Darknesscyshado

Hey guys. Wasn't too sure where to put this considering I have no idea what is malfunctioning in this case.

I fixed my old problem (turned out to be faulty memory. Not sure why it was moved to the video card section.), but now -this- seems to have come up.

When I turn on my computer, it'll start up fine (into either Windows XP 64 bit or Ubuntu, depending which one I choose). One in the operating system, there is about a 90% chance that after 5 minutes the screen will go black and the fans will all turn on full. If I was watching or listening to something at the time I'll hear the sound from what I was watching for about 5/10 seconds before that stops too.

After this (usually) I'll turn the computer off and on, and it'll work fine from there on out- but recently it's started doing it more often. Today took four tries to successfully start up.

Once it is running without these strange crashes, it runs everything fine. High intensity games and programs work fine, and before and after the crashes all temperatures show to be fine. At this stage it can go on without crashing again until the next time I turn it on after it has been off for a while.

I have a coolermaster cosmos S case with a coolermaster real power M1000 power supply, a Radion Saphire HD4890 graphics card, 4GB of ram, a pentium quad core 2.50 processor, a suprimeFX 2 sound card and an Asus deluxe motherboard (though I can't remember the build or type number).

Hope you can help!

wrench97

What are you seeing for CPU, Chipset & GPU temps?
CPU and Chipset from the Bios PC health page.
GPU from GPUz> http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads...-Z_v0.2.8.html

Darknesscyshado

All temps are well within their boundaries... Sorry for the late reply! New things I've tried: Replaced the HDD, everything was fine for a week but now it has started again. I also ran a memtest, all clean... This is driving me nuts.

wrench97

What temps and voltage readings are you seeing?

Darknesscyshado

Sorry again for the late reply! I'm about to start uni so I'm quite busy!

I took the temperatures and voltages just after the last crash:

CPU Temp: 32 Degrees C
Motherboard Temp: 24 Degrees C

Vcore: 1.26v
Memory: 1.90v
3.3v: 3.32v
5v: 5.27v
12v: 12.09v

I hope this helps! It seems to be getting worse :/

dai

your 5v line is showing out of spec

check the psu with a multi meter

http://www.driverheaven.net/guides/testingPSU/

Darknesscyshado

Are you sure? It's barely out of sorts...And unfortunately I don't own a multi meter, so not sure on how to get a more accurate reading...

Darknesscyshado

Ok, so I got a friend to check it out- he said it came back 5.09, is that good or bad?

Also it seems to be happening more often now.

dai

no that's good
the temps and volts look normal
although the symptoms you posted point to these as the probable cause

do you have another monitor you can try on it

run memtest on the ram 1 stick at a time

http://www.memtest.org/

d/load and run the h/drive makers diagnostic utility on the h/drive

http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=287

if it comes up clear run

chkdsk /r

Darknesscyshado

Ran the memtest, clean as a whistle: I replaced my hard drive a few weeks ago but the problem still continued so I think that rules it out as a suspect, but I'll get back to you on the other two tests anyway- you can never be sure.

I just figured I'd post this first:

I noticed something weird today. Not sure if it's related but I figured I'd say it anyway 'cause it sure strikes me as unusual.

So today in passing I disconnect my external hard drive and suddenly my usb dongle (also plugged into the back of my computer) cuts out. I figured coincidence, but later that day I plugged a microphone into the back and lo and behold it cuts out again- Is it possible that this is being caused by some kind of short?

wrench97

Did you check the voltages with the USB hard drive plugged in and working?

Darknesscyshado

If you mean when I tested via the bios then yeah, it always is

wrench97

No with the voltmeter in the bios it won't be powered up.

Darknesscyshado

Sorry for the further delay: Moved into uni last week but they didn't have internet there.


Further developments!

When I got here my computer gave an error message on startup telling me to plug my graphics card into the power supply. It already was of course, and the cables weren't loose- so I switched out the cables for some others I had spares of: Since then the computer hasn't reset itself or blacked out so I think maybe the cables were somehow botched- but there's more.

I left it on a couple of days ago with a gif on the screen. When I came back everything was crazy- like the monitor wasn't refreshing the images or something, the whole desktop was kind of pixelated. If you need an example I took a couple of shots:

http://i307.photobucket.com/albums/n...s/DSC00075.jpg

http://i307.photobucket.com/albums/n...s/DSC00076.jpg

I can't tell you how creepy it was. Not to mention distressing- now that I'm at uni there isn't so much I can do if my whole computer bursts into flames.

wrench97

Check the voltages with a voltmeter when the PC is on and the usb hard drive is hooked up.
This is sounding like the card is starving for power.