Originally posted by: brokencase
Peav, From your description it seems that the failure occurs only when your playing the games?
Maybe it's a video related issue?
Another possibility is that maybe it's heat related.
You stated:
"Was playing Armed Assualt earlier today and the pc crashed and reset itself. Now since then the pc just gets into an endless reboot loop. At 240FSB it is a bit more stable but still reboots every 2-3 minutes."
I am wondering if you let the machine cool down after the initial crash if the endless reboot would not occur?
Also did you disable Boot Failure Guard in BIOS?
Hi Brokencase.
If I leave the mainboard disconnected from the PSU, ie pull the cables out, overnight the thing will boot up next time I try.
However if I load the system up, mainly when gaming, the board crashes out and it either reboots into a loop, where it loads XP then reboots etc etc. Or It just doesnt start up.
So to rule out the bits in the rig, I put them all in a dual-vsta board and they work fine, bar the 5% underclock.
I put my spare celeron d341 into the SATA2, it booted once after it was left unpowered for a while. Went into the bios made sure optimal defaults were set and rebooted. It black screened.
Now this was with a Celeron D341, a Radeon 9000, 2x512 Crucial DDR1 Ram and a cdrom connected. SO the whole rig was installed with parts that wroked fine in the VSTA board and the SATA2 still crapped out.
I seriously think these have problems with the Volt regulation circuit and just cannot supply the power needed for a 4 core chip. Chances are it has fried something.
My original 4coredual-Vsta crapped out and took my e6600 with it. When I got it rma'd the tech told me it killed one of there chips. It apparently was putting 3v through the VTT line. (VT2 testpoint on the mobo).
I suppose if you buy cheap you expect cheap. Going to see if the retailer will give me a store credit towards an ip35-e board that i'll use in the future.
I did suspect a PSU issue at first ( although its only 3 months old ) so pulled out my spare I use for testing and it still did it.
Hopefully Asrock might have a bios or some info on what the problem is but despite emailing them twice in the last week I still havent had a reply.
Peav
PS ::: I don't suspect heat. My room is at about 16 degrees Cel atm.. cold. Case left open. 2x120MM fans for intake and exhaust. 120MM on the PSU. XP-120 Heatsink on the CPU.
Temps are usually.
CPU idle 30º / Load 42º
Mobo idle 28º / load 33º
GFX idle 42º / Load 78º
Seems fine. The northbridge sink doesnt get warm as the XP-120 blows through the CPU sink onto the NorthBridge.