malfunctioning hardware
 

the rig:

asus A7n8x-deluxe rev.2, with the default BIOS (1007)
barton 2500+
Enermax 350W PSU
Ti4200
maxtor 120gb hdd SATA

ALL at stock speed

my first board was great but the BIOS got messed up. then I got this new board. let's start with the voltage problem: with my first board, and with my multimeter connected to the PSU I got the same voltages. with the new board, I got worse voltage rails

when I raise the voltage of the CPU above 1.75vcore, my screen goes black when loading windows and the PC doesn't react any more. the higher the vcore, the earlier that happens. It might have been the same problem like with my first board, but I'm not sure

when I voltmod my ti4200, the PC also hangs. with my first board, that certainly didn't happen.... everything was fine!

So, in the beginning everything was fine. after a while, my PC started to give that black screen again when playing RTCW: Enemy Territory more and more often. I haven't tested the machine with other games (yet)

now it's happening I get the black screen in Windows, a few days ago two times in 10 minutes so I lowered the FSB to 133. then the hanging quit. today, my screen went black again while gaming.

So I'll check these parts:
- memory. it's kingston BH-6 ram, 2*256MB, PC3200. never had problems with it
- PSU. the PSU worked one day without fan in it... it got hot and the machine hung in the evening. this was with my first mainboard.
- mainboard. I think there's something wrong with the voltage regulation

for the memory, I'll start memtest now. how should I check all other parts now?

change HW + 3dmarking + prime, but in what sequence?
I have an aopen 300W PSU and a 2000+ available for testing

I just set my FSB/timings/... to default (optimal) settings. I loaded this clean win2000 install and started the memory test from windows; after a few minutes my screen turned blank again

I'll let the machine idle for a while and see if it keeps running well

How are the mosfets?
Insane hot, normal or very cool?

strange. I had a 5v fan on my SLK800, when I changed it for a more powerful fan (coolermaster fan, tempcontrolled with Q-Tec) the machine quit crashing

the mosfets are now cold, with the silent fan they were normal (warm)

;)

3dmark still crashes, both with 800*600 and 1024*768 resolution. ET always hangs at 1027*786 but not at 800*600

when 3dmark is running I'm getting this voice error message from my mainboard all the time: CPU fan fail. I also (used to) get that with ET under 1024*768

I changed the drivers, same problem.
BTW, it's not the CPU fan fail error I'm getting. I'm getting the voice message "system failed CPU test" all the time

I tried to run the machine with FSB 166, memory 133mhz and the problem doesn't go away. tomorrow I'll put an other ti4200 in it, and use a 300W PSU

http://forums.extremeoverclocking.co...c/70425-1.html

"Posted by: madscientist
Hi, all!
We figured it out: what went bad was the power supply!
The 3.3v inputs were bad, causing the CPU to not receive the proper amount of voltage it required in order to function.
We swapped out the power supply, and voila: not only did it end the CPU test failure.. it also fixed the display problem! "

"Posted by: Hayvyn
I had the same problem when I first bought my a7n8x deluxe. That robo b!tch repeating "System failed cpu test" every 2 seconds drove me up the wall!!"

PSU's can be a hard problem to track, had a mobo that worked with CPU A, but not with CPU B, after 4 hours of searching it was due to a faulty PSU.

JMke, I'll lower the multiplier of the CPU. too bad you can't lower the vcore of the CPU on this board, lowering the Vcore puts quite a lot less tension on the PSU

does anybody know how to measure the 3.3volt rail? I don't seem to find the right wire to check