Hello,

I just built my first computer and discussed it in other forums before purchasing certain components. Here is what was settled on:

Sapphire HD5750 GPU
Phenom ii x2 550 BE CPU
ASUS M4A79XTD EVO MOBO
Corsair 450VX PSU
Standard DVD Burner
WD 750GB HDD (7200RPM i believe)
All in one Card reader
2x2 DDR3 G-Skill RAM
Smilodon Case (comes with 3 intake fans and 1 out (2x80 and 2x120 speed)

My concern and build history is as follows:

After getting Windows 7 up and running (had to go from XP to a Torrented 7 to legit $30 student upgrade 7 to do so) i hit BSoD twice, but after updating all drivers this problem has yet to happen again (thought i'd share in case it is relevant). I Prime 95 test it and get the:

FATAL ERROR: Rounding was 0.5, expected less than 0.4
Hardware failure detected, consult stress.txt file.

I have also had the screen go completely black with thin white pin stripes and i am unable to do anything about it. It froze at the desktop once where my cursor could move but nothing was accessible.

I have now just upped the voltage from stock 1.325 to 1.375 (i believe) using the AOD utility and am running Prime torture test for what has been 35 minutes now without the fail. My cpu core temps are topping at ~42C and the CPU temp is at 45C constant.

Okay thats all the history....could my issue be my PSU? After upping the voltage above stock things seem to be fine but shouldnt it have worked fine without doing so as no stock settings were changed anywhere? The MOBO manual said that i should have no less then a 600W PSU but on Newegg it recommended 450w for 1 GPU and 600W for CrossfireX....which is 2 GPUs (i think i may not have that understood properly). Also no one in the forums when i was first settling on a system caught the PSU concern, in fact the one i settled on was most recommended.

My other minor concern is that none of my case fans plug into the MOBO, just the PSU....i attached them all to a single PSU cable but when i tried to put the end of the PSU cable (with the appropriate 4-pin CHA_FAN1 end) into the MOBO it wouldnt start, but would without that plugged in. Would my case fans adjust if plugged into the MOBO instead of the PSU? They came with MOLEX ends so i had no choice but didnt know if i should change this.

Thanks greatly for taking the time to read this and help me out. I somewhat plan on overclocking my system but need to know if my system is okay as is right now first before even considering it. What temp should i keep my CPU under if i do so? I have read 55C. (stock heatsink and fan BTW)

Again I thank you in advance for your suggestions.

My recommendation would have been a min. 500w high quality PSU.
Even though Corsair makes great PSU's, a 450w would in my opinion be below minimum.
Keep in mind that some boards undervolt and some overvolt, but ASUS typically overvolts the CPU.
Now, I do not recommend adjusting your Vcore via AOD, always do it in the bios.
Secondly, are you aware of the mass problems people are having by going the Win 7 upgrade path?
It's always best to do a full/clean install, no matter what the operating system is.

It doesn't really matter how you connect the case fans.
The advantage of plugging them directly in the mobo is for monitoring purposes.
DO NOT connect the fan to a PSU +12v rail & then into your mobo, do one or the other.

Do not attempt to overclock your 550 until you get your system stable with stock clocks.

Hopes this helps, good luck.....

-------------------------
CPU: Phenom II 965 (125w) B.E.@ 4.0GHz (1.475v)
NB@ 2800MHz (1.35v) & HTT@ 2400MHz (4800 MT/s)
MB: ASRock AOD790GX/128M
PSU: Corsair TX750W
RAM: G. Skill F2-8500CL5D-4GBPI@ 1066MHz at 5-5-5-15 (2.08v)
GPU: EVGA GTX 285 SC Edition@ 675/1548/2538
Sound: Creative SB X-Fi Xtreme Gamer
Case: Cooler Master Chassis CM 690
Monitor: Samsung P2350 SyncMaster 23" (1920x1080)
OS: Windows 7 H.P. (x64) & Vista H.P. (x86)
3DMark Vantage: P15829

Thanks for the advice. I Think i am going to run down and get a 600w corsair then and return this one to newegg (hopefully i can). My OS was a clean install of a torrented 7 then i used a upgrade key to make it legit is all....so i suppose it should be fine.

All i did was bump it from 1.325 to 1.375 and its been running stable for 4 hours now.....should i worry about the PSU being to weak or is this minor power bump sometimes normal?

