New PC Freezes With All OSes; Reboots Upon Shutdown

[Archaeanimus]

I recently built a new computer with parts largely purchased new from Newegg. However, I have encountered two problems:

1) The computer will freeze without warning or pattern under the following operating systems:

Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit
Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat 64 bit
Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat 64 bit Live USB
Gentoo 11 64 bit
Gentoo 11 64 bit Live DVD

The freeze is just that - video and audio both simply freeze (the audio loops a short sample). The fact that the Live versions of Ubuntu and Gentoo exhibit this behaviour has led me to rule out a faulty HDD. Unfortunately, that's the only thing I have been able to specifically rule out - though my memory is not specifically listed on the motherboard's QVL, but each memory test I've thrown at the modules in every configuration has come out clean.

2) Upon receiving a "shutdown" command of any sort, from the Start menu button in Windows to the "shutdown -h now" command from the Linux terminal, the computer reboots without exception. No amount of fiddling with ACPI settings has resolved this issue, and the problem persisted after installing a new PSU.

The hardware the machine in question consists of the following:

-ASUS DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS Black SATA 24X DVD Burner (OEM) - New from Newegg
-Western Digital Caviar Black WD5001AALS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive (Bare Drive) - New from Newegg
-ASUS M4A87TD EVO AM3 AMD 870 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard - Open Box from Newegg
-AMD Phenom II X2 545 Callisto 3.0GHz Socket AM3 80W Dual-Core Processor HDX545WFK2DGI (OEM) - New from Newegg
-G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-4GBNQ - New from Newegg
-HIS H467QR1GH Radeon HD 4670 1GB 128-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card - New from Newegg
-OCZ ModXStream Pro OCZ500MXSP 500W ATX12V V2.2 / EPS12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply - New from Newegg

Any help or experience in solving these issues would be greatly appreciated.

EDIT: I've noticed that the amount of time the machine remains stable is proportionate to the amount of time it has been entirely unpowered.

When I tried to boot Parted Magic from a UBCD USB stick, it froze during a series of call traces (don't know what those are) and gave the following message:

Code: Bad EIP Value.
EIP: [<00c10780>] 0xc10780 SS:ESP 0060:c18fbf30
CR2: 0000000000c10780
---[ end trace 36b90fded1985afd ]---
Kernel panic - not syncing: Fatal exception in [...]
Pid: 0, comm: swapper Tainted: G B D 2.6.32. [...]

I'm afraid I didn't capture the whole screen with my camera, but I think the only thing I've really lost is the Linux kernel version number.

After posting this message, it displayed what I guess you would call a kernel panic call trace. The screen froze shortly thereafter in the manner described above.

 

[Archaeanimus]

I've also now tried setting my memory to 9-9-9-24 with the command rate set to "2T." No dice.

 

[-RockMan-]

My one suggestion is you take both the windows and linux OS and put them on seperate hdd's so that they will mind their own business, and won't over run each other with system kernals and 2 very different partitions.

Take your main hdd, partition it, put windows 7 alone on it, split the hdd one for the main os, and for backing up stuff to.

Take another hdd and do the same for linux, if your using sata cables use RAID mode setup to do this.
In bios have your hdd's on cable select and your dvd-rw drive as single master alone.
If done correctly it should stop that problem for good or atleast stop linux from attaching itself to the windows partition when installing and causing problems again like this.

About your stop error screen, I can take a look at the windows version, but you will need some advanced help for linux as I am not familiar with that kind of error problems yet.
I'll be back later this evening and have a look see and post back with a answer.

 

[MindoverMaster]

I never had a problem Dual Booting. They run independently.

 

[Archaeanimus]

I forgot to mention: I have had this problem with Linux and Windows independently; I installed Ubuntu because I had the problem with Windows, and erased Windows to do so. And Windows hasn't given me any stop errors - it just freezes. The only reason, as far as I can tell, that Parted Magic gave me ANY information is that it booted verbosely. As far as RAID or separate HDDs go, I'm afraid this is the only SATA drive I have access to at the moment. I may be able to get my hands on one of my dad's old EIDE drives in a few days, but for the time being, I'll try setting my one drive to cable select.

EDIT: The problem persists.

 

[Archaeanimus]

Alright, so to rule out the HDD once and for all, I removed it entirely and booted up Parted Magic (after leaving the power off for a few days). Exactly 17 minutes in, it froze. While I was looking at the system stats are of the screen for clues, I noticed that it listed my processor as an i686, while it is definitely an amd64. Maybe I need to fiddle with my CPU settings?

 

[-RockMan-]

Well, look into your bios and check with your cpu's FSB and hyper transport link.
Do not increase the HT beyond what your system can handle, I should know first hand as my mothers athlon ii x2 at 2.90ghz does not like HT being bothered unless I have the correct dram timings to prevent a system slowdown or frequent crashes in windows and linux.

Put your g skill memory on 1066mhz and put the cpu at 2.8ghz and see what it does.
Leave off OC'd and turbo-boost for now and see how it will handle a OS installation.

 

[BlackDawg]

Could be an overheating issue. Have you reseated your processor and applied the thermal paste evenly? Inspect both the processor and the socket on the mobo for anomalies before reseating. Also reseat all your cable connections including your ATX and 12v supply connectors along with all sata and power connectors.

 

[Archaeanimus]

check with your cpu's FSB and hyper transport link... Put your g skill memory on 1066mhz and put the cpu at 2.8ghz and see what it does. Leave off OC'd and turbo-boost for now and see how it will handle a OS installation.

Could be an overheating issue. Have you reseated your processor and applied the thermal paste evenly? Inspect both the processor and the socket on the mobo for anomalies before reseating. Also reseat all your cable connections including your ATX and 12v supply connectors along with all sata and power connectors.

I tried to pull off the heatsink for my CPU (I seated it with the stock thermal paste, which never gave temperature spikes); it was so firmly attached the chip that it pulled the pins out of the socket. I cleaned the chip and the heat-sink (which is thoroughly striated from manufacturing), applied some Arctic Silver Ceramique (just what I had on hand), and re-installed them. I re-seated all of my cables and booted it up. It took a few boots to POST, then told me I had installed a new chip. I set my BIOS according to MidnightMike's instructions then checked the BIOS' hardware monitor, which showed the CPU at a comfortable 31 degrees centigrade. I did, however, notice that my voltages were all a tiny fraction of a volt high, but stable. I tried booting Parted Magic (I hosed my MBR installing Windows) and it froze almost immediately upon opening the GUI at 54s of system up-time.

EDIT: MidnightMike, vous êtes un génie! I changed my HT to 200MHz (the same as my FSB) and the computer is as stable as a rock. It's like magic. Now let's see if my reboot problem persists.