Computer Issues

[Kills On Site]

Excuse the vagueness in this topic, but my familys comptuer is having issues. I am going ome in two weeks to look at i, but I thought I would post here just so I would have more pointed areas to investigate. It is a Core 2 Quad, 2.4 GHz, ABit IP35 Pro, 2x1GB Crucial Ballistix, 2x250GB Western-Digital HDD. Basically I am told that it will freeze and not respond at all at the Welcome Screen sometimes. My mother says that if it doesn't freeze on the welcome screen that it is perfectly fine, my sister says she has gotten a BSOD while working in Windows. I asked her what file caused the BSOD ad she said she didn't remember which one it said, but if it happens again she would write it down.

Now when I built this computer the fucking stock Intel HSF did not click and install properly, I thought it had, but it had not (I loathe those push, click, turn HSFs, they annoy me, give me something with screws) so the computer overheated. It restarted automatically when I was installing the motherboard drivers, I reinstalled them, and all seemed fine. At that point I had not realized the overheating, I later discovered it via the uGuru software and fixed the problem. When I was told about this freezing and BSOD I had my sister check the temps in uGuru, they were at 32C, which is a good temp.

I used the computer all through winter break, after it was all configured, never ran into any of these problems. The only thing I installed right before I left was QuickBooks for the office, I put the things that it wanted to run at startup for everyone, in the startup folder of the office user.

Is it possible that the CPU was damaged by overheating and is just now breaking down? Is it a faulty driver installation? faulty program? I recall my mother mentioning something about Symantec Antivirus when on the phone, so I'm definately checking that out, but does that seem a little extreme for a bad install of Symantec? bad windows install? Obviously I know that you can't give a definitive answer for this one, but what would you guys think would be the problem?

[Kills On Site]

FUCK!!!! I think I'm a dumbass, I think I have been seating the stock Intel HSs wrong. i have been pushing the pins down and then turning them 90 degrees to "lock" them in place, but as i was looking through the Intel CPU manual thing I saw that turning them 90 degrees was the first step in removal. Damnit I'm an idiot, that has probably been causing some issues. A Core 2 Duo I just built was freezin randomly, so I was trying to find out wh, and I think that is it. I've never felt so stupid in my life, I really hope the processors arent damged.

[+JuggerNaut+]

hey, at least you've nailed the problem and had balls enough to post about it.

[Kills On Site]

Do you think the automatic shut off has at least saved the CPUs from any permanent damage?

[AmIdYfReAk]

yes, that is the point of it.

[Kills On Site]

Well it appears that a problem still exists. The computer no longer freezes, but it has gotten some BSODs, the only one I have seen said IRQL not less than or equal, and it said classpnp.sys I believe. I run Memtest86+ for an hour, gets two full passes on the RAM, not one error. CPU Burn In doesn't kill it either, so I don't think its another heat issue. I ran the WD Data Lifegaurd quick test on both hard drives, they both pass. Various files are missing, when I right click My Computer and goto Manage about 5-8 things fail to initialize. Many addons in IE like Flash are randomly missing. I am fairly certain at this point that the Windows installation is FUBAR and a new one is needed. The question is what has caused this, a bad ass virus? could the CPU have made some bad calculations while overheating and caused this? All the hardware tests say everything is fine, but to me it feels like a hardware failure, so I'm wondering if reinstalling Windows will solve the problem or not.

[Foo]

Hmm. Well, reinstall first. Only install the basics. Windows + Drivers + an AV solution.

Run like that for a few days to see if the issue persists. If it does:

Unplug absolutely everything you can so you're running with a single stick of ram, motherboard, processor, main hard drive set, psu. Absolutely nothing you don't need to get the PC into windows.

See if the issue goes away. if it does, re-introduce things one-by-one until you find the offender.

If the issue remains, try turning off every extra feature you can in the bios (integrated audio, ports etc).

[Kills On Site]

Well I downloaded Prime95, to see if that would catch anything, I ran the torture test, the mixed bag.

I feel that is bad news. I ran the small one that only uses 8k FFT and it is still running problem free, I don't know what this means, or if this could be a result of the bad installation, or serious hardware error.

I'll try reinstalling Windows tomorrow most likely, the problem with this problem is it isn't as noticable as other problems, I am using this computer right now and it appears to be doing fine, but I know there is some error in there.

:UPDATE: The 8K FFT failed at test 10, I am currently runing Primeo95 from the Ultimate Boot CD and it started on the 1024K FFT and it hasn't failed yet, but it is only on test 8 so far, but it is further than it got in Windows.

The thing that is bothering me the most is the missing Windows components, when I left back to college everything was installed and working, its lik Windows has slowly been eaten, and that is definately not good, Windows is easily reinstalled, but what if personal documents and things like that start to go missing?

[Kills On Site]

Holy Fuck something went wrong. I was running Prime95 from the Ultimate Boot CD, I think it passed, when I came back to the room the computer was frozen at the Windws CheckDisk that I had told it to run at next boot. I run UBCD again and try and go to the WD DLG Diagnostics, both versionss fail, decompression is unsucessful. So I go and run Windows Memory Test, every test fail, go run Memtest86, all fail, run Memtest 86+ again, everything fails. What the fuck is going on, it passed Memtest86+ for an hour earlier today, now every bit of data is corrupt. Every sign points to some seriously fucked up RAM, but could there be something else? bad motherboard, bad CPU? Anyone have a clue what could be causing this besides the RAM (I know the most obvious answer is usually the correct one, but I want to be through seeing as I only am here for a week.

[Kills On Site]

And now it is passing Windows Memory Diagnostic without error, at least so far. This has to be the strangest problem I've encountered. From the fact that it goes perfect t shit at a point, I want to say that heat may be causing the issue, but wouldn't that make CPU burn in crash the system? The HSF is one the processor correctly now I know.

[Kills On Site]

Well since it has fucked up when running Memtest and Prime95 out of the UBCD I am fairly certain that there is hardware failure. Seeing as it started failing all the memory testers after running Prime95 and having it reboot and hang, I am thinking the CPU is to blame rather than the RAM. Unfortunately the CPU is older than30 days so I have to buy a new one, that sucks. Any yea or nays on CPU replacement?

[Tormentius]

My vote is on the RAM.

[Kills On Site]

I'm agreeing with you now, I ran Prime95, ran for 8 or so hours, no errors, went over to Memtest asquick as possible and failure after failure. Guess I'll be buying new RAM today, now I'm just trying to narrow it down to one stick, that way I can at least reinstall Windows and whatnot while the new RAM is on its way.