Restarting?

PC eye

banned
Your video card is the primary suspect at this point since the reversal to the older Catalyst has seen some good results. With the supply, memory, cpu, and apparently the board now ruled out you are ever stuck with a flaky card acting up when a load is on it or you may simply have another software problem going on. The previous BSODs pointed at the Catalyst with the driver being specified. Take notes on anything else seen for troubleshooting.
 

Kornowski

VIP Member
I didn't go for an older driver I just went for the latest Display Drivers, It seemed to have worked. I just don't know why there wasn't any text of the BSOD?

It could still be the board though, I'll give it a little while more and see what it does.
 

PC eye

banned
The bsod you saw with the ATI driver was plain and simple there to correct. I was wondering if you had seen the same error on previous occasions? Besides a fault being found with the board it may be a simple setting change in the bios itself that see results. You may have to disable plug'n'plug or some other change if this isn't strictly software related at this point.
 

Kornowski

VIP Member
I had seen the ATI BSOD before, Then I fixed that, and I then got an empty blue screen, this was only playing FEAR and I haven't had it any other time... What setting do you think it could be? Couldn't be the AGP Apature size could it?

Any help would be appreciated :)
 

PC eye

banned
On older boards the advice often given was to set the AGP aperature to the default 64mb when problems were being seen. This lowers the amount of video memory shared with the board. You can try that out at any time to see if you notice any improvement. But the BSODs without error messages seem more directed at the video card itself since previous errors were seen. A failing chip or intermittency being seen with the card could explain a lot.
 

Kornowski

VIP Member
Ok, I'll try lowering the aperature size, will this decrease performance in games?

So it could be the card, I really hope it isn't :(
No error message seems to make me thing it's a hardware problem, because it would tell me if there was a file to blame.
 

PC eye

banned
The problems with restarting after this amount of time just following a wipe and fresh install initially saw the catalyst error as one cause. But that was a fast correction with the simple swap of versions. No beep code alerts, supply swapped, memory tested, went days after catalyst swap rules out a few things right away. The board wouldn't have remained stable is that or even the new supply was seeing problems. You're running out of hardwares!
 

Kornowski

VIP Member
Yeah, I'm just wondering how bad it was to begin with, I then fixed that and it didn't do it for about 4 days and now it does a different one, every now and again.

I'd take my GPU out but there isn't a plug on the back of my MOBO for my monitor and I don't have an adaptor that would fit it?

So, you don't think it could be the board or the CPU?
 

PC eye

banned
Did you update the bios? That may have a fix for something needed. You should find the AGP aperature at the default 64mb or 128mb already. You could try this or the system file checker "sfc /scannow" at the Run prompt to see if it catches anything there. You moved the 2400+ to this board when that was swapped and maybe starting to go. That can't be ruled out 100% at this time since gaming places a good load on it at times.
 

Kornowski

VIP Member
Nope, I didn't update the BIOS, I didn't want it to go wrong, but I could try it I supose if there's nothing that could go wrong, remember I don't have a floppy drive and my MOBO didn't come with any BIOS updating software.

Yeah, My AGP aperature is set to 128mb.

I ran the sfc /scannow and it told me that DDL Caches needed the Windows CD putting in, this is the theme patcher that I have installed. I doubt that it would cause any problems? Do you?

Yeah, My CPU was bought with a PC about 4 years about, It may be on it's way out, I really doubt it's my graphics card, it isn't that old and there's not architecture or anything before it BSOD's me.
 

subtle

New Member
Did you finally check the PSU? (too many pages to read just to find out you did it or not) :)
I had similar problem and it was PSU fault.
 

Kornowski

VIP Member
Yeah, I replaced the PSU that came with the case with the one I have now in my sig and it still did it, but then I got rid of the old drivers using a cleaner program and put the latest display drivers on, and it worked fine for about 4 days. and then it did it agian, but this time it was an empty BSOD, it doesn't happen anywhere near as frequently as it used to either?
 

PC eye

banned
Some of the bios updates for Asus boards come with winflash capability where you simply run it wihile Windows is running. With some cd writing programs you can also make up bootable cds rather then floppies. Or you could use a 5 1/4" drive adapter to add a floppy drive if needed even if you have to borrow it. If you can cover the shipping costs I could send you my spare Sony for this. But the adapter I had here was used in an eMachines. :eek:

You mentioned having recently bought the X850 and you wouldn't think a new card would have problems but...? You could try lowering the aperature to 64mb. That setting is often used when troubleshooting on the older boards. Since the bulk of the problems being seen now are while gaming you also have to look at software problems like drivers clashing. But if the cpu is not the hardware wearing out on you that brings us back to the board. The bios version you have on is also software programmed onto the eprom. You should see if Asorck has a winflash utility and go for the last update. http://www.asrock.com/support/Download.asp
 

Kornowski

VIP Member
It says on the site that they don't recomend updating the BIOS when the machine is running.

Thanks, but it would probably be cheaper to buy one here in the UK :p

Well, recently, like a year ago.

I'll see if it restarts any more, it hasn't done it today so I'll see how it goes.
I think I may already have the latest BIOS, I'll check tomorrow (the computer beeps when booted, it'll wake the family ;) )
 

PC eye

banned
If you already grabbed the "latest" seen at the support site you won't see any newer ones for the Socket A model board. But you may want to grab a copy of it in case the current programming starts to lose integrity for a backup. Try not to wake up everyone "too early" or ... :eek: I'm in deep trouble! :p
 

Kornowski

VIP Member
It says that have I have BIOS version 2.50, it isn't even mentioned on the web-site.

What are the chances of it being the video card? and it can't be the RAM because that passed memtest.

Could it be a failing HDD?
 

PC eye

banned
If the hard drive was going you would usually hear at least some clicking sound at some point during these crashes. But a bad controller card inside the drive casing would see more problems then the 3rd day crash during a game. The AGP card there is a possibility while the software element is far more likely at this point since you could be running into some incompatibilty problems or software clashes of some type.
 

PC eye

banned
First of all you have to go over the amount of things that load along with Windows and the software environment in general. When gaming make sure to disable any antivirus and firewalls to keep those from causing problems. Different things running at the same in the background that are not being used can be disabled from auto loading. That will free up memory and other resources for gaming there. A clean install of Windows without knowing the actual cause? That could see success or just be a waste of time.
 

Kornowski

VIP Member
Yeah, You're right, it could be a waste of time, well, if it does it a few more times, then I'll give it a go.
 
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