No, power flucuations are not normal.
Your Corsair 450w is probably under stress from the load, that's what I suspect.
My advice would be the Corsair TX650W, I've owned it for 2 years now and it's been an outstanding PSU.
You can never have enough power and it allows for future system upgrades.
And I'm running the Corsair TX750W on my main comp (see my sig).

Newegg will accept returns, I believe within 30 days, but they will charge a 15% re-stocking fee.

-------------------------
CPU: Phenom II 965 (125w) B.E.@ 4.0GHz (1.475v)
NB@ 2800MHz (1.35v) & HTT@ 2400MHz (4800 MT/s)
MB: ASRock AOD790GX/128M
PSU: Corsair TX750W
RAM: G. Skill F2-8500CL5D-4GBPI@ 1066MHz at 5-5-5-15 (2.08v)
GPU: EVGA GTX 285 SC Edition@ 675/1548/2538
Sound: Creative SB X-Fi Xtreme Gamer
Case: Cooler Master Chassis CM 690
Monitor: Samsung P2350 SyncMaster 23" (1920x1080)
OS: Windows 7 H.P. (x64) & Vista H.P. (x86)
3DMark Vantage: P15829

ShadowChief try running OCCT and run the PSU test, and it will give you charts on your voltages and such and post them here so we can see what your volts look like.

-------------------------
Main:MSI GD-70 AMD CPU's
mushkin enhanced 1600@7-7-6-18| ATI 5870| ASUS D1 Sound |Custom WC (CPU only)
Gamer:ASUS M3A78-T 940@3.7 2x4830's

the "power supply" tab? this is what is says under "monitoring":

CPU: 1 - 27 2 - 27
Voltage: 3.3v: .56 5v: 4.97


that was before any test, this is after:

The 12v is the most important, can you post it please!

-------------------------
CPU: Phenom II 965 (125w) B.E.@ 4.0GHz (1.475v)
NB@ 2800MHz (1.35v) & HTT@ 2400MHz (4800 MT/s)
MB: ASRock AOD790GX/128M
PSU: Corsair TX750W
RAM: G. Skill F2-8500CL5D-4GBPI@ 1066MHz at 5-5-5-15 (2.08v)
GPU: EVGA GTX 285 SC Edition@ 675/1548/2538
Sound: Creative SB X-Fi Xtreme Gamer
Case: Cooler Master Chassis CM 690
Monitor: Samsung P2350 SyncMaster 23" (1920x1080)
OS: Windows 7 H.P. (x64) & Vista H.P. (x86)
3DMark Vantage: P15829

Those were all the images it gave me post-test (i ran for min. 6 minutes). Do i need to run it in a specific way?

Was there an option to run a PSU test on the +12v rail(s)?

-------------------------
CPU: Phenom II 965 (125w) B.E.@ 4.0GHz (1.475v)
NB@ 2800MHz (1.35v) & HTT@ 2400MHz (4800 MT/s)
MB: ASRock AOD790GX/128M
PSU: Corsair TX750W
RAM: G. Skill F2-8500CL5D-4GBPI@ 1066MHz at 5-5-5-15 (2.08v)
GPU: EVGA GTX 285 SC Edition@ 675/1548/2538
Sound: Creative SB X-Fi Xtreme Gamer
Case: Cooler Master Chassis CM 690
Monitor: Samsung P2350 SyncMaster 23" (1920x1080)
OS: Windows 7 H.P. (x64) & Vista H.P. (x86)
3DMark Vantage: P15829

no i DLed OCCT v3.1.0 and clicked "power supply". i could do 3 test types; custom, 1 hour or infinite. then it asks custom duration time, resolution, Hz nad shadow complexity. Then check boxes for fullscreen, 64 bits linpack and hyperthreading (cant click hyperthreading tho).

I am also no able to click GPU MEMTEST just fyi.

Did i download the wrong one or something?

Monitoring area has 2 voltage areas blocked off with nothing showing, much like my missing 2 cores for the CPU section.....it is missing the first and last, i am asuming the last is the 12v.

Okay so now with PRIME95 no matter what voltage i put it up to (i upped it 4 times) it fails within seconds and says the same fatal error.....would this still be my PSU or possibly something else? it also went to the pin-stripes screen again at stock voltage once.....have i pushed the PSU to far or could this possibly be another component? (running memtest one more time). thanks all help appreciated.

