[aznmidude]

Wow, the problems just don't stop with this one... In the past few min, it has now restarted itself, and then it froze after a few min of windows use. Should I continue with the memtest? Btw, am I only burning either the .gz or the .zip? or both files onto the same cd or what? Sorry if I'm asking so many questions, this computer is really annoying me.

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Wow, the problems just don't stop with this one... In the past few min, it has now restarted itself, and then it froze after a few min of windows use. Should I continue with the memtest? Btw, am I only burning either the .gz or the .zip? or both files onto the same cd or what? Sorry if I'm asking so many questions, this computer is really annoying me.

Just the zip file and it should have a file insde of it, I think an iso file. That is the file you will burn using a program like ImgBurn . My favorite free image burning software, but you can use any software you may have such as Nero. Iso file are also called image files, they contain a bit by bit copy of the layout of the disk.

I would download this one, burn it to a cd using the program I mentioned or your burning program. Then boot your computer from the CD you created.

No problem on the number of questions. I would rather you ask me as many questions as you can, rather than make an assumption that could make things worth. Cheers and good luck man, I know first hand how frustrating this can be.

[PedroDaGR8]

Wow, the problems just don't stop with this one... In the past few min, it has now restarted itself, and then it froze after a few min of windows use. Should I continue with the memtest? Btw, am I only burning either the .gz or the .zip? or both files onto the same cd or what? Sorry if I'm asking so many questions, this computer is really annoying me.

Just the zip file and it should have a file insde of it, I think an iso file. That is the file you will burn using a program like ImgBurn . My favorite free image burning software, but you can use any software you may have such as Nero. Iso file are also called image files, they contain a bit by bit copy of the layout of the disk.

I would download this one, burn it to a cd using the program I mentioned or your burning program. Then boot your computer from the CD you created.

No problem on the number of questions. I would rather you ask me as many questions as you can, rather than make an assumption that could make things worth. Cheers and good luck man, I know first hand how frustrating this can be.

[aznmidude]

Ok, I dled the file, burned the iso file onto a CD and ran it on the computer... except when I told it to boot from CD, it tried and instead of loading memtest, it booted windows... I'm not sure what went wrong here. I changed in the bios for first boot option to CD-ROM. I do have two drives but under the bios, I only saw one CD-ROM so I chose that one. Any ideas?

[123Runner]

An iso file needs to be bootable. Did you just copy (burn) it to the CD or did you use the program and burn it as a bootable CD.

I have not tried imgburn so I wont comment on it, I use Burncdcc (in my signature).

[aznmidude]

I used Imgburn and copied the image (iso) onto the CD. There wasn't an option then to "burn as a bootable CD".

[PedroDaGR8]

I used Imgburn and copied the image (iso) onto the CD. There wasn't an option then to "burn as a bootable CD".

In ImgBurn it isn't called "burn as a bootable CD", it is just Burn image file to disc, the iso already has all of the files inside of it needed to boot and intiate the program.

I found an excellent ImgBurn tutorial from UNC. If you go to this page and scoll about half way down the page. There is a topic called "How to Burn an ISO using ImgBurn". It gives detailed instructions, with pictures, on how to burn an iso file to a CD. If you followed these instructions exactly, maybe the disc was bad or the iso file was corrupt. I advise you download the iso from here. Unzip it, and follow the aforementioned instructions and try burning it to a new CD.

The biggest thing is make sure you choose the Burn image file to disc, NOT Write files/folders to disc. The latter will not create a bootable disc, whereas the former will.

Edited by PedroDaGR8, 04 December 2008 - 03:54 PM.

[aznmidude]

So I managed to run the program once for an evening so far, but nothing has turned up. It got through "first pass" or something and found no errors yet. I'll keep it running overnight for now, but it doesn't look like there's anything.

[aznmidude]

Alright, it's been running since last night now, and still there are no errors. Should I keep running it?

