Maximum PC

So I've been reading around and have yet to come across a clear answer. I am wanting to do a repair install for Windows 7, not a clean reinstall. As I understand, this should not reformat my hard drive, so all my files, documents, programs etc. should still be there. Now, does this make a Windows.old folder where all my current data is? Or does it leave my programs and files where they are now? Supposedly I should be able to use my programs right away after a repair, correct? Or would I have to reinstall them? I've seen both yes and no for this and so I'm unsure. I do have an extra drive to back up my old files just in case. Thanks!

Yes. All a repair install does is ensures all the core Windows files are hunky dory as they should've been.

Like LatiosXT said all it does is repair windows and your programs are all intact. You do not have to reinstall your programs, they will work fine just like before your system got corrupt.

There is a reason why this happened and you should make the effort to find it. It is usually a virus or bad ram or bad hard drive, sometimes the power supply will cause this as well.

Run memtest 86+ on your ram, one stick at a time. if you get even one error, RMA the ram. Most ram has a lifetime warranty.

Run the hard drives diagnostic software to see if it is failing. You can get the software for free from the hard drive manufacturer.

Nasty

I have AVG free and Malwarebytes, both run clean on full system scans. WD's HDD Diagnostic for my IDE drive comes up healthy, as does Seagate's Seatools for my SATA. I've run countless Memtests both from within Windows and from a USB boot, never an error (I've run it overnight multiple times). I've run that with both sticks installed as well as one at a time. In my other topic concerning the issues I'm having, we've pretty much ruled out hardware, so I'm hoping a repair of Windows could be a possible solution. I've already refreshed all my drivers and reseated hardware and the whole nine yards. It's one of those cases where every conceivable test comes up with a pass, everything runs fine under stressed conditions but the moment I try to play any newer games, they crash on me. Believe me, I've been spending as much possible time as I can trying to figure this out. I want to get this fixed sooner than later, but priority for me is college right now.

My gut instinct tells me power supply at this point tells me power supply. I've had too many "hardware failures" that were really bad power supplies.

Well, there was a case where I had bad RAM, but you wouldn't know until you put the computer in sleep mode and it wouldn't wake up. But otherwise passed Memtest just fine (My guess was the RAM didn't like being in a lower power state)

Well, my RAM hasn't done anything like that so far. I can leave my PC on for days without issue, but when I'm gaming, it'll randomly freeze. This also tells me I'm not having any memory leaks (or at least, it's highly unlikely).

I don't know of any software to test my PSU with, but I heard that there are some places that will test it for free (or low cost). I might look into that.

Go into the bios power section and you will find the voltage readings there, they should be 3, 5, and 12 volts + or - 5%. There is just one caveat, this is at idle and not under load like when playing a game. A PSU checker isn't any good unless it checks the psu under load...the 10 buck psu checkers are junk. Since your pc upchucks during high loads I would look into changing out the psu with a know good one. Borrow a friends or relatives to do this. LatiosXT mentioned this and I agree.

Have you changed out your drivers for the video card? If you did it wrong this issue could be the result of that.

Please keep us informed as to your progress.

You should list your specs and operating system each time you start a new post so we know what we a working with.

Nasty

Well, for my BIOS PSU moniter- 3.3V = 3.357V 5V = 5.145V 12V = 12.230V
So they are all actually a tiny bit higher than standard, not sure if that means anything or not.

I'll see if I can borrow one, I'm going back home for spring break and I know a couple people have desktops (the fun part is finding someone with a big enough PSU)

My bad! I'll make sure to do that from now on. Here ya go:

AMD Phenom ii x4 970BE
ASUS M5A88-V EVO Mobo
8GB G.Skill Ripjaw X (2x4GB)
HIS Radeon 6850 1GB
OCZ ZS Series 650W PSU 80+
SG Barracuda 500GB SATA II HDD (Primary, OS)
WD 200GB IDE HDD (used to be primary, now is backup drive)
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit

*oh, and I have this inside an NZXT Phantom 410 and one extra case fan, for a total of 4 case fans, one in front of the HDDs, one on top, one in the rear and one side panel fan.

Did you fully update the OS?

Do you have the latest BIOS, chipset driver, video driver and sound driver installed?

Did you uninstall the old drivers before installing the new drivers?

Nasty

Yes to all of those things.

The only thing left then is the psu making you drop out of games because the psu is breaking down under load. Change it out with a known good psu. Borrow a friends if you have to...better than buying one and finding out it isn't the issue.

Nasty

My system is similar to yours:
Phenom II 965
Radeon 6870
Antec 620 high current gamer power supply
Asus M5A88-V Evo board
8GB RAM (2X4) 1600Mhz Ripjaws

I have the same problem, completely random freezes when gaming. Less often I get random shutdowns while gaming. I've spent a ton of time googling this, running tests, trying out different voltages/timings/speed on memory, voltages on the cpu, cpu/nb, different PSU, nothing fixed it.

