PC problems and big hammers

[solar]

Hi guys, sorry to bother you but i'm slowly going mad here...  I bought some new components to build myself a PC, put everything together, installed windows and got my hands on all the recent drivers; windows works fine, but whenever I try and run Morrowind or WoW (The only 2 games I've been testing the system with) the system hangs within about 15 seconds of booting the games up

This is the spec anyway:

• Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ S939 512KB
• Memory: CRUCIAL 2x1GB 184DIMM PC3200 Non-ECC
• Motherboard: ASUS S939 nForce4 SLI X16 ATX A L R
• Graphics Card: GIGABYTE GF6600GT 256MB PCIE SLI
• Power Unit: 550W
• Hard Drive: SEAGATE Barracuda 7200.9 120GB S300 x2
• Sound Card: CREATIVE SoundBlaster X-Fi Elite Pro
• DVD/CD Rom: LGIT DVD+-R/RW/RAM 16x USB2 Retail
• DVD/CD Rom: SONY CD-RW/DVD 52x32x52x16x OEM Blk

OS: One HD has Windows x64 on it, the other has Windows XP


So I've been slowly working out what isn't wrong with the system
1) Disabled the onboard sound card and the X-Fi
2) Unplugged all IDE devices
3) Got a 550w Power Unit
4) Tried single memory sticks and i'm currently running MemTest (no errors so far)
5) Have the memory sticks in the correct sockets from the motherboard instructions.  The memory is supported by the board but is not on the list of qualified vendors.
6) Not sure if it's the graphics card as the WoW introduction runs fine.
7) The motherboard and processor are compatible, alot of people from the AMD forums have their systems working fine with those 2 components, also downloaded WinLauncher to force the game to run on one processor and move all the background tasks to the other processor.

So essentially everything seems to work, but I can't play games in either OS and I'm rapidly running out of options to get the system working properly.  Anyone got any bright ideas?

[Naaman]

What's the cooling like in the case is my first guess...

Side off and point a desk fan in there

Next thing to try if cooling appears OK is  to grab Memtest86 and loop that overnight

Check the BIOS to see if it's got a 'normal' and 'aggressive' mode - set it to normal

Try disabling the sound card (Control Panel > System > Hardware > Device >Device Manager)

Tha's the first lot of stuff to try

[solar]

The chip temp is 39 degrees which is well within workable limits.  I ran memtest for a few hours yesterday and couldn't find any problems and I've had the sound card disabled until I get the rest working.  Also ran the some seagate tools and the hard drives have no errors on them, and after finally upgrading the SATA drivers it seems to have got rid of almost all of the instability.

But in the event viewer in the admin tools I get a load of DCOM errors when I use the hard drives (handy)  this means nothing to me tho 

So althought it's almost working I still can't do much with it atm, typical eh? 

[Naaman]

From the MS website

These DCOM error messages are benign, and you can ignore them. As noted in the "Cause" section of this article, do not change your DCOM settings to prevent these error messages from being logged.

[solar]

I've decided to send the memory back.  Despite memmaker not throwing up any errors, the memory isn't running at the correct bus speed.   Other working systems I've seen have the same motherboard, chip, sound card and HDs, so it seems unlikely that those are causing the instability.  I might as well replace the next expensive component first     

Thanks for spending some time to try and help, I appreciate it.  Will let you know in 4-6 weeks what happens...    Damn this dabs return policy 

[solar]

So much for that plan, the memory provider claims that the memory I have works fine with the board 
I'm running out of ideas now as to what might be wrong

[Twylyte]

have you checked that the graphics card works on Wow?
I had quite a popular card that turned out not to work - the same thing happened to me (it hangs before it logs on).

Also have you set up the card correctly - is it getting power (yours needs a discrete internal power cable - dosn';t it??).

Your mother board is verey similar to mine so looking at the other hardware everything should be fine.

Try sending your hardware profile to Wow tech support.

Sorry to hear about the problems Solar - sounds grim and I know how irritating all this can be.

When I contacted Wow tech they said that graphics cards were the most common problem and  there's a support function on their site for this if that helps.

Sorry I can't be more useful.

[solar]

After going through a load of specs of working systems, they all seem to have either a X1800XL
or 7800GT/GTX graphics card - so my current graphics card looks like the problem.  Just a shame that to send it back to exchange it will cost me a few weeks and a couple of hundred quid.  Now, do I miss the lag in Ironforge that much?... 

[JohnO]

Sounds similar to the problem I had with my new PC, have you tested the CPU itself ?
e.g. run Prime95 for 20 mins or so

[judgejoolz]

I had this exact same problem and traced it back to my graphics card, or more accurately the power lead from the PSU to the graphics card.  It's VERY easy to plug the wrong power cable into the card itself.

Give yourself plenty of room and light to work in, then trace the power cable running from your PSU into the graphics card.  I'll bet you loads'a wonga that you've got A power cable plugged in, but not THE dedicated power cable that's been reserved for graphics cards only.

After switching the cables around my system worked a treat and hasn't hung since.

[solar]

I'll bet you loads'a wonga that you've got A power cable plugged in, but not THE dedicated power cable that's been reserved for graphics cards only.

I'll take that bet... is now a good time to say that my current graphics card doesn't have an onboard port for power?     Nice thought tho, would've been good just to plug in a cable and get it all working again 

On the plus side, prime95 returned no errors after running it for a few hours even tho I was copying music and net surfing at the same time.  So the chip seems fine 

[Zephyr]

Was gonna post something completley unconstructive but decided not to

Hurry up willya? No lag in IF at the moment sure its cos you aint spamming chat

[Carthis]

I used to have crashing issues in Battlefield 2, and the only way I could fix this was to set the AGP aperture down to 4x.  I realise this isn't much help with an SLi system, but is there an equivalent setting in your BIOS perhaps?

Just a thought.

[solar]

Hurry up willya? No lag in IF at the moment sure its cos you aint spamming chat

Oh i miss that spam mod for ass selling...please make my pc work soon.... 

[Julica]

Hurry up willya? No lag in IF at the moment sure its cos you aint spamming chat

Oh i miss that spam mod for ass selling...please make my pc work soon.... 

I bet,now get that bloody box working and join us torturing Zephyr again like in the good old days,Mind Flay anyone ?