System:
-Asus Striker Extreme MOBO
-Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 Kentsfield 3.0GHz LGA 775 Processor Model BX80562QX6850 - Retail
-EVGA 768-P2-N885-AR GeForce 8800Ultra KO 768MB 384-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail
-Western Digital Raptor WD1500ADFD 150GB 10,000 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - OEM
-GeIL Black Dragon 4GB(4 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Quad Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model GB24GB6400C4QC - Retail *NOTE* Only using 2 Sticks which equals 2 Gigs, as recommended by many tech forums claiming that 4GB or ram is more trouble than helpful.
I am close to narrowing this down to its pinpoint, and you can finally help me figure out what to do.
The system mentioned above crashes, from time to time, but with enough consistency to be a tremendous nuisance. Crashes most usually occur within games, namely Team Fortress 2, Call of Duty 4, etc. It takes it a while to crash, sometimes several hours, and it happens pretty randomly, without any specific patterns that I've noticed.
For a while, I thought it was the RAM, that's why I took out 2 sticks to be left with 2GB. Though my memory isn't so perfect, I believe there was a small improvement being that the computer crashed less often.
I tried various BIOS settings, voltage settings for the RAM, different RAM slots, different fan settings, drivers, etc. No avail.
However, now I seemed to have tumbled on a good test for different scenarios, converting Curb Your Enthusiasm episodes into iPhone formate using the Videora iPhone Video Converter.
Every time I ran this, it would crash within 25% of the progress.
I opened up my PC, cleaned out some dust. and moved the 2 sticks of ram to the 3rd and fourth slots. Right, kind of useless, but somehow it helped a bit.
I now managed to get one video done from a list, but the computer would freeze and shutdown soon after the first video.I also noticed that while converting videos, my CPU is running at about 95-99% of its capacity.
Now, I just figured in my head, though I might be mistaken, that the problem should lie either with the CPU overheating or with the power supply (650 Watts).
Based on this hypothesis, I went into my BIOS, and using the overclocking feature of "CPU Multiplier" (with the default at 9), I underclocked it to 6. Bringing me down from 3Ghz, to 2Ghz. I know, extremely LAME.
However, I just finished converting about 4 videos in a row, without any problems so far.
So, from what I THINK I know, it's either the power supply, which btw is:
Bjorn3d.com -Antec TruePower Trio 650 Watt Power Supply Unit, Satisfying Your Daily Tech Cravings Since 1996
Or the CPU overheating, for which the solution is either checking the heatsink and/or thermal grease, getting an after market fan, or getting a water cooling system.
I am not sure if this rules out the RAM, but it would be good to asses.
Thanks to anyone who took a gander and can offer some tips.
Hope to hear from you guys soon.
-Asus Striker Extreme MOBO
-Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 Kentsfield 3.0GHz LGA 775 Processor Model BX80562QX6850 - Retail
-EVGA 768-P2-N885-AR GeForce 8800Ultra KO 768MB 384-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail
-Western Digital Raptor WD1500ADFD 150GB 10,000 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - OEM
-GeIL Black Dragon 4GB(4 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Quad Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model GB24GB6400C4QC - Retail *NOTE* Only using 2 Sticks which equals 2 Gigs, as recommended by many tech forums claiming that 4GB or ram is more trouble than helpful.
I am close to narrowing this down to its pinpoint, and you can finally help me figure out what to do.
The system mentioned above crashes, from time to time, but with enough consistency to be a tremendous nuisance. Crashes most usually occur within games, namely Team Fortress 2, Call of Duty 4, etc. It takes it a while to crash, sometimes several hours, and it happens pretty randomly, without any specific patterns that I've noticed.
For a while, I thought it was the RAM, that's why I took out 2 sticks to be left with 2GB. Though my memory isn't so perfect, I believe there was a small improvement being that the computer crashed less often.
I tried various BIOS settings, voltage settings for the RAM, different RAM slots, different fan settings, drivers, etc. No avail.
However, now I seemed to have tumbled on a good test for different scenarios, converting Curb Your Enthusiasm episodes into iPhone formate using the Videora iPhone Video Converter.
Every time I ran this, it would crash within 25% of the progress.
I opened up my PC, cleaned out some dust. and moved the 2 sticks of ram to the 3rd and fourth slots. Right, kind of useless, but somehow it helped a bit.
I now managed to get one video done from a list, but the computer would freeze and shutdown soon after the first video.I also noticed that while converting videos, my CPU is running at about 95-99% of its capacity.
Now, I just figured in my head, though I might be mistaken, that the problem should lie either with the CPU overheating or with the power supply (650 Watts).
Based on this hypothesis, I went into my BIOS, and using the overclocking feature of "CPU Multiplier" (with the default at 9), I underclocked it to 6. Bringing me down from 3Ghz, to 2Ghz. I know, extremely LAME.
However, I just finished converting about 4 videos in a row, without any problems so far.
So, from what I THINK I know, it's either the power supply, which btw is:
Bjorn3d.com -Antec TruePower Trio 650 Watt Power Supply Unit, Satisfying Your Daily Tech Cravings Since 1996
Or the CPU overheating, for which the solution is either checking the heatsink and/or thermal grease, getting an after market fan, or getting a water cooling system.
I am not sure if this rules out the RAM, but it would be good to asses.
Thanks to anyone who took a gander and can offer some tips.
Hope to hear from you guys soon.