New system instability

[Surj]

I'm having a bit of trouble with a new system I put togethor, and I'm hoping someone has some ideas I havent explored. It's based around the Shuttle XPC Sb75G2.

Win XP sp2
Direct X 9.0c
Catalyst 4.8

Intel p4 2.8
768 mb crucial ddr
Shuttle FB75 mb
Nec 8c DvD burner
80gig 7200 rpm WD

I guess i should first mention i occasionally get a dwwin.exe error before restarting, but I disabled the error reporting service since it doesnt seem related, and I couldnt for the life of me figure out what exactly was causing the error. This was a problem in itself since it flashed so quickly before I restarted (through logoff window), that I coudlnt read it. Sat there for hours with my camera, fighitng its random appearance and the black scan lines the camera picks up to find out what the window said. As I said I disabled this service, but I still get another popup on restart occasionally as well, no idea what it is. Its so infrequent I cant manage to get a picture of it, and I cant find any logs of things happening when windows shuts down (ideas?). Also, none of these happen when the system auto restarts, only when I tell it to restart.

Anyhow, the big problem here is instability. Sometimes the system is on all day and night without a problem, and other times it just randomly reboots or crashes in a game. I never get a bsod, and the auto restart is turned off, but sometimes the system just ups and randomly restarts when everything seems fine and dandy. One example would be with the Tribes Vengence demo, it just doesnt work. Sometimes I get in game, but then it restarts. City of Heroes will generally run just fine, but then occasionally, and sometimes when Im logging out of the game, it crashes and I get its error reporting tool. Unreal tournament 2004 on the other hand has never crashed on me, though I havent played it (or attempted to play it) nearly as much as the other two. War3 has occasionalyl died in the middle of network games.

It's important to note that sometimes there is a auto restart (which I would associate normally with a heat problem, and sometimes the screen just goes blank, but the system appears to be on and normal).

Some things I've tried. Different video drivers, turning the system fans on at lower temps, bios updates, and various bios/driver setting changes. Fans are set to kick in at higher speeds, at 60c. The CPU temp is generally around 55 with normal non gaming activity, and the system temp is 48c. The video card seems pretty cool, i dont feel a lot of heat comming off it, but I shoved a 80mm fan (not a lot of room in a shuttle system) in next to it blowing cold air just incase.

I'm really at a loss, does anyone have anyother suggestions or advice?
Thanks

 

[Surj]

quick bump and another question

I've been researching almost all day, and was wondering if the memory could be another possible issue. I knwo the memory itself is fine, ran great in my other system, but perhaps it doesnt like my current config. Anyhow, i tried running memtest but it wont boot, just flashes the normal blue screen and then restarts real quick. I'm not sure if thats a dead giveaway or just a quirk. Anyhow, I was also wondering if perhaps it could be the defauy timing. Right now i have some crucial ddr 2700, the bios dram timing has it set as

CAS Latency Time: 2.5
Active Precharge Delay: 7
Dram RAS$ to CAS# Delay: 3
Dram RAS# to Precharge: 3

that all seems pretty reasonable to me, thoughts?

thanks

 

[Surj]

i ran microsofts memory tester and it didnt come up with any errors at all. I am now nowehere closer to solving this /sigh

any suggestions, please?

 

[Surj]

last bump, suggestions more than welcomed

 

[Cogman]

Heat or a bad PSU. Those are usually the main colprates. Does it usually crash when doing CPU/Vid card intensive things (games, content creation, benchmarking)

 

[stevty2889]

What kind of power supply do you have? Generic or weak powersupplies can cause random reboots, especialy if it's happening while playing 3d games. I don't think it's a memory problem, no reason to change your memory timings.

 

[Surj]

its just a wee power supply, 240, but thats the standard that ships with shuttle xpc systems, and it should handle the load quite well. that being said, while it may have enough power, perhaps there is something wrong with it. is there anyway to test it without having an alternative on hand?

also, whats a good temp for the cpu? i have it around 50 now doing general pc tasks, less than that idle.

as far as crashes, it will occasionally just up and crash when im not using it, or sometimes after a reboot, just reboot again (sort of like how memtest starts to load and then resets). Generally however it is during games, but never during UT2004. War 3 and CoH occasionally, and always with tribes vengence.

it has me so baffled because sometimes i think its the video card, other times the power supply, and sometimes cpu heat. cant narrow it down

edit: oh, and thanks for the response =D

 

[legatech]

i would try one stick of memory at a time and see what happens. just to rule that one out. cause it could have passed the memory test but can still have problems. check model of memory on the net to confirm the memory timing.
the temp sounds ok to me

 

[Surj]

just got an email back from micron (crucial), the memory timing didnt look off, but hes going to double check. no idea why memtest86 wouldnt work, but im starting to suspect its related to the board and not the memory.

the comp just restarted a couple of minutes ago for no apparent reason, i was working on my laptop. the cpu was 51 at the time, everything else at around 44. if its not the memory, and not the heat, does that just leave the psu, or are there anyother ideas?

thanks again, greatly appreciated

 

[Chasim]

Surj - just curious, I've had the same problem with the dwwin.exe shutdown error message. Also running WinXP SP2 with 9.0c (and Cat 4.11). By chance do you run any Gravis software? And did you ever figure it out? (Check my post in this same forum for a list of things I've tried.)