Hey y'all,
I'm losing my mind. I am trying to figure out what part of my computer is dead, if any at all.
I have:
Gigabyte EP45C-DS3
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400
Corsair H60 Water Cooling
G.Skill PC26400 DDR2 2x2GB
OR
"AMD Performance" (Built by Patriot) PC3-12800 2x2GB
eVGA GeForce 550ti
OR
eVGA GeForce 8600GTS
1 TB Western Digital Caviar Black
older 250 GB Western Digital
Zalman Z9 Plus case
Corsair TX750
OR
Rocketfish 500W PSU
OR
XION 500W PSU
Problem: Computer used to boot with the 550 ti. Then it started acting funny. Then it would take a few attempts or the room would have to be warmed up first. Then I thought the video card was done for. I would troubleshoot by putting the 8600GTS in and voila, the computer would always boot. Hell, the 8600 has literally never once failed to POST in any configuration of RAM (1 stick, 2 stick, ddr2, ddr3) in all my few months of troubleshooting this issue.
The motherboard was bought "refurbished" over ebay from China because they don't make lga775 boards anymore and I didn't want a friend's E8400 to go lonely. I would think the motherboard is the obvious candidate for being the weak link but its flawless performance when it DID post the 550ti as well as the completely rock solid performance hosting the 8600 GTS (even overclocking the 3.0ghz cpu to 3.6 via a 400mhz FSB that also ran the newest DDR3 RAM at 1600mhz) makes me think it is not the mobo. I mean, a dead mobo stays dead right? It doesn't work error free for weeks and months?
My most recent fix for posting the 550ti and the DDR2 g.skill was boot in to the bios with the 8600 in and I volted the ram to the rated 1.9v and voila. Ran for a week perfectly. I would just sleep the pc at night and it would literally play Mechwarrior Online for weeks.
Then I installed Hawken and it forced a reboot on my pc and it's back to dead land.
TL;DR: All configurations of RAM will post the 8600 100% of the time. Voodoo tricks are required to post the 550ti in all configurations (1 stick, 2 stick, red stick, blue stick) but when it does I can stress it for hours and weeks with no crashes, no graphical glitches, no temperature spikes. Nothing! Sometimes I would get it to post by just moving the RAM around.
Wouldn't a grounding fault effect it all the time? Wouldn't a dead video card still at least post to **** graphics? That's what happened to my 8800GT when it died. There is no way the 750w corsair psu can't handle a stupid core 2 and a 550. Thing's built for SLI!
I don't know what to do. Would volting the mobo, like the ich, higher help? I just want to play some damn Mechwarrior.
It's possible the 550 was slowly dying but the fan spins and when it works it works like a dream. I haven't been able to put it in another pc to test it.
I'm losing my mind. I am trying to figure out what part of my computer is dead, if any at all.
I have:
Gigabyte EP45C-DS3
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400
Corsair H60 Water Cooling
G.Skill PC26400 DDR2 2x2GB
OR
"AMD Performance" (Built by Patriot) PC3-12800 2x2GB
eVGA GeForce 550ti
OR
eVGA GeForce 8600GTS
1 TB Western Digital Caviar Black
older 250 GB Western Digital
Zalman Z9 Plus case
Corsair TX750
OR
Rocketfish 500W PSU
OR
XION 500W PSU
Problem: Computer used to boot with the 550 ti. Then it started acting funny. Then it would take a few attempts or the room would have to be warmed up first. Then I thought the video card was done for. I would troubleshoot by putting the 8600GTS in and voila, the computer would always boot. Hell, the 8600 has literally never once failed to POST in any configuration of RAM (1 stick, 2 stick, ddr2, ddr3) in all my few months of troubleshooting this issue.
The motherboard was bought "refurbished" over ebay from China because they don't make lga775 boards anymore and I didn't want a friend's E8400 to go lonely. I would think the motherboard is the obvious candidate for being the weak link but its flawless performance when it DID post the 550ti as well as the completely rock solid performance hosting the 8600 GTS (even overclocking the 3.0ghz cpu to 3.6 via a 400mhz FSB that also ran the newest DDR3 RAM at 1600mhz) makes me think it is not the mobo. I mean, a dead mobo stays dead right? It doesn't work error free for weeks and months?
My most recent fix for posting the 550ti and the DDR2 g.skill was boot in to the bios with the 8600 in and I volted the ram to the rated 1.9v and voila. Ran for a week perfectly. I would just sleep the pc at night and it would literally play Mechwarrior Online for weeks.
Then I installed Hawken and it forced a reboot on my pc and it's back to dead land.
TL;DR: All configurations of RAM will post the 8600 100% of the time. Voodoo tricks are required to post the 550ti in all configurations (1 stick, 2 stick, red stick, blue stick) but when it does I can stress it for hours and weeks with no crashes, no graphical glitches, no temperature spikes. Nothing! Sometimes I would get it to post by just moving the RAM around.
Wouldn't a grounding fault effect it all the time? Wouldn't a dead video card still at least post to **** graphics? That's what happened to my 8800GT when it died. There is no way the 750w corsair psu can't handle a stupid core 2 and a 550. Thing's built for SLI!
I don't know what to do. Would volting the mobo, like the ich, higher help? I just want to play some damn Mechwarrior.
It's possible the 550 was slowly dying but the fan spins and when it works it works like a dream. I haven't been able to put it in another pc to test it.
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