Official "Computer Troubles" Thread

[Mic]

Well for the last few days my pc has been dying on a more regular basis. When I upgraded my case I had to settle for a new yet smaller power supply, then I upgraded my graphics card and was told that my power supply is to small. At first the only game that caused my screen to go blank was battlefield 2, but now it is almost all my games! from Battlefield to Warcraft 3. Is their some reason why all of a sudden it decided now to crash on every game!?

[Binnacle]

What exactly is happening? Is it restarting? BSOD? Freezing?

More info always helps. Post your system specifications.

CPU
GFX Card
Number of Hardrives
PSU
etc. etc...

Have you added more hardware?
How long have you had the PSU? It could just be really cheap and thus aging fast...

But again, the more we know about your PC/problem the better.

[Mic]

Well I've got a

AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3400+, MMX, 3DNow, ~2.2GHz
2048MB RAM
2 x 160GB HDD
9600GT 512mb graphics card
300 or 350W power supply (bought at matrix a year or so ago)

The thing is that the screen just goes blank and then a "no response" image comes up, but my pc is still running. Like I said it did this only when playing BF2 but now it does it in almost every other game.

[biffman]

Your PSU is way too small for your graphics card, maybe invest in a 450 to 550w PSU that should solve all problems.

[Mic]

Thanks, could you recommend any good brands and low prices, thinking of buying at matrix not from some online store.

[Binnacle]

Your PSU is way too small for your graphics card, maybe invest in a 450 to 550w PSU that should solve all problems.

Biffman's right. Bigger and Better PSU should solve your problems.

[biffman]

Isonic,Raidmax or there are these very well priced Gigabyte 460w PSU's that you can find at your local PC shop... I just can't remember the name.
I even know a friend who had the standard Matrix 450w PSU and everything ran fine.

[Zen]

Thanks, could you recommend any good brands and low prices, thinking of buying at matrix not from some online store.

• CoolerMaster
• Enermax
• Zalman
• ThermalTake
• Antec

The list goes on and on. Your best bet for cheap is CoolerMaster.

[Mic]

Isonic,Raidmax or there are these very well priced Gigabyte 460w PSU's that you can find at your local PC shop... I just can't remember the name.
I even know a friend who had the standard Matrix 450w PSU and everything ran fine.

Oh, because my friends standard 450W power supply is sh!t. It dies randomly and with no pattern, sometimes during boot up sometimes just when doing ordinary stuff.

[biffman]

My friend had a 8600Gt so maybe it didn't have to work very hard .

[Wesley]

9600GT 512mb graphics card
300 or 350W power supply (bought at matrix a year or so ago)

Dude, your problem lies solely with these two components, you should have clicked when your screen had the 'no signal' error - your graphics card shut itself down to avoid undervolting itself! Get yourself a better and higher wattage psu, something like a Gigabyte Superb 460w (which is superb value for money, no pun intended). Or even any psu rated for anything above 450watts with a PCI power connector will do the job as well, but Gigabyte has some solid reliability.

[HolyMackerel]

Matrix also sells a PSU that are manufactured by Matrix themselves. It's a 500W PSU, cost me about R350 when I bought it earlier this year and it's still running my PC like nothing before.

[Chevron]

Isonic,Raidmax or there are these very well priced Gigabyte 460w PSU's that you can find at your local PC shop... I just can't remember the name.
I even know a friend who had the standard Matrix 450w PSU and everything ran fine.

Those are both ****ty brands from what I remember.

• CoolerMaster
• Enermax
• Zalman
• ThermalTake
• Antec

Coolermaster doesn't belong in that list. Some would say Thermaltake as well. Rather add Corsair and pc power and cooling to the list. Seasonic too.

The Corsair and Antec 550w versions are great for the price. You don't need something like that though. Most manufactures list a 400W as the minimum for the 9600GT.

The list goes on and on. Your best bet for cheap is CoolerMaster.

I agree. The 460Watt though. Not the 500 or 550. If you want something bigger maybe the gigabyte 470w or 585Watt.

Matrix also sells a PSU that are manufactured by Matrix themselves. It's a 500W PSU, cost me about R350 when I bought it earlier this year and it's still running my PC like nothing before.

Highly unlikely that Matrix manufacture them. They are probably just rebranded units. Meaning they are made by someone else, but with a matrix sticker on it.

[biffman]

I'd just go for the Gigabyte superb 460w, you don't need anything too fancy.

[lizzard]

you can always try pc international if your in the jhb area, their prices are really gooood...

[The Dash]

Well this is the problem. My CA wasn't updating, manual update website is down, and cant find a contact for tech support (i received the cd + key from a friend, there was one key left and it expires in february so she gave it to me for free)

I tried all the usual steps to get it to update, checked firewall etc and nothing, so one of the help pages recommended uninstalling and reinstalling. It didn't work, just gave me a serious problem.

When i boot my computer, at the user select/enter password/logon screen. mouse doesn't respond and less than a second after displaying the Windows loading screen and displaying the logon screen, it flashes BSOD and restarts the computer. This cycle happens up to 3 or 4 times before i can logon, after im logged on it seems to be stable.

I used my camera to record the BSOD (as it flashed too fast to read) and this is what it tells me:

• A problem has been detected and windows shut down to prevent damage to your computer
• Session5_initialization_failed
• If this is the first time seeing this Stop error screen, restart your computer (which mine does automatically before i can read this)
• Check to make sure new hardware/software is properly installed
• etc

Also after finally logging on i get a generic windows error message ("Windows has recovered from a serious error") and it doesn't even give me the choice to report the error.