[123Runner]

You can stop the memtest

Where do we stand?
Work the computer as you normally would and let us know how you make out.

Edited by 123Runner, 05 December 2008 - 02:07 PM.

[aznmidude]

So far it has been running fine. The last problem I had with it was the spontaneous restart and sudden freezing. The problem where the computer kept restarting itself was, not fixed but made better, after I turned my CPU fan higher. Also, I've kept my room temp reasonably normal (70-75F) so I haven't seen the problem of it shutting down after a few seconds of being booted up in a cold room. Memtest results were negative. I haven't had a chance to run the powersupply program yet. Physically, the mobo seems to look fine, nothing grossly deformed/melted; but then again I'm not really trained to see problems with the mobo. Anything else I should be looking at?

[aznmidude]

I just ran Everest Free for the PS voltage values...

Voltage Values:
CPU Core 1.68 V
Aux 1.68 V
+3.3 V 3.23 V
+5 V 4.41 V
+12 V 12.03 V
-12 V -11.95 V
-5 V -4.53 V
Debug Info F 5A 7F FF
Debug Info T 35 21 255
Debug Info V 69 69 CB A4 BB BC BC (01)

Well, it seems like the 2nd and 5th values are a little more deviated than the others... is that deviation enough to be worried? I'm also thinking about possibly upgrading my system, is my system in need of a big upgrade?

[PedroDaGR8]

I just ran Everest Free for the PS voltage values...

Voltage Values:
CPU Core 1.68 V
Aux 1.68 V
+3.3 V 3.23 V
+5 V 4.41 V
+12 V 12.03 V
-12 V -11.95 V
-5 V -4.53 V
Debug Info F 5A 7F FF
Debug Info T 35 21 255
Debug Info V 69 69 CB A4 BB BC BC (01)

Well, it seems like the 2nd and 5th values are a little more deviated than the others... is that deviation enough to be worried? I'm also thinking about possibly upgrading my system, is my system in need of a big upgrade?

I hate to say it but motherboard voltage monitoring is HORRIBLE at best.
I have motherboards report my 5V line as being 3.9, which using a DMM were within .01 of spec. You just can't trust the values the motherboard reports. Instead use a DMM to check the PSU wires itself to find out their voltages. There is a lot of speculation on why this is (not enough circuit space for good v-meters, the monitoring points are known to be higher or lower than the real voltage and are not a proper place to get a measurement but are the only place that space was available etc.)

[aznmidude]

I'm not sure if I want to invest in one of those, whatever it is, because I feel like I might try to upgrade the computer sometime in the future. Are there any other things I can check or improvements I can try to make? The comp still has the problem of not booting all the way when the room is cold(er).

I also started another thread about upgrading my comp here:

http://www.geekstogo...60#entry1394460

If anyone has feedback or recommendations, please let me know. Thanks again!

[PedroDaGR8]

I'm not sure if I want to invest in one of those, whatever it is, because I feel like I might try to upgrade the computer sometime in the future. Are there any other things I can check or improvements I can try to make? The comp still has the problem of not booting all the way when the room is cold(er).

I also started another thread about upgrading my comp here:

http://www.geekstogo...60#entry1394460

If anyone has feedback or recommendations, please let me know. Thanks again!

DMM's are cheap, I got one from Harbor Freight for around $4 and I have seen them go as low as $1 before at harbor freight. Now it isn't some earth shatteringly precise device but it does what we need it to do when checking voltages. Off the top of my head, I can't think of anything for other things to check.

[123Runner]

You can also check voltages and temps in most bios's.
MBM (mother board monitor) in my signature is another good tool to check temps and voltages.
We have found that between the bios and the monitoring programs, there is not much differance. They all report fairly close, otherwise we would not recommend them.

If you want to know exactly, then a meter is the best, buit if you do not know how to use 1 then it could be a disaster, esp when you do not ground yourself or the meter or touch the wrong contacts.
You have to know what you are doing.