sometimes my computer restarts itself. I'll disable the auto restart feature but also, I sometimes see (with soltek Hardware monitor) that my battery goes down from 3.1xx to 1.5xx for less than a second, although it doesn'T reboot systematically when it happens. Could that cause the reboots ? It doesn'T do it often, but often enough so I could catch that ! and what would cause that big of a drop besides a dying battery ? A not powerfull enough psu ? Mine is a PP352X from Antec Here are the specs: +3.3: 20A +5: 33A combined: 180W +12: 15A -12: 1A -5: 1A +5SB: 2A It's a 350W as stated in my sig. I'll post my readings: 3.3V: 3.312 5V: 4.919 12V: 12.096 -5V: -5.257 -12V: -11.703 5VSB: 4.914 - 4.94 Battery is at 3.152 CPU Vcore is at 1.776
Not sure. Was this happening before you got the Radeon 9600 or not? I have that same Antec, and it's never given me trouble. I really doubt that's the issue. I would check your event log and see if you notice anything there. You could also replace the battery and see if it's what's the problem. It's a 3.3V watch battery, and those should be pretty easy to find. But check the event log and see if there's anything that seem suspicious before going out for a new battery.
Nothing's abnormal in the log. I disabled the automatic restart feature in XP and it rebooted 3 straight times while running 3DMark2001SE. And each time, nothing abnormal was shown in the event log and I did not see a blue screen once. If it's not the psu or the battery, I really don't know what it is. I'd lean towards the battery though.
Have you still been overclocking your video card? Id run it at stock, defrag your drive, maybe get a memory freeing utility and see how it goes. You will see a bit more stability if you get another 256 or even 128 megs of ram. The times Ive had spontaniuos reboots a few tweeks of the memory and hardrive seem to sort it. If you are still pushing your 9600pro it is more than likely the cause. Try clocking your ram at your overclock speed and your gpu at standard and vice versa. See who is the weaker link.
Everything's at stock now. I un the memory at the lowest timing and at 133 so it should take it just fine but I'll give a shot at lower timings.
I think the reboots were caused by the mem timings. At the lowest, 3dmark made the system reboot three straight times, whereas with the default timings, 3dmark succeeded the 5 times I ran it. My mem may be failing on me. It's gotta be low quality since the default is cas 2.5 (I can't tell you if it'S 2.5-3-3-etc.) as my BIOS doesn't have all of those options. Therefore, new mem should solve the problem. What would you buy between Samsung and Kingston for DDR333 ? I can't afford OCZ, Corsair, Geil, Twinmos, etc.
If your comp is stable at the slower timing settings Id just leave it at that. Set the bios to 'by spd' in stead of 'manuel'. I wouldnt spend money on new ram just so you can have a cas latency of 2 instead of 3. It will ceratainly make your comp faster, but only by a few un-noticable benchmark points, those extra points just arn't worth the money. I wouldnt say it it faulty ram either just possibly slow and surprisingly not very overclocking friendly for ddr. If you have a dodgy stick in your comp you will probaly start getting bluescreens saying 'Driver irql not less than or equal' For those of us who didnt write the explanations on blue screens it just means your ram is worse for wear. Not concluding its un usable or ruined, thought it probably is static from those fingers We've all played around without an anti-static band im sure. Even if you do get the 'driver irql not less than or equal' blue screen its just the way xp works. Apparentky win 9x didnt test components before it used them, nt based OSs do and this is a common error. Just run it at relaxed settings, im sure you wont notice much, if any performance differances. You have the added benefit of a system which doesnt bottleneck too.
Still recommend more ram though Ive never used samsung, but the kingston ive had has been fine, in fact its my only stick I DONT get that 'driver irql not less than or equal' blue screen on!
Well I just made a deal with my father: My board/cpu/ram for $200 cad. I plan to buy a SL-75FRN2-L Barton 2500+ and 512(2x256) of kingston DDR33 which will cost me 370 plus taxes. I also found a buyer for my video card (my uncle) which will buy it for the same price I paid. I'll then go for a Sapphire 9700 Pro, which will cost $530. This is all in a while so I'll have time to save some money. The reason I'm selling the board is it has problems with 166fsb, so basically: I can't really upgrade.
If you want to overclock the CPU at all---specifically with the FSB, you might want to get some 400MHz DDR, or if that's too much, 350MHz DDR (PC3000). Although I'm not very fond of Epox, they also have a lower cost nForce 2 board, the 8RDA/8RDA+ and the 8RDA3/+. I checked Newegg, and they're listing the 8RDA+ for $83. Abit's NF7 (no S) runs $101 USD, and is also a good choice. Don't get me wrong, I'm not dissing Soltek, I'm just suggesting a few other boards that are probably in your price range. The ones I priced have the nForce 2 SPP. The Epox doesn't appear to use the newer MCP-T though for some odd reason.
Unfortunately, Newegg doesn't ship to Canada, and pretty much every site I find that has what I want, cost too much when you add the shipping. Sometimes the shipping is over $60 usd !
I've heard that NCIX is the Canadian equivalent of Newegg, FYI. At least that's the general concensus of the canucks I've run across. They list the Soltek board you're looking at for $121CAN. The MSI K7N2 runs $130CAN. The Epox and Abit boards seem to have more of a price hike above the Soltek board, and are only offered in the higher-end version each board.