The one thing I did figure out was that if I went into the AMD vision control centre (video card settings) and lowered the CPU clock speed by one bar (in my case, from 3.4Ghz to 2.7Ghz), the problem disapeared. I had also played around with downclocking the video card, it didn't make a difference to the problem. Try downclocking your CPU using the same method just to see what happens.

Since I've already ruled out the PSU, the problem must be the CPU or the mobo, and I bet it's the mobo. Probably flaky capacitors or voltage regulators. Based on various forums I've read, it's doesn't seem to be an uncommon issue with the M5A88.

Mat3,

How did you rule out the psu? Try a different psu?....or just because it may be new it isn't the problem...not! I had a bad psu right out of the box, it caused all kinds of blue screens. It sounds like the psu you have in the system breaks down under heavy load and may not be of adequate amps to run the video card.

Nasty

I tried a different PSU before I ruled it out (first paragraph after system spec). In my case, everything was new and it was happening since day 1, so something was new and faulty, it just was't the PSU.

Bring your system back to spec...no overclocking at all. This may be heat related or one of the components is tossing errors because of the overclocking.

Nasty

PS...just thought of something, take the side cover off your pc and point a house-fan at the interior...run it on high and run a game or app that crashed before. If the system continues to run, you definitely have a heat problem.

I forgot to mention everything I had tried in my first post, but I had already tried the side cover off with a fan, it didn't help. Although I knew it was unlikely to be overheating. I kept a close eye on temps which all looked fine, plus it was just too random. I mean really random. Sometimes I can play for 3 or 4 hours, other times it'll lockup/shutdown after just a few minutes. Also updated video and sound drivers, bios updates, one stick of ram at a time, scandisk, etc. Everything at stock speeds.

On a different forum, someone with the exact same problem as me with the same motherboard fixed his problem by changing the motherboard. Anyways, I just wanted to add my thoughts in case a new PSU or windows repair doesn't fix the OP's random freezing.

How did you change the video driver, if you did it wrong, this could be your problem.

Nasty

It's set to notify me when there's an update (once a month I think), and I pretty much just let it install and do its thing. There shouldn't be any driver conflicts since the machine is clean, everything was new and that's the only video card ever installed in the machine. I think a driver problem would usually result in bluescreens that mention the driver, but not a full system lockup or shutdown. When it locks up, it is completely frozen. No hard drive activity, the caps/num lock on the keyboard is stuck on whatever it was before, and all activity in the windows event viewer is stopped until I reboot.

I don't think it's the video card or any driver/software problem, since the only way I've been able to have my system stable is to downclock the CPU. I had played around with downclocking the video card, but it had no effect on the lockups and shutdowns.

I didn't actually build the PC myself, it was a custom build by the store I ordered the parts from. One of the first things I did when I got it home was install my copy of Left 4 Dead and within 5 minutes it locked up. After rebooting, it was fine for the next hour or so until I quit the game. Every game I've tried causes lockups and shutdowns, though some games appear to trigger the problem more than others.

Have you tried running the games in XP sp3 mode?

Is this pc still under warranty?

If it is bring it back and tell them the issues you are having since you bought the machine.

Have you run memtest86+ on each stick of ram to see if the ram is tossing errors?

Did you run the hard drives diagnostic on the hard drive? You can get it from the hard drives web site.

Nasty

Most of the games I've played are recent games, developed primarily with Vista and Win7 in mind, so this shouldn't be necessary. I haven't tried it.



Kind of a long story. Because they built it, I have a one year warranty. I took it back about a month after getting it. They couldn't duplicate it, but I think you really have to play games to make it happen. Artificial tests like Prime95, Intel Burn Test, etc don't seem to trigger it. Since it's random, who knows for sure though, could just be fluke or not on long enough. And of course, they aren't playing games like normal. It seems they try to trigger the problem with stress tests and/or leaving the game on but not actually playing.
Anyways, I ended up taking it home and hoped I could figure it out myself but that got me no where. Recently I took it back again. They agreed to switch the PSU temporarily with one they had in the back. I took the machine home but different PSU was no help.
Now they will RMA the mobo for me and put in a new one once they get it on hand. Unfortunately, they don't want to let me get a different make/model and to be honest I have no confidence in this Asus product. Chances are it's a problematic board, based on a lot of Googling. But I'll see how this goes once they put it in.



I ran memtest overnight and it passed, but not the one on bootup so not all the ram was tested. But the shop said they tested it and it was OK.


No, but I ran the windows scandisk which came back OK. Since CPU downclock is the only thing that's worked, and with the PSU ruled out, it's got to be the mobo or the CPU itself.