VampireJesues

It seems like my idea to build a PC to be faster than the previous one has turned into a steaming pile of crap incredibly quickly. Basically, the problem is that I can't get the thing stable. It keeps constantly restarting on me all the time and I don't know what I need to do. It seems like every time I start a new day, things go fine, then as the day goes on it takes less and less time between restarts. Sometimes windows vista doesn't even give me a desktop before my PC restarts. All the pertinent info I can muster follows. If there are any other things you'd like to know, I'll do my best to answer

CPU: AMD Phenom 9850 Quad Core
RAM: 4GB G-Skill DDR2 1066 running at 800 in dual channel mode
Video: ATI Radeon Tul PowerColor HD 3850 (x2)
PSU: Thermaltake ToughPower 1000W
HDD: ATA drives connected to SATA with adapter
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-MA790FX-DS5 rev. 1.0

I don't even care at this point if it means returning half of the crap that I bought and buying stuff that will work, I just want this thing to run and be stable enough that it won't restart on me every five minutes. I seriously need help because I nearly threw my box out of my second story window tonight after putting some major dents in its case last night. I'm not a very patient user and I want thins thing fixed as quickly and completely as possible.

Nitrus

What is the make of the HDD?
Which adapter are you using?

Everything you posted looks compatible, I would advise to run Memtest86 to check that the RAM is ok.

Link: http://www.memtest86.com/download.html

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Killer Squirrel

have you overclocked your cpu or ram at all?

If you have i would advise you restore your bios to default settings then boot

linderman

the 790 chipsets are known for being memory fussy ...... try your set-up with only one stick of memory in the memory slot that is closest to the cpu

if the restarting stops ....... then you have a memory incompatibility


if you lose patience ............ send back the mobo and cpu and get

Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS4 and Intel E8400 cpu

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linderman

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128087

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115037

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linderman

did you apply the thermal paste correctly to your cpu ???? if the cpu overheats it will auto restart ?????

check your heatsink is it loose or woobley ????

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VampireJesues

Thanks for all the help, guys. I'm about to run this memtester to see what's going on with the memory in my system. If it turns out to be the memory, I'll just have to get new memory, probably DDR2 800. Even though this board can handle DDR2 1066 (allegedly) G-Skill is not one of the tested brands and it only supports one DIMM per channel at 1066. However it's underclocked right now to run at 800 anyway. On a side note, or maybe close to the actual issue, does anyone know how I can make the changes so I can run it with the proper timing of 5-5-5-15? What do these numbers mean? I admit it, I'm a noob.

VampireJesues

Right now the computer is stable as long as all I want to do is look at my desktop, but I imagine that will get boring after a while

VampireJesues

And as far as the heat issue, I had previously not had my CPU properly pasted, but I have since corrected that after reading a helpful post on that in another thread, though I can't remember who it was who posted the tutorial to give them proper credit. I am now using the Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste and so far the windows vista desktop has survived at idle for ten hours where before I couldn't even get it to start to the desktop without failing and restarting.

I haven't actively done anything to overclock my processor or the RAM currently, but there are some things in the BIOS that are set to Auto by default and I have not changed any of them. But while I was checking, I noticed that it had auto-selected a speed of 800 vs. 1066 for my RAM.

Enkai

If i have these specs, i will be patient and sort things out. Man you got a AMD Phenom! I spent 3 days to fix my DIY booty and i guess i am satisfied about it (except for the PSU). You should ask your retailer if the RAMs you bought suits the motherboard. But i haven got a chance to fix a AMD booty yet so yea...

linderman

not many "if any" motherboards will auto detect and set-up your ram and have it shown as 1066 most all boards will auto detect to 800 then you have to manually bump them up to 1066

your board is a fussy bugger >>>>> I would go to either corsair or crucial memory and use their website memory selector and find a set of memory sticks that are tested to work with your board .......... hoepfully you will find some that are 1066 ........ like the corsair dominator

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VampireJesues

I actually read some depressing facts about the 1066 compatibility of the motherboard and it turns out that the memory support is based on the processor. Of course they don't have any numbers out yet for the Phenom 9850, which is the one I have. I wonder when the world will come together in a way that when a product is released people won't have to spend weeks or months fussing over all this pointless crap and trying to find information for a current processor on a motherboard manufacturer's website.

Anyway, the depressing news is that the 1066 compatibility of the motherboard is limited to 1 DIMM per channel if it's running at 1066, and what the hell is the use of that? Seriously!

linderman

I hear yah !!! thats cheesey

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VampireJesues

My new plan is to just eat it and go with 4 gigs of ram that will give me peace of mind and added stability and return the 8 gigs I bought because I believed myself to be a demigod.