New PC freezing. Need help!

[God For Hire]

Hi and thanks for taking time to help.

ASUS Striker II NSE 790i
GTX 280 1GB
OCZ Gold 4GB(2x2gig) DDR3 1600
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550
Coolmax 1200W
WD 1TB 7200RPM
XP

I finished putting a new PC together last week and I've been having freezing issues with it.

First I installed the Windows 7 beta and when I would play games the PC would freeze after 10-30mins and just hang there. I couldn't alt-tab, ctrl-alt-del or do anything to get out of the game but just reboot the PC. I thought it might be a windows 7 thing so I reformatted and installed XP.

After getting the XP install finished and the newest gfx driver installed I tried to play a game and it froze up and just hung there again.

Getting this PC running as been a hell of one mess up after another. Now I'm almost done and this crap crops up. If anyone can tell me what I need to do to get this working I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks in advance,
GFH.

 

[TheStu]

Heat could be the issue. Next time it locks up and reboots, go immediately into the BIOS and find where it reports the temperatures. (or get a free temperature monitor on teh intarwebz) and report back here with that info.

Next question, and forgive if this comes across rude at all. Is this the first system that you have put together on your own? If yes, did you follow all the instructions? If No... did you follow all the instructions?

 

[God For Hire]

No it's not rude, this is not the first system I've built. I did follow the instructions.
I used a Zalman Fan/Heatsink over the stock one. After seeing a few people bring up heat, I'm wondering if it could be the mobo. It has what looks like a built in water cooling pipe that gos around the CPU. Since I'm useing an aftermarket Fan/Heatsink I didn't put at coolant in the pipe. Could that be it?

 

[TheStu]

That is known as a heat pipe, it is usually filled with a fluid of some kind at the factory and then sealed, there is nothing you need to do there with that.

What thermal paste did you use between the heatsink and the CPU? The included from Zalman or something else?

 

[God For Hire]

It was called Dynex.

 

[TheStu]

Ok.

Report back on the temps, and also... make sure that the RAM is compatible. I have heard that some boards can be quite picky about the RAM that you get.

 

[God For Hire]

Ok, I was able to play a game for about 45mins(the longest so far) and then it froze up. So I'm pretty sure its a heating thing. Now I just need to find out whats over heating, any ideas?

 

[TheStu]

Well, it could be the graphics card... What is the ambient temperature in the room?

 

[techmanc]

Check all of your power connections for tight fit also check all cables and cards by re-seating them.

 

[God For Hire]

Originally posted by: TheStu
Well, it could be the graphics card... What is the ambient temperature in the room?

It's in the mid to high 60's. If it is the gfx card what should I do?

 

[TheStu]

If it is the GPU then find a program (RivaTuner should do it I think, and so should the nVidia Control Center) and see what the temps are currently. If you are much higher than... 80C (~170F) then you should call the manufacturer and see what they say.

Even 80C might be pushing it, but I am not sure what the thermal allowances are on GPUs these days.

 

[techmanc]

A couple utils may help is speedfan and gpu-z for temps and voltage checking

 

[God For Hire]

It just froze after an hour of watching video. Does this confirm that its the GPU thats overheating? Also, where can I download the control center?

 

[God For Hire]

So I was able to get a GPU temp monitoring program and ran it well playing a game. When the PC froze up the GPU was only at 77C and as far as I can tell thats not overheating. I think I might have put to much thermal paste down when I seated the CPU, so I'm going to reseat it and see if that works.

 

[Intexity]

actually i think that is a little hot. mine runs at about 35C idle and 41C or so on full load. i would focus on cooling.

 

[techmanc]

I was just looking at your memory. Do you know if the voltage is set correctly. I am not sure what the proper voltage is never having worked with DDR3 memory yet but heres the website info.
http://www.ocztechnology.com/p...pc3_12800_gold_edition

 

[bwatson283]

77C is like 166F, i would say that is a bit hot.

 

[God For Hire]

EDIT: So I've done anything you've said and other people have said and nothing has worked. I called ASUS and they said that its a probably faulty board, something about the northbridge. Anyway, I'm just gonna get newegg to replace it and hopefully that one will work.

Will I have to reinstall windows when I put in the new board?

Thanks for all the help,
GFH.

 

[Intexity]

Theoretically, if you get the same board no. BUT if the BIOS revision is different, you may have to do a window repair which should work (from the CD).