P4P800 SE Reboot Crash

[Rick]

Just looking for some worldly knowledge out there. I just built a
P4P800 SE, 2.8g Prescott, with 1gig of Kingston KVR400X64C3AK2/1G.
Now I know that everyone will scream about Value Ram but I am not
looking to overclock the memory or processor. Here's the problem,
after about half an hour of Far Cry or Painkiller I crash to reboot,
not desktop but full reboot. Processor temp never over 125 deg F. and
have tried fans blowing directly on ram and M/B chipset. No diff.
Also tried swapping ram banks, no diff. Power supply is Antec 400
watt, Video is ATI 9500 Pro. I'm running out of warranty exchange time
and am very frustrated to say the least. Any brilliant ideas would be
appreciated.

Rick

 

[Navid]

Just looking for some worldly knowledge out there. I just built a
P4P800 SE, 2.8g Prescott, with 1gig of Kingston KVR400X64C3AK2/1G.
Now I know that everyone will scream about Value Ram but I am not
looking to overclock the memory or processor. Here's the problem,
after about half an hour of Far Cry or Painkiller I crash to reboot,
not desktop but full reboot. Processor temp never over 125 deg F. and
have tried fans blowing directly on ram and M/B chipset. No diff.
Also tried swapping ram banks, no diff. Power supply is Antec 400
watt, Video is ATI 9500 Pro. I'm running out of warranty exchange time
and am very frustrated to say the least. Any brilliant ideas would be
appreciated.

Rick

You may want to run memtest for a few hours (overnight to be sure) and make
sure you pass with no errors.
Then, you can be sure that it is not the memory.

If you pass, try prime95.

If you get errors, relax the memory timings.

Are you overclocking the graphics card?

 

[Art Simpson]

Rick wrote in message ...

Just looking for some worldly knowledge out there. I just built a
P4P800 SE, 2.8g Prescott, with 1gig of Kingston KVR400X64C3AK2/1G.
Now I know that everyone will scream about Value Ram but I am not
looking to overclock the memory or processor. Here's the problem,
after about half an hour of Far Cry or Painkiller I crash to reboot,
not desktop but full reboot. Processor temp never over 125 deg F. and
have tried fans blowing directly on ram and M/B chipset. No diff.
Also tried swapping ram banks, no diff. Power supply is Antec 400
watt, Video is ATI 9500 Pro. I'm running out of warranty exchange time
and am very frustrated to say the least. Any brilliant ideas would be
appreciated.

Rick

Since temperature is not an issue here 'apparently'; There might be
something with these 1Gig ram sticks.
I've got an P4P800Edlx 2.8C @ 3Ghz / 881Mhz FSB on Kingston Value Ram.
KVR400X64C3A/512 (two sticks)
DDR 400 QVL for ASUS P4P800 SE, P4P800 Deluxe/P4P800 Motherboards
http://uk.asus.com/products/mb/socket478/P4P800_DDR400_QVL.pdf

Although my model is listed; Yours is NOT.

(Here I installed in blue slots).
Even though mine is not a Prescott; overclocked or not; I hit 55C running
UT2003; Yet I can play all day if I want; Never crashed once. OS=Win200 Pro.
Radeon9800Pro.

You must be careful about memory settings though.
I recommend you not use the AI overclocking or even the slightest turbo mode.

The brilliant idea here is to suggest that RAM might still be your problem now.
Running Memtest should confirm an issue, but even if it passes but still crash;
Try 'relaxing' the ram speed..
It could be a number of things; including ATI drivers and specific game app you run.
OS related incompatibilities, or even an IDE device that is not properly configured.

Regards,
Art

 

[Homer]

If you are using XP make sure you check the error log in admin and see if
something caused the reboot. See if there is and error listed. I was having
strange problems with games because your system is under extreme load and
this is where you will see problems like this. I had a similar problem with
a system and it turned out to be my power supply. I just could not keep up
with the voltages under load. I use asus probe and played games and when I
went out of the game and looked at the graphs I could see my 3.3 dropping to
2.8 volts under gaming load. I bought a good 400 watt supply with dual fans
and goof amperage and my problems ended.

Homer

 

[Paul]

If you are using XP make sure you check the error log in admin and see if
something caused the reboot. See if there is and error listed. I was having
strange problems with games because your system is under extreme load and
this is where you will see problems like this. I had a similar problem with
a system and it turned out to be my power supply. I just could not keep up
with the voltages under load. I use asus probe and played games and when I
went out of the game and looked at the graphs I could see my 3.3 dropping to
2.8 volts under gaming load. I bought a good 400 watt supply with dual fans
and goof amperage and my problems ended.

Homer

Using Asus Probe or Motherboard Monitor, you can log temps and voltages
to a text file. The benefit of setting this up, is you can be
gaming, and your stats are gathered in the background for you.
The file is committed after every write, so if the computer crashes,
you can open the log file and look at the last few readings, to see
what voltages and temps existed at the point of crash. The fastest
write interval is every 10 seconds, so that is the best resolution
you can expect.

Sometimes you'll see something in the Event Viewer, of a driver problem
or the like, and then you can try some different versions of whatever
driver is crashing.

HTH,
Paul

 

[Rick]

Thankyou all for some good ideas. I have tried slowing down the
memory timing and no changes, I do have a Antec 400 watt power
supply. Looking at Asus probe and error logs is something I haven't
done. Good idea.

Apologies for posting a second message about this problem. I thought
my first didn't go through.

Rick

 

[Dick]

Could the memory need more voltage?

Thankyou all for some good ideas. I have tried slowing down the
memory timing and no changes, I do have a Antec 400 watt power
supply. Looking at Asus probe and error logs is something I haven't
done. Good idea.

Apologies for posting a second message about this problem. I thought
my first didn't go through.

Rick