Attempting to diagnose multiple BSoDs

[Magusprimex]

Well, I tried to make it as thin a layer I could while still coating the whole surface evenly. I noticed that my heatsink is still cool to the touch. I also notice that despite the fan going at full speed, I don't feel any airflow near it. The temps seem to be a good 5 - 10 degree C cooler though. Still boots at about 50, 52 C, idles at about 52-55 C, and I tried running HL2 for a little bit to watch the temps then. They peaked at 65, instead of 72 this time. Still had a BSoD hit me though, and that was while the temps seemed to be lower, at like 60.

I tried to take as good a screenshot as I could, but it doesn't seem to come out too terribly well with my phone's small camera If it helps any, here's the best of them.

I saw the temps drop nearly 10 degrees when I opened the side of the case.

 

[archie123]

its a quad core who told you to spread the hs paste like that mate??

http://www.arcticsilver.com/pdf/appinstruct/as5/ins_as5_intel_quad_wcap.pdf

 

[stew2]

If the temps drop nearly ten degrees when you've got the side panel off then it shows the airflow in your pc is not good enough.

I cant tell in that picture whats installed where so cant really help. Just make sure any fans at the front of the case are pulling air into the case and any at the back are pushing air out. If possible buy and install another fan.

With a ten degree drop in temps then your cpu would be 50C ish under load which is a lot more acceptable.

 

[Magusprimex]

Alright. Well, the temps may be an issue in their own right, but I just witnessed another crash while the temps were definitely idling around 50 C in the cores. :/

 

[stew2]

Switch of your pc and unplug from the motheboard anything thats not ecessary like pci devices and dvd drives. Then check the stability.

If you still have issues then go into the bios and change the cpu and ram settings. Remember your cpu has a fsb of 266 with a x9 multiplier and your ram is 400 with a x2 multiplier. Go into the bios and disable SPEEDSTEP and C1E.

Then raise the fsb to 300 and set a multiplier of x7. Id then set the ram to 600Mhz with relaxed timings of 5-5-5-15 and default volts of 2.1v. This sets your ram to cpu at 1:1

Then check the stability of your system.

Remeber to switch the settings in the bios to Manual then enter the numbers you want. If your unsure take a few photos of your bios and post them here.

You should run your pc with side panel off if your getting 10 degree lower temps that way.

 

[Magusprimex]

This may be a stupid question, but should I remove the RAM as well?

 

[stew2]

You need 1 stick of ram, remove the rest. Try and boot up and check stability with the minimum required eg:

Motherboard
CPU
1 stick of RAM
Fans
Power supply
Hard Drive

If possible you want to remove all other devices like dvd drives, floppy drives, pci devices and your graphics card as well if you have onboard graphics. Then boot the pc.

 

[Magusprimex]

Alright. I've made the changes in the BIOS and removed all but one stick of RAM as well as the wireless adapter card and unplugged the CD-ROM drive from the mobo and PSU. That should be everything in the case other than the necessities you've listed, other than the video card. I can't remove the 8800 Ultra though because the mobo lacks an onboard Sadly I still encountered a BSoD in this state (two in a row, actually. Another one immediatly after the reboot).

At the same time, I was able to borrow a spare HDD from a friend of mine who doesn't need it quite yet, and put a fresh install of Vista in it and updated it completely and my video drivers. I did this after the two BSoD's I mentioned while following your advice. Encounterd a couple crashes while still updating, (and before any of them had actually happened, Windows somehow gave me an "Error solution" to download Power management drivers from Asus (Cool 'n Quiet), which have now been installed as well). Sadly the end result as still the same fairly random BSoDs.

 

[stew2]

Set everything back to default in the bios and boot up and test stability. If its still unstaible then go into the bios and reduce the fsb to 250 but keep all the other settings at there default. If you still get a BSOD then reduce the fsb to 240 and try again and so on.

Keep going lower till you get to 200. If it still fails at 200 and that would mean your cpu is 200 x 9 = 1800 and your RAM is 300 x 2 = 600 (ratio 2:3) and its still failing. If you can borrow a graphics card of a mate then id try it with that as well, as if it fails with another graphics card then id say its most likely to be your RAM thats at fault.

At this stage im thinking its your graphics card, ram or drivers. When you installed vista on the new hard drive you shouldnt have updated any of the drivers. You should have tried running it at various bios settings to see if any were stable before updating the drivers.