At the moment i have CA uninstalled and have AVG in the meantime (just incase)

I am using XP Pro SP3, haven't added any harware recently (only used my usb stick which has been working for months) and the only software is CA. Since this happened after the reinstallation ti suspect CA did something when removing itself from my computer

I also used CCleaner and other tools to check and clean the registry (i am considering restoring the changes and if that doesn't work use a system restore)

Any help would be greatly appreciated, as the startup/BSOD/reset is really getting on my nerves

EDIT: I booted succesfully into safe-mode a few times no problem, but as soon as i try normal mode it crashes

[Jeronkey]

I'm far from a expert with PCs, but usually getting the stop error code (Rather long number, usually has a lot of 0's in it.) gives a hint of what could be wrong.

You can disable restarting after a BSOD so you can read it under "Properties -> Advanced -> Startup and Recovery" for My Computer or by tapping F8 on startup and selecting the option from the list that pops up.

[Machine]

Right click on "My Computer" and select Properties (or go to System Properties in Control Panel).

Go to the advanced tab. Now click the Settings button for "Startup and Recovery"

Under "System Failure", make sure the box next to "Automatically Restart" is NOT ticked.

Should look like this:


Now you can take a good look when the error occurs again. :)

Hope this helps

[maxdamage]

I been having problems atm with my pc but I had it taken in and looked at and they said it was ok but yet my pc is still experiencing the same problems but worse especially when I am online as I'm using an internal dial-up v92 modem :(.I used various diagnostic programs to determine what is wrong and noticed certain things that doesn't look good. In this pic of CPUZ the drop down box is greyed out which is strange as it was selectable a while ago as I could select each cpu core\processor.

I then ran Everest Home Edition and checked the pages and here are the results:EverestHomeEditionCPUpage,EverestHomeEditionOverclockpage and the EverestHomeEditionSensorspage.

What I cannot understand how is the CPU being overclocked without any user input?Just to be sure I checked in Fresh Diagnoses to see the voltatges and they are the same.

Just to be on the safe side I downloaded the lastest version of Everest which is Everest Ultimate Edition Trial Version and here are the results:
EverestUltimateEditionTrialVersionCPUpage,EverestUltimateEditionTrialVersionOverclockpage and the EverestUltimateEditionTrialVersionSensorspage.

My replacement graphics card with the useless heatpipe(512MB Geforce 7600GS) is overheating as it is ildling at 60C? atm and as a result I proceded to install a Vantec Spectrum PCI fan card with 2x 70mm fans that uses 9W to cool the graphics card but for some reason when I turned the pc on it refused to POST.I tried it again and it still refused to POST with the pci fan card plugged in.After I unplugged the card fan the computer started up but it appeared that the fans were slower than usual ever since.I have reset the bios to se it that helped with the overclocking but it hasn't at all helped.I am in the process of getting another psu but this time a Cooler Master eXtreme Power RP-550-PCAR Power Supply - 550W which slightly more than my 2 year old Aopen 500w but I'm not sure on if the Cooler Master psu has enough 4-pin D shaped power connectors as I use 3 ide hdds, 1 cd\dvd drive and a 3? inch drive.

I have also suspect the onboard audio chip to be faulty as Unreal II keeps crashing due to the dmusic.dll file and that in dxdiag when I try the audio test the program can't do the hardware part of the tests and has to emulate it.I am using the MS HD audio drivers as I am having problems with the SoundMax driver with certain games.Also in Diablo II the log says the following:

---------------------------------------------------------------
F7I6F7 Realm startup at 2008-12-06 15:39:47.921
---------------------------------------------------------------
15:39:47.921 ------------------------------------------------------
15:39:47.921 2008-12-06 15:39:47
15:39:47.921 Diablo II running under Windows XP (Version 5.010)
15:39:47.921 Vendor: Intel
15:39:47.921 Version: Pentium 4 (no brand) (Type 0, Family F, Model 3, Stepping 4, Brand 0)
15:39:47.937 Speed: Approx. 2999 MHz
15:39:47.937 Total Physical Memory: 2046.42MB
15:39:47.937 Application Path: C:\Program Files\Diablo II
15:39:47.937 Local IP: 127.0.0.1
15:39:47.937 Computer name: F7I6F7
15:39:47.937 ------------------------------------------------------
15:39:47.937
15:39:47.953 imagehlp.dll loaded for better stack crawls.
15:39:49.671 ........DirectSound progress: 0 buffers available is less than min needed 16 buffers for 3d sound
15:39:49.718 ........DirectSound progress: 0 buffers available is less than min needed 16 buffers for 3d sound
---------------------------------------------------------------
F7I6F7 Realm startup at 2008-12-06 23:33:37.343
---------------------------------------------------------------
23:33:37.343 ------------------------------------------------------
23:33:37.343 2008-12-06 23:33:37
23:33:37.343 Diablo II running under Windows XP (Version 5.010)
23:33:37.343 Vendor: Intel
23:33:37.343 Version: Pentium 4 (no brand) (Type 0, Family F, Model 3, Stepping 4, Brand 0)
23:33:37.359 Speed: Approx. 2999 MHz
23:33:37.359 Total Physical Memory: 2046.42MB
23:33:37.359 Application Path: C:\Program Files\Diablo II
23:33:37.375 Local IP: 127.0.0.1
23:33:37.375 Computer name: F7I6F7
23:33:37.375 ------------------------------------------------------
23:33:37.375
23:33:37.375 imagehlp.dll loaded for better stack crawls.
23:33:39.078 ........DirectSound progress: 0 buffers available is less than min needed 16 buffers for 3d sound
23:33:39.125 ........DirectSound progress: 0 buffers available is less than min needed 16 buffers for 3d sound

[Kensei]

Do you HAVE to have all three HDDs and CD drive going?

This sounds like a power issue - like I had where the computer refused to boot. Try unplugging one of the IDEs, plugging in the graphics card fan, and switching on