Endless Paradigm

Hey guys,
a good friend of mine bought new PC parts and I have assembled them today, I hadn't much time so I just started the Vista installation and left after that (he's not that much of a n00b in PC stuff) well he called me and said his PC totally freezes with hanging sound after a while in games and such.

So far he tried Ragnarok Online and the Nvidia 6 Series Nalu Demo, both made the PC freeze after 2-3 mins. Wee confirmed that the Graphics Card is not overheating with GPU-Z

Sys Specs:
CPU: AMD Phenom x4 9850 Black Edition
Mobo: some ASUS one I think
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce 9600GT
RAM: 2x 1GB OCZ RAM with passive cooling and in DIMM 3 and 4 as advised in the motherboard manual.
PSU: 630w Powersupply with PCI-E connectors and whatnot so I doubt power is an issue as my system is more powerful and runs on 500w

On boot he gets the following error message in the BIOS:

"SPD missing byte 23 or 25"
"Press F1 to resume"

after pressing F1 the System boots normally
RAM is fully detected as 2048mb in BIOS.

That message leads me to believe that the RAM could be faulty but I read that message is normal and harmless on newer ASUS boards because of a bug in the BIOS or so, so I'm not sure.

What do you all think? I will visit him on Wednesday again so I can provide more details.

As long as he is only in Vista and skyping and surfing the system seems stable from what he told me.

THanks for help in advance

Make sure your using the newest drivers, check the ASUS webby for a BIOS update, and, failing all else, perhaps try a different OS to see it it occurs or if its just a vista issue. Get a benchmarking app and use the 3D test, assuming this causes the crash it will be documented in the log upon rebooting which ould help identify the issue

Thanks roberth! I'll try all that and report back on Wednesday.

What tools to you recommend for RAM and CPU testing? I thought of Prime and MemTest.

ram testing, i would agree with memtest.

As for CPU tests...well, i dunno, ive never really had cause to beyond benchmarking, but prime would probably be acceptable.

On that topic, check the thermal paste, if you havent applied it correctly it could be causing it to overheat...

SPD................. SPD is a componant used in Drive Emulation.......... Daemon Tools............ Games??

Otherwise, do what roberth recommends, and also, Drivers is a No.1 cause to crashes like that, uninstall all drivers, download from another mirror and install it them that way.

Finally, make sure all componants ARE using proper drivers, it only takes one to take out the lot,,

Also, googling tells me its either faulty or incompatible RAM........

slot 3 and 4 for ram sounds wrong to me....manuals are often times not correct :(

if it runs the program for a few minutes then shuts off i will blame the memory or the power supply...just because of the watts listed doesn't mean it has the quality parts to keep up wtih the high demand of that video card!

Ive had many friends that buy the $50 600watt powersupply only to go home and ifnd out it crashes their system when playing battlefield 2 and call of duty 4!

I suggest a simple test. Remove both RAMs. Boot PC. Obviously a shrill error tone will sound and nothing will happen.
Then Put one stick in the slot closest to the Processor (1-4 depending on mobo) and then restart the PC. If no error comes, then proceed to loading the OS and run some graphics application as a test.
Then shutdown the PC and then change the sticks and restart, now with the second stick in place of the other. Repeat the above again.

If the SPD error or crash occurs with any One of the RAM stick then that is a faulty stick. If occurs with both the sticks, then either the BIOS setting is incorrect or its an mobo issue. Before all else, check that the RAMs are secured properly.

SchmilK Wrote:if it runs the program for a few minutes then shuts off i will blame the memory or the power supply...just because of the watts listed doesn't mean it has the quality parts to keep up wtih the high demand of that video card!

Ive had many friends that buy the $50 600watt powersupply only to go home and ifnd out it crashes their system when playing battlefield 2 and call of duty 4!

This......... is very true. Generic PSUs for the MAJOR Losses... also, some branded ones can be just as bad, if not worse.

As for PSUs I recommend checking CustomPC. http://www.custompc.co.uk/reviews/category/psus

Wow, I didn't know you could really get bad PSUs.  I think mine's generic - bought it 2.5 years ago for AU$99 - 550W + 12cm fan.  Works fine here, though I may have just been lucky.

Will keep that in mind when buying a new PC - thanks! :)