe it down and reseat it. I do not have any thermal paste to apply. So i will put it on and see what happens.

OK here is the up to date status of the computer...

I formatted the drive and installed XP SP2. I went to the Asus website on another computer download the chipset and VGA drivers for this motherboard (for xp). I restarted after each driver as requested by the computer. After that I installed Speedfan and Everest to monitor the temperature of the system. I then shut the system down took of the heatsink and cpu. I used a dry paper towel to wipe off the grey paste off the processor and heatsink. I also reseated the memory. I booted the machine up opened speedfan and everest and these are the temps i got. Computer was idel i was getting CPU: 39C and Motherboard: 38C. I believe before i took the paste of the heatsink and CPU I was getting about 33C idel on the cpu but i could be wrong.

I then decided to run some benchmarks with everest. I ran a cpu benchmark which really heated up the processor.The max it got was 62C. I was told that 70C is the max and you don't really want to get near that temp but not sure. I stopped the test after about 2 minutes. All temps went back to normal and the system is in a stable condition as of now. I have restarted a few times to change the processor and so forth as i mentioned and it came up every time without trouble. There is currently not one error in the event viewer. Not under system or application. I have about four question marks in the device manager which I can get rid of and have before but I was going to see how long the computer lasted before doing these. I just wanted to do the main ones which were the chipset and video. In the device manager I needing
Ethernet, PCI Device, Communication controller, and an unknown device. I know one of these is audio, one is Lan of course, one or two could be a modem. I have an external modem there as well as an onboard. However I was thinking it might be best to leave these alone and see how the system hangs in there. Please let me know if any one has any suggestions up to this point. We are all pretty much going in it together since I started out fresh again. All suggestions and comments are welcome. Oh and I have not done any windows updates as of this point or installed AVG or anything other than the things I have mentioned. I will leave it alone for now until i hear something else that sounds better.

 

[SirCyber]

ermmmm, did you reapply thermal paste?