Gah stability issues

[Felix]

Ive freshly reinstalled win2k pro, and am having nasty problems. Random resets, even when idling. I dled 3dmark and when installing, when it gets to the textures bit, it suddenly restarts. I havent downloaded the service pack, I did download it in a previous install and it mucked things up bad, and to reinstall win2k again. Internet explorer has also crashed several times. Occasionally after its crashed for some reason in POST I get secondary master fail (the cdrw drive). If I restart it goes thru post fine.

I think it might be a problem with the mobo and the vid card. It cant be overheating, cpu hasnt gone over 43C.

The vid card shares irq 16 with a usb thing. Should this be changed, if so how?

Flash the bios?

New psu? its a 320 watt so I'd think thatd be enough.

Service pack?

320watt psu (came with icute case)
asus a7v333 mobo
athlon xp 1800
volcano 7+ hsf
leadtek geforce4 ti4400
40gig ide barracuda hd
ricoh cdrw
lucent win 56k pci modem
win2k pro

[whetu]

*update the bios <-- in my experience this is prolly what will fix it
*dont worry about irq's
*update win2k as far as you can, including directx
*update your drivers

then get back to us

[KingJackal]

Sounds like the PSU. It wouldn't happen to be a 'Hyena' PSU would it?

[Wibber]

bah me too, 98 was sweet, 2k crashes when idle or near idle

[Felix]

Ive just updated the bios (I also updated the via 4in1 drivers). I then tried to install 3dmark again, but it restarted at the same point during installation. Altho, I havent had any random restarts yet, just the 3dmark one.

Ive got a feeling if I try to install the win2k service pack itll do another restart during installation like it did the first time I tried, and when I got back to windows many things (such as dialup networking) were utterly broken.

Sooo...should I just go ahead with the service pack and back it up so if it does stuff up I can hopefully revert? I cant think of any other drivers to update. Otherwise, I could get a new psu (this ones an icute one incidentally), altho Id rather not pay for one just now :p

[Sydog]

IT IS THE PSU. For a xp it is reccommended you have a 400w, with a geforce 4 it is reccommended you have a 400w. It's basically the video card though, since you've already got a 1800 running on 320w then when u put a gf4 in it doesn't have enough power for it.

The Leadman is cheap only about $140 so I'd go for that

[GooGlo]

My guess is PSU. A geforece 4 sucks a sh1tload of power and the rest of your rig is also pretty power hungry. Get the leadman, They are on the same level as the enermax and a whole bunch cheaper. 400watt MINIMUM. 450-500 Preffered. Of course ;)

[Felix]

grumble grumble. I read a gamespot guide on building your own pc and they said at least a 300watt psu so i figured a 320watt would do nicely...

Thanks :)

[mird-OC]

i've had this exact same problem with 3dmark and my rig before but i can't remember how i fixed it... :rolleyes:

IMO, the 320W probably should do... the icutes are reasonably under-rated so you should have a bit of headroom (a leadman would be better but you current one shouldn't be causing this sort of problem). try loading BIOS defaults if you haven't already.

if that doesn't help, use MBM or MBProbe to monitor your voltages - it might be a 5V problem. use prime95 or something similar to test it under load and tell us how your voltages fluctuate.

[Antimatter]

Random resets are usually heat related. PSU or HSF failure most common causes. It's also not uncommon for temperature sensors to read 10-20C different to actual temperature. Use your finger as a temperature sensor on the HS if unsure. ;)

As Mird-OC mentions, voltages outside tolerance can cause resets.

PCI bus higher than 38MHz can cause resetting with some devices.

Probably not applicable with a fresh install but it might be worth running a virus check and Ad-aware. I've seen Gator and a couple of virii cause resets.

Edit: Oh yeah, don't forget that it could be caused by an overclocked CPU. ;)
Just because the temperature sensor says it's OK, doesn't mean it's stable.

[SecretSquirrel]

So a Novia (pretty much no-name brand!) 300W PSU cant run an XP1700+ and a GF4 Ti4200?

Or is this a slightly better unit? Because so far there have been no problems with it...

[Antimatter]

With the PSU, it's a good idea not to put it under to much load.
A 265W Enermax might be adequate for an XP1800+ with AGP pro video card...Doesn't mean it's a good idea though. It will be under a fairly major load during heavy usage and has to dissipate a lot of heat...
Keep in mind that the important number on the PSU is the 3.3V+5V power rating. The Enermax EG301P-V 300W has 170W max available on 3.3V+5V. The Novia 300W PSU only has 160W max available on 3.3V+5V.
180-200W is safer if you're a heavy gamer/overclocker with XP2000+ and GF4 video.

[WinXP Monkey]

thish might help you determine the fault,software or hardware related THG stability test (http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/02q4/021102/stability-06.html)

I have stability issues with my system running WinXP SP1, last night I ran CPU stabilty test 6.0 for 16 hours and it never crashed.

However when I play divx movies (600mb+ avi files) it will crash occassional halfway through, the video player I used were powerDVD 4 and Windows Media player. Tonight I will loop the 3dmark 2001 se and see how it goes.

[WinXP Monkey]

3dmark ran for 8 hours and never crash. Now my system is very stable...im using Nvdidia detonato 30.82 and disabled IRQ 12 the motherboard was having issues with it.

yipee it's fixed !!

[Mack 10]

I got a iCute 320 watt PSU and it seems to hold up, havn't had a crach in days, I was geting random crash's when trying to use to aggressive ram timings, these guys sorted me out. The iCute PSU should be fine though I run

XP1800+ OC to 1900+ - yea shut up its not much
GF4 4200 OC to core 275 clock 550
SndBlstr Lv!
ADSL internal
56k internal
512 ddr ram
2 hard drvs
cdrw
dvd/cdrw

and its stable as, left it looping 3dmark today for a few hours and it came out fine, temp of only 45 degrees.

[-DC-]

its the PSU.
its not a matter of the recommended specs for using a PSU, but i have asked iCute (emailed taiwan - main manufacturer) and they think its a problem with the 320w PSUs. they don't seem to perform to what the specs read :/

I've had that happen to me, as well as many people i know who had the same thing happen, so don't panic, just get something like a 400w, should do fine.

i mean, even an enermax 300w on my mate's PC did better than the 320w :eek:

never liked Icute... after the 320w's...