Problems problems problems and confusion.

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Hello,

This is my first time on this forum and I can see there are some very tech savvy people here that could possibly help me. I built a new system, and it just keeps getting progressivly worse...but I am not sure why... ... there is so many little things that are odd and I cant pin point the exact the problem.

I have placed this is other hardware because it maybe many different hardware problems... or just one... I am not sure.

This is my system specs:
-AMD Athlon 64 x3 4600+ Manchester 1ghz fsb socket 939 dual core
-ABIT Fatal1ty AN8-SLI Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard
-2X BFG Tech Geforce 7800GTX
-4 gigs of ddr ram (CORSAIR XMS 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM System Memory and OCZ Titanium 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 400 (PC 3200) Dual Channel)
-Maxtor MaXLine III 7L300S0 300GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache Serial ATA150
-2X Western Digital Raptor WD740GD 74GB 10,000 RPM 8MB Cache Serial ATA150 (Raided)
-Plextor 8M Cache SATA DVD Burner
-Windows XP sp2 (32 bit)

Alright that sets the battleground.

My first problem is that things randomly start to slow down then crashing, or if I listen to music it randomly starts repeating quickly... then if I let it go its ok. . Lately though it has just been crashing after words. or now it crashes when I play videos at random moments. I hear a clicking from my western digital drive before it happens. That clicking makes me uncomfortable. It may be my raiding maxtors... but I am not sure.

Sometimes though it pops up with a blue screen saying it is dumping my physical memory and a error.
"Driver_irq_equal_or_Less" and at the buttom it gives the driver "nvata.sys" (Nvidia driver) with the hex numbers. I am not sure of what to do, I been searching for solutions with no results...

The problems could also be with my memory. I have 4 gigs installed, and 32 bit windows only shows 2.5 gigs. I have set may paging to zero.

When I use torrents online now, it gives me an error called "Delayed windows writing" and then the entire computer freezes. I am not sure what that means or what it freezes. It used to work fine a week ago.


My seta dvd drive lost its ability to burn dvds using encore, and when I burn regular data dvds it gives me errors after verifications. It says sections didnt match up.

Here is some more random information,
Some games like, knights of the old republic and psyhocnauts, they start to speed up like crazy and the (only kototr) starts to lose lights and can only see the shades while you run into walls and such. I am not sure if taht is anything.

My main point is my system is unstable, but I am not sure why.
-Video card drives screwy
-My hard drives are not synched, or faulty
-Seta drive dvd is causing problems with...something
-Memory confusion, wrong paging, cache messed up?

It could be motley of these things. Can someone just help me with some suggestions? Any start, is a good start.
 
I would check your memory first. Run memtest86 overnight. Also it is never a good idea to mix brands of memory. Does your motherboard support the brands you have? 4 gigs sounds like way overkill. Heck I have 1.5 gigs and have never even come close to using 1 gig.


then ensure your drivers are all up to date.

check your power supply. What is the wattage? With all that stuff, I wouldn't run less than 550W

check for spyware and adware
do you have a firewall and antivirus?
 
I have a Thermaltake PurePower W0023R ATX 560W Power Supply. That should be sufficent.

As for the memory, the website says the motherboard supports both.

I think my firewall is on and I have an antivirus.
 
run memtest86. see what happens . Let it run for at least 7 passes, the more the better.

It's generally not a good idea to run SATA and IDE. Windows is buggy about using both at the same time. USe one or the other.
 
You're right this could be a bunch of issues all crashing into each other. Tedster has hit on a few.

1. That PSU has a lot of watts but is only putting out 22 amps on a single 12v rail. That, in a word, sucks and is not enough amps to reliably run two 7800GTX video cards and all the rest of that equipment. I believe that Nvidia requires 18amps minimum for a single 78-00GTX set up. Take a look at a much better PSU such as the Seasonic S12 or PC Power and Cooling 510 . Both have over 36 amps on the 12v rail(s). SLi systems are very sensitive to power and any fluctuations can cause weird problems. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of a solid PSU in a rig of your systems caliber.

2. AMD CPU's, even the X'2, have a problem addressing dual sided RAM when all 4 memory slots are populated. If you insist on using all 4 slots I'd set the timing to 2T and see if that smooths things out. Better yet, remove 2 sticks of RAM and use just 2 sticks of 1024Mb in the slots that are proper for 2 sticks. You can set the timings very aggressively on the Corsair. I run mine at 2/3/3/6 1T. If you're gaming then 2GB is more than enough RAM. BF2 at max settings uses 1.4GB max. and it is a RAM hog.

3. Run without the SATA optical drive and see if that helps. SATA optical drives buy you nothing performance-wise. They have only one advantage and that is the very small cable that cleans up the case and is easy to route. Unfortunately, they can cause problems in a system by causing conflicts and with other components. Try running with the Plextor unplugged and disconnected and see if that helps.

4. I have run SATA and IDE simulataneously with no problem but that doesn't mean there can't be conflicts. Try things without the Plextor (as stated above) and maybe it will clean up the hard drive issue.

Sorry for the bad news but the good news is you have one hell of an ***- kicking system that just needs a little tweaking. Try 1, 2 and 3 above and I bet it will clear up some of your problems. You may have to reset the CMOS/BIOS after making all of the above changes just to clear out any crash left-overs. Good luck.
 
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