Help... crashing

[brjoon1021]

I am getting system crashes back to that green Asus nforce screen that you see during boot up. And/or I am getting internet explorer “has encountered errors…will close” or internet explorer just locks up along with everything else… no response at all. Help. My system and settings:

-A7N8X deluxe. 1002 bios
-Athlon XP tbred B 2100 oc'd to 180x11.5, vcore 1.65v
-OCZ el DDR 3500 2x256 2-2-2-6, DDR voltage 2.7v, using slots 2,3
-9700 all in wonder , AGP voltage 1.6v , 128 aperture
-floppy, DVD-ROM, CD -RW,
-three maxtor hard drives (which are not doing anything, one has a swap file , I think) JBOD, not RAID
-WD 80 gig caviar hard drive. Boot and everything drive.
-windows XP home all updates
-Vantec Stealth 420 power supply.

*** the bios shows the following power supply rails/voltages
+3v = 3.26v
+5v = 4.73 - 4.75v (low, is 4 hard disks with power hungry video card the cause ?)
+12v = 12.16v

For CPU cooling I have a Ahanix Iceberg - a basic beginner water cooling setup that seems to be about like a really good air cooling getup. the hottest temperature that I have seen on the CPU according to the BIOS is 91 F. Doesn't seem to be CPU issue.
--- I am new to overclocking and am accordingly doing something wrong. Can you help ? It seems that the CPU should be able to go over 11.5 X 180, right ? This memory should breeze at 180 FSB, Right ? 420 watt PSU should be enough, right ? What am I missing ? If it is really obvious, remember that I am new to this. My hunch is that a memory stick is not living up to its claim. Or, I am overburdening the PSU with too many things attached to it - 6 drives total - 4 HD and 1 CD, 1 DVD. That is why I bought an expensive power supply. As far as crashes go... I have also had crashes to blue screen, but not in a while. Lately they have been crashes from Win XP back to the startup - that green nforce2 or whatever screen that pops up momentarily during boot up or the internet explorer error/lockups. Can my system problem be characterized as memory or CPU or PSU by the kind of crash ?
THX, Bill

[Cricket]

Does your system run stable at stock speeds? Try setting it back and see what happens. What happens at lower FSB speeds?

I've heard that OCZ RAM is pretty lame stuff. You might want to try Mushkin or Corsair RAM instead.

WinXP will restart when it encounters errors unless you disable this function. Go to System Properties and look under the Advanced Settings > Startup and Recovery and uncheck the Restart On Error option.

That power supply is fine and will provide power easily to that system.

Clean out your Windows Temp folders.

Have you scanned for viruses, spyware and trojans?

Cricket

[brjoon1021]

1. scanned for viruses, spyware, don't know how to scan for trojans
2. What about the 4.73v, isn't that way low ?
- like I said, I have four hard disks and the DVD Rom and a CD burner. Is that too many devices ? Is their a way that they should be connected to the PSU, i.e. an order or so many devices on one power line or... ? Also, the power supply manufacturer (Vantec) said that my 9700 AIW video card is really demanding. They sent me a modified power supply to run with my card - a known issue. I am having more problems now. Still way below 5v

[Cricket]

Originally posted by brjoon1021 1. scanned for viruses, spyware, don't know how to scan for trojans

You need a dedicated trojan scanner like The Cleaner by Moosoft.

Originally posted by brjoon1021 2. What about the 4.73v, isn't that way low ?

Sorry, I didn't see that part of your post. Yes, that's real low and a low 5 volt rail usually causes all sorts of power problems. That low rating isn't caused by having lots of drives installed since the drives use the 12 volt rail. The low rail is due to the power supply itself having a problem. Do you have another power supply you can swap in to test with?

Originally posted by brjoon1021 like I said, I have four hard disks and the DVD Rom and a CD burner. Is that too many devices ?

No...even a good quality 300 watt power supply could handle that many drives.

Originally posted by brjoon1021 Is their a way that they should be connected to the PSU, i.e. an order or so many devices on one power line or... ?

One rule of thumb is don't use any Y-splitters on the power line feeding the main hard drive. I usually connect the main hard drive to it's own power connector by itself and then connect the other drives with the other power connectors.

Originally posted by brjoon1021 Also, the power supply manufacturer (Vantec) said that my 9700 AIW video card is really demanding. They sent me a modified power supply to run with my card - a known issue. I am having more problems now. Still way below 5v

I'm not sure how good the Vantec power supplies are...I tend to use Sparkle Power or Antec power supplies. You may want to consider a Fortron Source power supply as it did really well in a recent comparison review over at Tom's Hardware...provides really clean, stable power.

Have you clocked the system back? Overclocking can cause instability as well as file corruption.

Do you have other RAM you can swap in?

Cricket