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Testing My Motherboard...


Mr_Adam

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Soooooo I think my motherboard has some errors, but I'm not entirely sure.

 

This is my model: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128431

 

[hide=Here's a list of errors....]

 

Firefox crashes often.

Starcraft 2 crashes without any error message.

Adobe Flash Player often crashes (usually fixed with a refresh).

I've gotten some blue screens (I haven't been able to take a picture, the computer resets before I can).

Some things will work some days, then not work other days (McAffee is occasionally disabled, DAT files are determined to be corrupt or missing, yet it works on other occasions).

Occasionally, Skype will fail to recognize my headset, and then my entire soundcard (which is integrated).

The Steam Servers have been busy for far longer than I would rightly imagine (Left 4 Dead 2 STILL won't work for me. fml.)

[/hide]

 

Now, sometimes I turn on my computer and everything runs smoothly. I initially thought that my RAM might be at fault, but only 1 test ever found a problem. Further, finer tests never found another error. I still have to test each individual stick (2x 2gb) with Mem86 Scan (I think that's it), because it says it only recognizes up to 4gb (of my 4.0001).

 

 

 

TL;DR - I think my motherboard is brokeded how do I find out/fix it?

 

 

 

I feel like I only ever go on this forum to complain, but you all always help. Again, Thanks very much.

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That sounds like an operating system problem to be honest. Perhaps try running another copy of Windows off another hard disk on the machine, or a linux live distro.

RIP TET

 

original.png

 

"That which does not kill us makes us stronger." - Friedrich Nietzsche

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If it was a hardware problem these errors you describe would happen on ALL applications, or at the least all similar applications, eg. if starcraft crashes so would any other game. In other words, the hardware can't be faulty because the same errors would occur for all similar applications due to them using similar parts of the hardware.

If it WAS a hardware problem, the wide span of issues would mean that it seems to be more than one hardware element that was not working, although I see how you can narrow this to the motherboard. Corrupt DAT files would be to do with the HDD though, or again it could be the motherboard not sending the data correctly. So yeah I see that all of these errors could be traced to the motherboard.

 

At this stage it's hard to tell whether it's an OS or motherboard issue, and so you need to test as I suggested above by using a linux distro or similar. (Although I don't know if this would work particularly well - Nyo is probably more able to comment on this as I have limited knowledge of how Linux-driven systems work, IIRC they load the OS into the RAM?) Either way it's something worth trying before forking out for a new motherboard.

RIP TET

 

original.png

 

"That which does not kill us makes us stronger." - Friedrich Nietzsche

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Yeah, I certainly don't want to spend money for a new mobo >_>

 

I'll try downgrading to XP, I suppose (because I'm not sure how to test my applications in Linux)... even though it's much less pretty.

 

 

 

Although, any other input is welcome before I do so!

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Yeah, I certainly don't want to spend money for a new mobo >_>

 

I'll try downgrading to XP, I suppose (because I'm not sure how to test my applications in Linux)... even though it's much less pretty.

 

 

 

Although, any other input is welcome before I do so!

If you have a spare hard drive lying around install it to there, or research how to install XP to a thumb drive. Don't lose your current installation because if it turns out not to be a motherboard issue it could be a pain. Then again if you have no choice, you have no choice.

 

And yeah I would get a second opinion in case I'm wrong.

RIP TET

 

original.png

 

"That which does not kill us makes us stronger." - Friedrich Nietzsche

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It's going to be a pain either way lol. I have the Windows 7 and Windows XP installation discs lying around the house, so it's mostly just a matter of backing up my files. In the meantime, I may as well run Ubuntu (I forgot that I had the installation on my USB already) and mess around with it.

 

And I'll wait to downgrade until I get a second opinion. I have a few small spare hard drives, but I don't think my hard drive is the source of my error. That was last time :wink:

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There is a way to prevent the computer from automatically restarting after a blue screen, I cannot look it up for you on my phone though. You could also look in the event viewer for the exact error message.

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So I ran Ubuntu off of my flash drive, and everything went smoothly.

 

Now when I run Windows, everything is smooth again. The computer is much quieter than it has been recently, McAfee is back online without error, and I haven't crashed. CCleaner still tells me I have a corrupt file, but I can't find it. Left 4 Dead is still in a state of vegetation.

 

Everything's pretty much back to normal.

 

 

 

Problem solved...?

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Problem might be McAfee, it's one of the worst antiviruses and it's heavy as well. You should probably switch to something that won't slow down your computer like MSE, Avira or Avast.

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To root out that corrupt file you could use the chkdsk utility which comes with Windows. Just go to command prompt, and type in "chkdsk/f" which checks for errors and then will fix them.

RIP TET

 

original.png

 

"That which does not kill us makes us stronger." - Friedrich Nietzsche

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I ran chkdsk, and the corrupt file (which I found, in a hidden folder) is still there. It's from Thunderbird, which I tried out then deleted... I think I'll go into Linux one day and delete it - I had this problem once before and settled it that way.

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I'm running Windows 7, 64-bit.

 

I haven't gotten to backing up and going to XP yet, but I did do one thing:

 

[hide=My Own Tangent]

 

I looked up my errors in the computer logs, and found a lot of "NTFS errors" of code 0x800000000000 (idk the exact 0s). Apparently this associated with BSOD, which I've gotten (though not near the number of times the error is logged).

 

Anywho, I Google'd it and one person said to start the "Volume Shadow Copy" service. Which I did. Checking now, after a restart, it isn't running, but I've had no errors since.

 

I believe it's a result of that corrupt file... I'll be sure to get rid of it soon enough.

[/hide]

 

I think that unless I find a definite problem/solution to my army of small, annoying bugs, I'm going to go to XP (32-bit... sadface) regardless. It mostly comes down to when I care to make a backup and do it.

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Why not XP? Honestly, it's my only other viable option other than reinstalling Windows 7. But if the problem is related to the OS, why would I want to do that?

 

And yes, I realize XP is slowly fading out (Battlefield 3 is my biggest concern), but again, I don't have many other options.

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So I ran Linux to copy my hard drive to another, and when it booted from my USB I got an error... "cannot find viewer" or something of the sort. The desktop icons then disappeared and the error box lost it's text as the mouse flashed between loading and ready, unable to select anything. In windows, earlier, I ran chkdsk/f and still found errors in a read only scan.

 

I don't think the problem is windows - once again, I'm led to believe it could either be my RAM or my hard drive...

 

Thanks again.

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