Frequent crashing

[Ljtr7]

Back in August, my custom built computer had a catastrophic crash, and eventual death of power supply, which as a result took out the main HDD. I had since gotten parts replaced, but I've been getting frequent crashes. Sometimes a few a day, sometimes none for 3 days, but it's a constant issue.

I know it's a hardware issue, since when it started, I've reinstalled windows clean many times to no avail. My main question is, what should I be looking at to try and switch out in hardware? I don't have a ton of money, so I can't just go out and try switching out everything.

Since the power supply death, I've had some parts replaced just via warranty. The main HDD is new, the motherboard is new, the power supply is new.

Half of my RAM was returned due to there being a bad stick, not sure if that was caused by the power supply frying it, or if it just had a bad stick in the first place.

When it's up and running though, it runs perfectly fine, until it decides to crash. In which case, programs will either stop responding one by one, or they'll start closing one by one until the screen goes all garbled, black, then tries to reboot. After it tries to reboot, it can't find windows or something to start up, I have to shut the computer off entirely then turn it back on before it can even start up windows again.

I took it to a repair place, which is the same place where I bought all my parts, but after countless trips there and them being unable to replicate the problem, I'm at a loss.

I used to get actual blue screens on crash, but I bought a battery back-up surge protector with uninterruptable power supply, and it doesn't blue screen anymore, it just flat out crashes instead.

System specs;

Asus Rampage III Gene motherboard
Corsair HX850W power supply
OCZ Vertex3 SSD 60GB for Windows only
Western Digital 1.5TB x2 for storage and games
AMD Radeon HD 6900 video card
Intel Core i7 CPU
OCZ DDR3 Triple Channel 6GB RAM

Also, when I first had the computer built, it ran perfectly fine for 6 months until the power supply incident.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Tmagic650]

60GB SSD... Is it from the original build? Are the bios for the hard drives set for AHCI

 

[Ljtr7]

The original build had an SSD too, but it was a Vertex2, not 3. The warranty didn't have any more 2's so they sent a 3 instead.

And I'm not sure. I'm not that most computer savvy person around, but I can find stuff out if I know where to look.

 

[Tmagic650]

Do you know how to get into the bios? Did someone build this for you or did you buy it pre-made, like HP or Dell

 

[Ljtr7]

I can get into the bios, and I bought all the parts separate, and a friend of mine assembled it for me.

 

[Tmagic650]

This friend is not available to you now?

 

[Ljtr7]

Not really. He's been pretty busy.

 

[Tmagic650]

Who rebuilt the computer after the power supply failure?

 

[Ljtr7]

Same friend who assembled it in the first place.

 

[Tmagic650]

So get in touch with him. He's not having too much luck with this build, is he...

 

[Ljtr7]

He's more or less given up on it, so I came here looking for possible solutions

 

[Tmagic650]

I don't know what to tell you, or even where to start with this. I would tear everything out of the case and re-install everything again. Setting the bios to defaults and re-installing the operating system fresh

 

[Ljtr7]

Well I've reinstalled the OS fresh multiple times, but as for tearing it all apart and reassembling, I don't trust myself to do most things aside from putting RAM in. I'm likely to put something together wrong...

 

[Tmagic650]

You may not understand anything we ask you do do here...

 

[Ljtr7]

I don't think just reassembling will fix much though, since when the power supply died before, my friend put it back together, but then I was having the crashing issues, which then I took it to a shop, they looked it over, couldn't replicate the problem, but other parts I got replaced via warranty, and the shop assembled it with the new parts, but the crash problem persisted, so it's been reassembled by more than once source, so I figure I just have a bad part in there somewhere. I'm just really not sure as to what part it may be.

 

[Tmagic650]

"I'm just really not sure as to what part it may be"...

This is what I am talking about. With computer repair, we have to think logically and take the trouble history into account. This computer has essentially been a "lemon" form the first power supply failure... from my very first question to you:

"And I'm not sure. I'm not that most computer savvy person around, but I can find stuff out if I know where to look"... Your friend could tell you where to look

 

[Ljtr7]

I have 2 other friends who are rather good with computers, so they can direct me on what you suggest, but that's the best I have right now.

 

[Tmagic650]

Okay tell your friends to check the bios settings for the SSD (for AHCI) and try raising the memory voltage a notch or two

 

[Ljtr7]

Alright, I'll get them to guide me through that (since they're both out of country) when I'm back home at my computer.

 

[Tmagic650]

Okay, good luck

 

[Ljtr7]

Well, I set it to AHCI, and instead of just a crash, it showed the bluescreen again for the first time in a while. But still crashed nonetheless.

 

[Tmagic650]

You will have to reinstall Windows. AHCI should have been set first