Welcome to NexusFi: the best trading community on the planet, with over 150,000 members Sign Up Now for Free
Genuine reviews from real traders, not fake reviews from stealth vendors
Quality education from leading professional traders
We are a friendly, helpful, and positive community
We do not tolerate rude behavior, trolling, or vendors advertising in posts
We are here to help, just let us know what you need
You'll need to register in order to view the content of the threads and start contributing to our community. It's free for basic access, or support us by becoming an Elite Member -- see if you qualify for a discount below.
-- Big Mike, Site Administrator
(If you already have an account, login at the top of the page)
Well - thanks for the comments - here's an update.
The guy that built the PC was on vacation till the 2nd but I put off taking it in to try another power supply because I didn't have the time to take off all the post-vacation catching up.
Today, I removed the 3 video cards - not too high spec, just Nvidia GT440's.
I did a burn in test & again it crashed. Before the crash, it reported some memory errors on the 2D video test. It did this about 10 mins before the crash. When it crashes during a burn in test, I get no output from the tes.t
Then I tested just 2D video, 3D video and sound - again it crashed - caused a reboot, no blue screen. It took about 25 minutes.
Next I tested CPU, Disks & RAM - all set at the highest test settings, I ran this for 6 hours and it didn't fail or report any errors.
I had a look at the PC, there's the Intel video driver and also the logmein video driver, I removed logmein, thinking it might have gotten in the way. I ran a 2D & 3D video test. This time it took about an hour to crash.
All crashes were resets.
So - whilst I'm not discounting other errors, it seems that it's possibly a motherboard issue/issue with the built in video features on the motherboard. What is odd is that I don't have any screens plugged into the motherboard, so I'd have thought this would normally be idle anyway.
At least now I feel like I'm narrowing it down somewhat.
well intel and nvidia drivers can only complicate things, unless you need intel as you use the IGP of your motherboard in addition to nvidia?
can you run the burn in tests in safe mode ie bare minimum drivers are enabled.
i had a bsod a few yrs ago and took me months to solve, ended up being the RAM i installed was on the default 1.8v and needed 2v to work properly. Kicked myself when i finally got it stable after so many months of bsod's
When I troubleshoot computer problems like this, I start by removing all add-ins (cards, ram etc)....
If it runs solid with just MB (not running hot due to bad fans etc) then I begin adding one component at a time, beginning with ram (one at a time), then the cards one at a time until the bad component shows up..
(Also , make sure the computer is not near a heat vent or other source of heat).
Funnily enough - it crashes consistently when I remove the video cards & do a video test using the on board graphics.
Anyway - PC has been in the shop over a week now. The motherboard went to Asus for testing and they found nothing wrong but I still don't like the fact the on-board graphics were glitchy on my tests, so I told the company to replace the motherboard. Mostly because I just want the thing back and not risk having to take it in again.
There were also infrequent errors with the main hard disk controller in a stress test. So I am replacing the system drive with an SSD.
It's all built now apparently and they are doing burn-in tests on the new setup.
I will report back once she is with me again - I do miss it terribly - I hate using a laptop.
Completely agree. I've been building my own PC's since I was 8 (first system was a 386DX/20), and if I had an unstable system like you then I would just ebay it and start over from scratch.
Most of today's laptops go along with the macbook squishy pad keys fad and curvy form factor. Lenovo's "Thinkpad" laptops
continued to buck the trend using traditional 90's keyboards until just recently. Some of the 2011-12 model
Thinkpads still have the great traditional keyboards plus military-grade alloy hinges and form if you're interested in those.