First computer build pretty successful - Thanks!

[Gramps44]

Well, my daughter and I, built her PC this week and all went relatively smooth. Many thanks to all on this forum with their generous help and advice, whether to me directly or to others from which valuable knowledge was gained.

Most all our problems we had were mechanical in nature and gave us a good laugh once we figured them out, like putting the slide rails on the DVD drive reversed and trying to fit it in the case. Or not realizing the hard drive cage had removable carriers which makes installation a breeze when figured out, but not so easy an installation without removing the carriers. I never gave the case portion of building a PC much thought, but should have!

The only odd thing that happened was on the very first post I was looking through The BIOS at various settings when everything froze. I hadn’t changed anything except the CPU fan to “Always on” from “Auto”, and made the CD drive the first boot drive. I had to turn off the computer and re-post, but it would not post. The fans started up for a few seconds and then shut down, re-start, shut down, it kept cycling. I felt the heat sinks and they were not even warm so I ruled out temperature. I cleared the BIOS by jumping the two pins as learned here, and it re-posted to the BIOS. I again started looking through all the menus without changing anything and again it froze up. Upon restarting the same on/off cycling occurred and would not post. This time I removed the battery and waited a few minutes as learned here, re-installed the battery and it then posted again. Changed only the CPU fan to always on again and the CD drive to first bootable and this time it did not freeze up. Left it on for about a half hour and everything seemed ok. Proceeded to load Vista and Office which went without a hitch. I’ve not had a problem since booting into Vista or any freeze up except when running the built-in Microsoft memory diagnostic which when finished and self re-booted reported no errors found but froze up windows. On re-boot I kept getting a blue screen full of a message I could not read because it went by so fast but essentially it would not load windows. I finally used F11 to load into a boot selector I guess it’s called and got into safe mode. Re-booted again, and this time could get back to the normal OS. No problems since on several re-boots, but at this time I would definitely not recommend Microsoft’s Memory Diagnostic in Vista. It reported no problems with the memory (2 Gigs) but the reason I used it was trying to find a reason for the original posting problems. Does anyone know or care to venture an opinion on the posting problem? Anyway, the computer seems to be running fine right now. I’m sure I will have more questions later on setting various things in the BIOS and asking what they mean. Thanks again to this forum for all the invaluable advice. Hopefully someone else may derive some benefit from my experience so far.

[minsonngo]

You can download memtest from memtest.org and run a diagnostic on the memory modules.

If it starts to freeze again... try leaving in only one stick at a time and see if the problem occurs with a particular stick. If so... that stick could be faulty.


What are your system specifications by the way?

[Panama Red]

Might be helpful to list your components so we can better offer opinions without looking for your old build thread. Have you checked temps and voltages with your mobo monitoring program?

[Duffasaurus]

Glad to hear everything turned out in your favor. It's really not that hard if you just do all your homework-and it sounds like you did just that.

[minsonngo]

You said the system blue screened... go into system properties... click on the advanced tab... under startup and recovery... uncheck "automatically restart" under system failure... if it blue screens again... you will be able to see the error message and you can post it on here.

[Gramps44]

Well took minsonngo's advice and downloaded memtest and found one faulty stick (of 2), I think. Not sure at all how to read the Memtest screen, but alot of red showed up on one stick and none on the other (1 gig each). I am returning to Newegg but have to get the same replacement, refund not an option any longer. I forgot the build specs in the original long post, here they are:

Gigabyte p965-S3 Mobo
Intel E6600 Duo2 CPU
G-Skill PC2-6400 2 Gig Memory
Seagate 320Gig SATA HDD
XFX 7600GS Video card
MadDog DVD/CD Burner Optical drive
Antec SonataII Case w/ 450 watt Smart Drive (?) PS

Panama Red:
I have checked the CPU temp - 32c
I don't know where to check the voltages but the BIOS is on auto (detect) for almost everything relating to voltages (cpu and memory).
I'm reluctant to load anything from the Gigabyte CD because I read somewhere that one of the programs (I don't remember which one) installed as a boot program that was near impossible to uninstall and was a pain to use. I'll probably have to try to find that info again. I did install CPU-Z and found it odd that it reported the CPU as running at 6x 266Mhz bus while the BIOS showed 9x 266Mhz which it should be I believe (2.4 Ghz). Anyway, I've got to get the memory squared away first.

[blue60007]

The screen should tell you how many errors there are. If there are any errors on a stick it's got a problem. If you bought the memory as a dual channel kit (two packaged together) you'll have to return both.

Make sure the memory voltage is set correctly...but if only one stick is throwing errors than I'd tend to think one is defective and not because it's not getting voltage (both should throw errors in that case). You didn't specify exactly what memory you have, but check the specs to see what it says. I checked Newegg and a lot say 1.9V to 2.0V. You could try changing the voltage from auto to 1.9V or 2.0V and see if that helps.

The CPU speed discrepancy is OK. The Core 2 Duo's will clock down by lowering the multiplier (from 9x to 6x) (and lower voltage) when not under heavy usage to reduce heat and power usage. Fire up something intensive and you should see it jump up to the right settings.

[Cricket]

Congrats on the near successful completion of your first computer! Once you get the replacement stick of RAM you should be able to call it a true success.

Did you install the motherboard chipset and other on-board device drivers from the motherboard CD? You must install those.

Cricket

[Gramps44]

Thanks for the info Blue60007, makes me feel better!

Cricket: I did not do that. I guess I'll have to bite the bullet with the Gigabyte CD. Thanks.