Very pleased with my new PC

[Dave159]

Hi all,

I think PCSpecialist are really fantastic.
But I have a problem with my second hard disk showing up.
Also not showing in disk management.
The second disk, which is a caviar green, looks connected.
Its as if it doesn't exist or may be its faulty.
assume it was tested but got damaged in transit.
I've looked on the net but really haven't a clue.

Dave159

 

[vanthus]

Have a look in bios settings to make sure the drive is enabled,failing that check the cable connections to the drive are fully home,also check the sata cable hasn't come loose from the motherboard.

 

[Dave159]

Thanks vanthus!,

Every things ok. It was the sata cable. It looked ok but it needed a 1/8 inch push into the drive.

Dave

 

[vanthus]

Thanks vanthus!,

Every things ok. It was the sata cable. It looked ok but it needed a 1/8 inch push into the drive.

Dave

Excellent,

 

[Dave159]

Hi Vanthus!

Everything was ok until i installed several applications. I've had several BSOD and had to roll back to the time I recieved my pc.
Rolling back made it seem stable. ( I've gone through this sequence 3 times of rolling back and installing) Until i installed other programs. Now, even rolling back doesn't help. If i can start windows, rebooting
goes into a BSOD. I notice rebooting starts with one beep and shutting down also beeps once, may be this is normal?

If i can find out how to use memtest, that will be my next task. One program which caused a BSOD was LuxRender. I've had the 32-bit version run on my old dell without problems.

I don't plan to over clock anything, but i have the oppotunity to do so with my system one day. But if i do it won't be very much.
i have fast memory installed, may be its needs more voltage according to the web. But, i am a beginner when it comes to computer fault finding. Normally when the system got currupted with my old dell, rolling back solved the problem.


Dave

 

[vanthus]

BSOD's can be caused by hardware or software,no harm in running memtest,
but in your case I think it could be a software problem.
If the memory is ok I would try a clean install.

 

[Dave159]

I managed to get into windows to test the memory using the memtest windows version.

My screen filled up with "Memory error detected" dialogs.
a tipical dialog would be "memory errors between 1eba54a and 1eba305" and there was more than a hundred.
Then the PC crashed with a blue screen. I estimate the test was about 15% of memory tested at the time.


Case COOLERMASTER SILEO 500 QUIET MID TOWER CASE
Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-3770K (3.5GHz) 8MB Cache
Motherboard ASUS® P8Z77-V PRO: PCI-E 3.0 READY,WIFI, SLI, CROSSFIREX
Memory (RAM) 16GB KINGSTON HYPERX GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 2133MHz X.M.P(4 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card 2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 560 Ti - 2 DVI,HDMI,VGA - 3D Vision Ready
2nd Graphics Card NONE
3rd Graphics Card NONE
Memory - 1st Hard Disk 1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
2nd Hard Disk 1TB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD10EARX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE
RAID NONE
SSD CACHE DRIVE NONE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 12x BLU-RAY RE-WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW (£79)
2nd DVD/BLU-RAY Drive NONE
Memory Card Reader NONE
Power Supply CORSAIR 750W PRO SERIES™ HX750-80 PLUS® SILVER MODULAR (£116)
Processor Cooling TITAN FENRIR EVO EXTREME HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£39)
Fan Controller NONE
Sound Card Creative Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ Titanium (£59)
Network Facilities 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options 6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Modem NONE, I WILL BE USING BROADBAND
Floppy Disk Drive NONE
Firewire & Video Editing NONE
TV Card NONE
Operating System Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£109)
Office Software NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Monitor NONE
2nd Monitor NONE
DVI-D & HDMI Monitor Cables NONE
Eyefinity / GeForce 3D Vision NONE
Keyboard & Mouse NONE
Mouse NONE
Speakers NONE
Webcam NONE
Headsets (VOIP) NONE
Surge Protection NONE
Cable Tidy NONE
Printer NONE
External Hard Drive NONE
Warranty 3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Home Installation NONE
Data Recovery NONE
Delivery STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Wattage
Maximum Required Power 489W



Dave

 

[vanthus]

Could be a faulty memory stick,you could try testing them one at a time,
It might not make any difference but have you xmp(extreme memory profile) enabled in bios settings.
if it's a voltage problem like you mentioned I'm not sure how to tackle that.
If none of that helps & no further suggestions are offered here,best call tech support.

 

[Buzz]

Can you go into your BIOS and check what version you are running. Tap Del key as the computer boots, prior to windows logo screen.

Once in the BIOS look at the top of the screen for BIOS Version. If it is earlier then Version 1015, it maybe Version 0801 or Version 0906. If so the new BIOS for that MB is out and improves memory stability, I would suggest updating this..

