Model F2-8500CL5D-4GBPK w/ Asus m4a79 Deluxe

[tblakley]

On I purchased 8 gigs of Model F2-8500CL5D-4GBPK from Newegg for my new gaming rig. I combined that with:

M4a79 Mobo
AMD Phenom II x4 BE 3.0 Ghz Processor
8GHz Gskill 1066 MHZ Ram Model F2-8500CL5D-4GBPK
EVGA GTX 285 SSC 1 GB
Corsair 1000 PSU
Cool Master HAF 932 case
Seagate 320 Gb ES series Hard drive
Samsung 22" monitor
64 bit Vista Home Edition

Now over the last 3 days I have had multiple multi colored screens where my computer locks up completely. I have and have had all my items set at factory settings, (No Over clocking) In addition to this when I load my computer evrything posts ok, I get to the desktop loading and it takes several minutes (up to like 5) to load everything. Once loaded at times programs load VERY SLOW for a while then seem to be OK (all of this used to happen in less than 30 seconds before...). I have run Virus scans, Spyware checks, and use a firewall all from webroot. I have checked my drivers, and even did a full system restore two weeks prior to the first issue. I have retained no results... Everyone I talk to says the issue is either my video card and/or Ram but I don't know how to tell. My machine ran awesome for about 4 or 5 weeks now not so good...

Please advise.

[Tradesman]

If you think it's the graphics card, you might try changing the driver to the previous version (nVidia has released 3-4 drivers in the last month or so alone (182.47, 182.46, 182.08, 185.260 that I remember (I'm running a BFG 285 OC2 in one of my systems). For the RAM you could test the sticks individually , then in pairs, etc.
From the sounds of it, you might look to the hard drive also, there have been a few articles on the ES drives having problems...and just looked at the reviews at the Egg, I guess fairly high failure rates also. Might take a look:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822148294

Could be a number of other things, but I'd look at these first

[G.SKILL]

On I purchased 8 gigs of Model F2-8500CL5D-4GBPK from Newegg for my new gaming rig. I combined that with:

M4a79 Mobo
AMD Phenom II x4 BE 3.0 Ghz Processor
8GHz Gskill 1066 MHZ Ram Model F2-8500CL5D-4GBPK
EVGA GTX 285 SSC 1 GB
Corsair 1000 PSU
Cool Master HAF 932 case
Seagate 320 Gb ES series Hard drive
Samsung 22" monitor
64 bit Vista Home Edition

Now over the last 3 days I have had multiple multi colored screens where my computer locks up completely. I have and have had all my items set at factory settings, (No Over clocking) In addition to this when I load my computer evrything posts ok, I get to the desktop loading and it takes several minutes (up to like 5) to load everything. Once loaded at times programs load VERY SLOW for a while then seem to be OK (all of this used to happen in less than 30 seconds before...). I have run Virus scans, Spyware checks, and use a firewall all from webroot. I have checked my drivers, and even did a full system restore two weeks prior to the first issue. I have retained no results... Everyone I talk to says the issue is either my video card and/or Ram but I don't know how to tell. My machine ran awesome for about 4 or 5 weeks now not so good...

Please advise.

please try to install only two sticks to see if this issue would solve
or you may try to downgrade the memory frequency to DDR2 800
running 4 sticks at DDR2 1066 on AMD platform is not so eay to reach
thanks


G.S

[Tradesman]

If, as tblakely said, it ran fine for a few weeks, and has just started recently to degrade, it's generally indicative of driver/hardware issues. I tried to address the issues I thought most likely. i.e. the harddrive in question is, shall we say questionable, and the rapid release of one graphics driver after another is indicative of a possible problem with a recent release that nVidia is having trouble nailing down (reminiscent of the initial release of Vista and all the problems nVidia had in getting SLI to work wit Vista)

[G.SKILL]

we don't think tblakely said his machine ran fine about 4-5 weeks with our memory
we assumed the problem is shown after he changed the memory
it could also be driver or harddrive issue, but we have to check if it's memory issue first
so, that's why we'd recommend him to try 2 sticks first


G.S

[Tradesman]

Maybe I read it wrong, I was going by 'new rig' and that the same ram was listed in the specs that he/she said they combined it with. The component list looked it may have been pulled from a signature. Also note, I two suggested testing the RAM (by single stick, two at a time, etc.) My suggestion was again based on my premise, they have had the RAM, so there is a possibility of only a single stick going south.

[tblakley]

I built this computer at the end of Febuary.

It was new ram, in a new machine. correct.

I downgraded the speed to 800 and so far everything seems to be ok. Although I do get random pauses when opening programs, especially when I first boot my desktop. Otherwise, all I did was reinstall my ram and lower the speed.

I wasn't sure where the issue was, other than after 4-5 weeks I started having issues. Originally I had none. All my temps are good, all my drivers are current.

[Tradesman]

Thought I was right - what you wrote looked rather clear to me. Have you had any power outages just prior to things getting off?

With 8GB, you shouldn't be running short of memory, but you might take a look at your start-up, since the build if you have been loading programs here and there they may all be loading things into the start-up which can greatly increase the boot/start time. A good program to check the start up programs and manage them (as well as do other things) is WinPatrol, you can download it here

http://www.winpatrol.com/download.html

The program has a number of features, but a particularly useful one will show you all programs that load some or all of themselves (i.e. by default Adobe reader, MS Office load squib type programs to speedup the overall opening of their programs, which are sort of a waste), anyway WinPatrol lets you see all the startup programs, at that point you can leave them, delete them or disable them. Disable feature is nice for troubleshooting, since you can re-enable at any time, without having to reload the whole program.

You may also want to defrag the hard drive and run a diagnostic program or two on it to look for errors or possible problems, Seagate has their own diagnostic program for their drives, you can find it here:

http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/sup...oads/seatools/

Based on what you've said, I sort of doubt it would be the graphics card or driver, but you could try falling back to a previous version. I'm running a BFG 285 in one of my rigs and haven't experienced any glitches in either Vista 64 Ultimate or Win7 64 Ultimate (dual-boot). I've run all the released driver and am currently running betas in both Vista and Win7, but nada for problems like you're experiencing.

Well, it's a couple ideas to check, hope it helps, let me know.

(and thanks for confirming, I read your post right) Have a gud 1 !

[G.SKILL]

I built this computer at the end of Febuary.

It was new ram, in a new machine. correct.

I downgraded the speed to 800 and so far everything seems to be ok. Although I do get random pauses when opening programs, especially when I first boot my desktop. Otherwise, all I did was reinstall my ram and lower the speed.

I wasn't sure where the issue was, other than after 4-5 weeks I started having issues. Originally I had none. All my temps are good, all my drivers are current.

did you try increasing northbridge voltage or installing only 2 sticks yet?