Okay got a memtest orror in 4mins and 20seconds.....appears to be at test #5, 46% in with 2 errors. here is what it says:
Test Errors
lowest error address: 000c070250 - 192.0MB 0 0
Highest error address: 000c070250 - 192.0MB 1 0
Bits in Error Mask : 00400000 2 0
Bits in Error - Total: 1 Max: 1 Avg: 1 3 0
Max Contiguous Errors: 1 4 0
ECC Correctable Errors: 5 2
Errors per Memory Slot: 0: 2 6 0
1: 0 7 0
8 0
9 0

any help is appreciated....does this mean it is my RAM and not PSU/anything else?

Yeah it looks like you may have a bad memory stick.
Test each stick individually, then in different slots on the mobo.
Instead of running those lengthy Prime95 tests, I run the Everest Ultimate stability stress test for 1 hr.
If it's a memory or CPU overclock problem, it will rear it's ugly head during the 1 hr. stress test.

Btw, I was looking at that same ASUS AM3 board, how do you like it?

-------------------------
CPU: Phenom II 965 (125w) B.E.@ 4.0GHz (1.475v)
NB@ 2800MHz (1.35v) & HTT@ 2400MHz (4800 MT/s)
MB: ASRock AOD790GX/128M
PSU: Corsair TX750W
RAM: G. Skill F2-8500CL5D-4GBPI@ 1066MHz at 5-5-5-15 (2.08v)
GPU: EVGA GTX 285 SC Edition@ 675/1548/2538
Sound: Creative SB X-Fi Xtreme Gamer
Case: Cooler Master Chassis CM 690
Monitor: Samsung P2350 SyncMaster 23" (1920x1080)
OS: Windows 7 H.P. (x64) & Vista H.P. (x86)
3DMark Vantage: P15829

First thing I'd check is the recommended voltage for your memory and ensure that you set it manually in bios.

Yeah i was just going to ask about voltage....Nemesis, you think that the issue is a memory stick problem correct? I was wondering if all these issues could be from my PSU still being too weak, as i have gotten multiple oddities occurring; first a couple BSoDs before getting all the drivers up, probably simply due to the drivers, Then the weird pin-stripe screen coming up acting like a BSoD (frozen and cant do anything without a restart) at different occasions, one being while i switch the voltage over with Vturbo, then the failing PRIME95 tests with the fatal error.

What confuses me is i did get it stable on 1.3375 for the Prime test which i ran for just under an hour, but then it would stabilize at any voltage i was willing to put it up to the next day. Also i was not able to run a program (APB Beta (game)) as it kept getting a load error and then if it did load it froze at a log-in screen (but this has happened to me on a different PC so i feel it may not be relevant to mention except to say that the program is memory-intensive).

When i have the time i will indeed do the memory tests, but i was curious as to if this could all still be a PSU problem. I have until about the 20th to figure out what it is to return it to newegg so i am trying to fix it ASAP, but i have lots going on that finding time to run these tests proves difficult.

As for the MOBO, I suppose i like it, even tho it could also possibly be the issue. Easy install, fairly easy to set up (although my HDD LED wire was too short to reach its input, but that may be the case's problem really). Easy set up and easy install of drivers and such. As long as it isnt the problem, then its been good to me.

I again thank you for helping, i am new to all this an would have no direction if it wasnt for everyone's help. Hopefully i/we can figure this out soon because I'd really like to have a computer haha. I will run the memory test on the Everest program as soon as possible, hopefully ill have some free time tonight to do so; if that comes back + or - would it indicate what it is specifically; ie if everything runs smoothly or everything runs bad regardless of placement would that point to memory, mobo, cpu or psu etc, or would it just confirm that there is something wrong on general? i fear that every test i try something fails so it isnt ever pointing to something specific (because if i am not mistaken isn't Prime testing CPU mainly? and then memtest obviously tested memory?).

Thanks again!

could i use Memtest to test the RAM? I have already made a boot disc for that, or should i use the everest instead?

For my CPU this is the voltage range: 0.85V - 1.425V...it starts at 1.325 so i will place it at that
Thermal Design Power 80W - is this any kind of setting?

my RAM voltage is 1.5v
Cas Latency 8 is this any kind of setting?
Timing 8-8-8-21

Will be running tests soon.

redacted

Edited: 11/01/2009 at 07:40 PM by ShadowChief