To do that.

1st download P8Z77-V_PRO BIOS to a new folder on your desktop and extract the files.

2nd download AISuite_II_V10229 to same folder, extract and install all components.

3rd Run Aisuite and click update and select Asus update. Select update Bios from file and click next and point it to the BIOS file you just downloaded to desktop. Continue with onscreen instructions. You maybe required to restart more then once.

Once the Bios has updated and restarts have occurred

4th Run Aisuite again, and select tool, Turbo Evo, Auto tuning, Extreme. Click start, again your comp will restart sometimes twice at this point.

After restart once again restart the computer, and go back into the Bios. Top right you should see Advanced settings. Go in there and click on Ai Tweaker. If you have the option of multicore enhancement there disable it. Then press F10 to save and restart.

See if that helps.

 

[Dave159]

Vanthus I changed the memory frequency from 1333 to 2133 but still get memory errors. Is there a enable or disable setting for xmp(extreme memory profile)?
If I have to, what is the best way of removing and inserting memory modules? The only PC that I've
ever open up, is my new PC from PC specialist and I've had a few in the past. It just shows what I know about the inside of a PC lol.

Thanks Buzz! anything is worth a try.

Dave159

 

[vanthus]

I think changing the frequency to 2133 is the same as enabling xmp depending on what motherboard you have though I'm not sure about that,wont make any difference anyway if you have faulty ram.
If your not confident going into the case maybe best phone tech support to talk you through it,
or they may offer some other solution.
Thats if what Buzz suggested doesn't do the trick.

 

[Dave159]

I memtested about 5GB from a total of 16GB with the memory frequency changed to 800 and memtest only found one error.
I will try soon what Buzz suggested, may be it will do the trick, but I'm not sure.
Is the windows version of memtest a thorough way to test memory?.

Dave159

 

[Dave159]

I went through the procedure that Buzz suggested. The auto tuning increased the memory frequency from 800 to 1901.
But i then had a series of BSOD's. So it certainly seems I have some faulty memory.
So the next task will be to use memtest to find which memory module is faulty.
Just to make sure I'm doing this procedure correctly. Do I remove all the modules except the one nearest the CPU?
Then test this for errors?, then do i remove the one that was tested and replace another module in the same slot?.
I do know about making sure I'm earthed before doing this.

Dave159

 

[vanthus]

Yes,that would be normal procedure,but double check in your motherboard user manual which ram slot to use with one module.

 

[Dave159]

Thanks Vanthus,

I checked the motherboard manual and it says to use slot A2 as a single-channel operation. This slot is the second one from the CPU. I've removed 2 of the other 4GB ram modules B1 and B2 with no problem. But the memory in slot A1 which is the nearest to the CPU is impossible to remove, do to the CPU cooler fan of the heat sink being in the way. Even the memory module in slot A2 will be tricky to remove.

So currently there is 4GB in slot A1 and 4GB in slot A2, and windows reports a total of 8GB. At the moment I'm running memtest86+ from a boot CD. So, may be testing memory modules with slots A1 and A2 occupied is not the ideal way to do things.
I'm not sure i fancy dissasembling components from my new PC. It could be that the bad memory module/s is amongst the 2 that i removed, as windows loaded without problems and it seems generaly more stable.

Dave159

 

[Buzz]

Yeh like vanthus said, that's usually the normal procedure, but as you explained that they are not easy to remove, it wont matter what slot the RAM is in for the purpose of testing it. Realistically the only reason they advise one slot in particular would be for daily use of a comp with only the one stick of RAM, but iv tested RAM in all different slots over the years and it works the same way.

 

[Dave159]

Thanks Buzz for the explanation.

Dave159

 

[Dave159]

Hi all,

I've isolated the faulty 4GB memory module. Memtest86+ found 17920 errors before the PC froze.
At the moment my PC seems perfectly ok running on 12GB of RAM.
Whats the best and easiest way to get the module replaced?

Dave159

 

[vanthus]

Give pcs a call & explain,they will probably send you a replacement straight out.
Well come monday that is,

 

[Dave159]

Give pcs a call & explain,they will probably send you a replacement straight out.
Well come monday that is,

Hi vanthus,
Just posting my thoughts.
I got in touch with pcs about the faulty 4GB module.
They want me to have all the 4 modules (16GB) replaced.
Firstly, two modules can not be removed because the CPU fan is
directly over them and almost touching.
Also, I spent time checking the 12GB with memtest86+, so I
know at least 12GB is free of errors and the PC is working fine.
And whats the chance that the 4 replaced modules will have errors.
So i'm not quite so over joyed with the situation right now.

Dave159