KT4 Help!!!

[RRinfo]

I have an ongoing issue that i can't seem to fix. I'm not sure if this is the right forum to ask this, but i'm hoping that somebody could come up with a solution.

I have a KT4 Ultra with Athlon 1800+. ever since i put this machine together, i can't seem to have a stable set-up. everytime i do an install, it reboots on me. only the heavy load installs like win xp sp1, games, etc., i always get the reboot.

I figured that my PSU isn't putting enough juice so i bought the Thermal take pure power 420W PSU. that didn't do the trick. still reboots and infact it increased my temp. so i decided to buy a better heatsink, SPEEZE to be exact. now from 46 degrees temp on idle, it went down to 40 degrees CPU temp and 34 case. which is a lot better from before. i still get the deadly reboots. i have a MSI GeForce 4 TI 4200 two hardrives. three case fans, and a better power supply. Please help. :snip:

[Wiggo]

The reboots may not be a hardware problem but a software one but go into the control panel/admin tools/event viewer and see what errors have been thrown up as that will shed some more light on the prob. ;)
<center>:cheers:</center>

[jolle]

Could be software.
But I think low quality RAM can cause reboots and stuff.
Now I have noname ram atm which im not to happy about but they work ok, and run stable.
But that could maybe be your problem.

If you have the possibility, borrow a stick of brand RAM and try if that solves it.. and prey it doesnt cause then you have to buy new ram hehe.

Only during heavy loads? that fits into the RAM scenario, maybe even a IDE issue?

i found this "building for stability pretty interesting.

http://www6.tomshardware.com/howto/02q4/021102/

try removing all hardware thats not necesary and check if that runs stable, then add your stuff until it gets unstable again..

[vegaboo]

Yep, Try to change the MEMORY slot or borrow another MEMORY. I have run the same problem and bad memory caused that.

[RRinfo]

i checked the system info and i found out that there are some irq's that are sharing like the nvidia geforce4 and usb controller. i have a samsung ddr 2700 256mb. i noticed though that whenever i change the DRAM settings to up the timings, i keep getting the blank screen and have to clear the CMOS. i can't even just put it on 333 clock speed. everything has to be auto. my os got corrupted when i upped the timings not as aggressive as people have upped theirs. and we have the same memory stick. do you think it could be a bad memory stick? also, could the irq sharing can cause the problem as well? i'm running memtest as we speak. would that help? thanks for all your input guys, i appreciate it. i just hope that i can resolve this issue. it's getting annoying.

also, could it be a bad cpu?

[jolle]

XP sets everything to share IRQ 9, doesnt do much differance on AMD based system.
So thats prolly not it.

Maybe you could go to a computer store and have them try the memory in a memory testing device thingie if they got one.

[RRinfo]

XP sets everything to share IRQ 9, doesnt do much differance on AMD based system.
So thats prolly not it.

Maybe you could go to a computer store and have them try the memory in a memory testing device thingie if they got one.

hmmm.... i'm still doing the memtest thing. would the computer store charge me for that test? and how long would it take for that? so if it's a hardware issue, what are the possibilites... RAM? Graphics Card? CPU? MOBO?

[Wiggo]

If you havn't already then you may want to consider giving the CPU an extra 0.5v and the memory an extra 0.1v and see if that helps. ;)
<center>:cheers:</center>

[RRinfo]

If you havn't already then you may want to consider giving the CPU an extra 0.5v and the memory an extra 0.1v and see if that helps. ;)
<center>:cheers:</center>

i will try that and let you know the outcome.... i have another question. the memtest86 tests the RAM, am i right? what if it passes the test without any errors, does it mean that the memory is good? i think some guy on the board mentioned about trying amidiag. is that the same burn in test? or does it test different components of the system? how would i know if the motherboard is faulty?

[Wiggo]

Memtest86 tests both the memory and CPU/motherboard caches (it was probably me that mentioned this prog as I use it a lot) and if that didn't give you an error the just try my last suggestion before goin' back to my first. ;)
<center>:cheers:</center>

[RRinfo]

no errors... got stable for about a couple of hours... it was a record then it did it again. so i upped the voltage to 1.8v. didn't want to mess around with the memory because it would definitely be unstable. i thought that did the trick. reinstalled winxp. and ran fine for about one night. the next day, i was working and the system froze and rebooted. now it goes to winxp logo and flashes then reboots. i get an endless reboot. so i decided to just give up and get a different mobo. i ordered epox 8k5a2+. i read good reviews about this board. could this instability be a faulty CPU as well? RAM i guess is fine since it passed memtest. but then i was wondering if it could be a faulty ram? since i cna't get aggressive timings on my samsung pc2700 stick. thoughts? should i send the CPU back and get a different one? or test that with the new mobo i ordered?