Windows 7 Pro x64 stability issues

[radioouman]

Hi All,
I'm have a lot of trouble keeping Windows 7 Pro x64 running on my PC. I use this PC as a DVR, printer server, and file server for my house and therefore I need to keep it running 24/7.

Anywhere from 5 minutes to 3 days after I boot it, it will start to get flaky. I mean really flaky. Programs won't work and eventually it will reboot itself. Then it won't be able to boot and it will go into the automatic recovery mode. (Not sure if that is the right name.) I thought that this was hardware related, so I've replaced the motherboard, processor, memory, video card, and power supply. It is still flaky. (Right now, the network icon in the taskbar has a red X on it even though I am connected to the internet.)

Hardware specs:
Asus M4A785-M (used to be a Foxconn C51XEM2AA-8EKRSH)
AMD Athlon X2 6000+ (used to be an AMD Athlon X2 5000+)
Crucial Ballistix DDR2-800 2x2gb (used to be 4x1gb)
Onboard ATI Radeon HD 4200 (used to be MSI NVidia 8600 GTS)
Antec Earthwatts 430 power supply (just replaced it with the same power supply)

In addition to those items, I also have 2 ATI TV Wonder 650 tuners, 5 hard drives and a DVD burner.

Using the Asus PC Probe tool, currently Vcore = 1.34 volts (+/- 0.4), CPU temp is 34C and the motherboard temp is 34C.

Yes, I reinstalled Windows when I replaced all of that hardware.

Any ideas?

 

[Blazer]

have you run any hardware extended test ?

 

[killster1]

i personally would not use asus or a earthwatt psu! id bet 100 bux that would solve it =P

 

[radioouman]

I have run the Seagate Seatools test to verify that the drives are OK. What other tests should I run?

I've had pretty good luck with Antec power supplies. Why shouldn't I run one?
Asus motherboards are excellent. The Asus tool is only to read the system voltages, temps, and fan speeds.

 

[killster1]

so you dont want to take the bet? just have seen 100 asus motherboards fail, once i had to rma a asus motherboard 5 times 4th time it worked but the chipset fell off during shipment due to poor packing. They have bad QA (but they do sell 1 trillion boards so maybe i just see all the unlucky ones?)

as far as earthwatts check out the reviews! ive had a few antec psu's melt down in past aint used them since but i have checked out earthwatts reviews and there is TONS of failures. the problem however is prob not the psu but low watt psu with tons of stuff cant be good for efficiency.

 

[radioouman]

Bet? No, I don't want to take the bet.

I'm not a fan of this particular Asus board. The AMD 785G chipset and Radeon 4200 frustrates me. However, this is what I have now and it should do OK in this application.

Do I really have an undersized PSU? I would think that 430W should be enough. I'm not running a high power GPU or a high power CPU (well, this one is rated at 125watts). Are the two TV tuners and 5 hard drives really enough to need a better PSU?

 

[Blazer]

did you run the extended hard drive test ? if not start there.

then run memtest for atleast 6 passes, 0 errors acceptable.

if both above pass then its likely hardware related.

 

[radioouman]

Yep, I ran the extended test from DOS on the hard drives. They pass fine. I can't run them from within Windows.

I ran the Memory Diagnostic and it failed. Now what?

 

[drum]

Yep, I ran the extended test from DOS on the hard drives. They pass fine. I can't run them from within Windows.

I ran the Memory Diagnostic and it failed. Now what?

If you ran it with both sticks of ram, take one out and run it again to determine which stick is bad then replace it. If it was a kit then they will want you to return both sticks.

 

[Binky]

RMA time on one or both sticks of RAM. Some companies make you send back both if they are part of a set.

 

[JackMDS]

I would concentrate on the hardware that you did not replaced.

As a last resort take the parts out of the Case put the Mobo on a table over Static bag.

Use the Mobo CPU, Mem, HD, another PSU and see if it run stable in such bare form.

 

[Modelworks]

ATI TV Wonder 650 tuners

I have one of these installed with windows MCE as the application that uses it and have noticed some problems with the drivers. The pc would work fine but in the morning when I checked the pc it had rebooted from a crash. Every time it was the ATI 650 tuner driver. I fixed it by disabling sleep on the pc. For some reason that driver crashed the system every time the system went to sleep.

ATI is supposed to have official windows 7 drivers soon

 

[radioouman]

I don't think that it is the RAM. I just RMA'd my four 1-gig dimms for these last month and got these two 2-gig dimms as replacement. (Those were failing the test too. All four at once would fail, but when I ran a pair they passed... both pairs passed.)

I wondered about the TV Wonder 650s... I am running them with the Vista 64 driver. I disabled sleep and that helped a bit, but didn't fix it.

 

[Blazer]

memtest is done outside the OS, so whatever drivers installed for whatever hardware has absolutely no affect on the outcome, if memory test fails = IT failed.

 

[radioouman]

I replaced the Crucial Ballistix DDR2-800 with OCZ DDR2-800 and the memory test passes. Ballistix is being RMA'd.

Now to build another system with all of the new spare parts....