Overheating or bad HDD?

[letum]

Hello Everyone,

About 2 months ago I bought the materials to upgrade my PC. When all the new pieces arrived and configured together all seemed well except for random reboot problems. At the time I had installed Window 7 to check it out. I pretty thought that the rebooting as due to Win7. Shortly after that school picked up more and I was unable to actually spend the needed time to diagnose the new PC components. Lately I got back to the PC and installed vista which is showing the same problems. Now that school is in break I'm hoping to solve these issues and be done with the reboot problems!

I have done some testing so far and have concluded that the memory is stable, based on 100% Memtest86+. I have also verified that the primary HDD is bad and will need to be replaced, based from PC-Check 6.5 + WD Diagnostics.

I am currently at work and don't have a complete detailed list of all aspects of the hardware in this machine but here goes what I have from memory:

Motherboard: ASUS P5Q3
Processor: P4 2.66 x64 Dual
CPU Fan: Thermaltake CL-P0114 120mm Big Typhoon
Memory: CORSAIR XMS3 DHX 8GB
Video: XFX HD-487A-ZDDC Radeon HD 4870 1GB
HDD1: WD 250GB (replacing)
HDD2-5: Seagate 1.5TB (3 drives sitting in Thermaltake iCase)
Optical: Standard LG DVD burner
Audio: Audigy EAX
PSU: COOLMAX CUG-950B 950W ATX12V V.2.2 SLI Certified

The case is an Alienware case which is big enough for everything. Is it possible that the rebooting problem is from the bad hard drive or is overheating CPU an issue? Thank you in advance for any and all advice provided.

 

[shortstuff_mt]

Is it possible that the rebooting problem is from the bad hard drive or is overheating CPU an issue?

Well, that depends. What are your idle and load CPU temps. It's a little hard to tell you if overheating is the problem without knowing what the temps are. You didn't list your PSU. That could be the cause of your rebooting problems also.

 

[letum]

Well, that depends. What are your idle and load CPU temps. It's a little hard to tell you if overheating is the problem without knowing what the temps are. You didn't list your PSU. That could be the cause of your rebooting problems also.

If I'm recalling correctly the temp sits around a cool 32C in bios/Hiren testing apps CD. But hey thats low key stuff. The machine will sometimes run for days with no problem, gaming on and off while running. Other times it can't stay in windows for more than 5 or 10 minutes.

The majority of the hardware listed above is new, HDD1, Audigy card, and CPU are not new however. Shortly after setting up with the Win7 I bought the following PSU thinking that it may have not been enough power.

COOLMAX CUG-950B 950W ATX12V V.2.2 SLI certified

Thanks for reminding me about the PSU, knew I forgot something. Thank you for the extremely quick reply also!

 

[shortstuff_mt]

That Coolmax PSU is most likely the cause of the problem. Wattage is not nearly as important as quality. Here's a quote from a newegg review of that PSU - "...randomly my computer turns off about once every 2 days. I removed this power supply and went back to my old BFG 650 Watt power supply and everything works fine." Sounds familiar, huh?

If you end up replacing the PSU, I would stick with a quality unit from Corsair, PC Power & Cooling, Seasonic, Antec Earthwatts, etc...

 

[letum]

That Coolmax PSU is most likely the cause of the problem. Wattage is not nearly as important as quality. Here's a quote from a newegg review of that PSU - "...randomly my computer turns off about once every 2 days. I removed this power supply and went back to my old BFG 650 Watt power supply and everything works fine." Sounds familiar, huh?

If you end up replacing the PSU, I would stick with a quality unit from Corsair, PC Power & Cooling, Seasonic, Antec Earthwatts, etc...

I was just fooling myself by going the cheaper route it seems. I did some peeking around and found these two PSU, which do you think would be better to choose from?

CORSAIR CMPSU-850TX 850W ATX12V 2.2

Antec TPQ-850 850W Continuous Power ATX12V

 

[shortstuff_mt]

The Antec PSU is nice, but for the price I would go with the Corsair. That 850W PSU is overkill even if you add another 4870 1GB in crossfire. You might want to check out these 750W units.

CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139006&Tpk=750tx

or

PC Power & Cooling S75QB 750W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI NVIDIA SLI Certified (Dual 8800 GTX and below) CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply compatible with core i7 - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817703009

 

[letum]

The thing is that I'm not too satisfied with the 4870, it's pretty wacky. The card video flickers at random, it did this for Win7 and still does in Vista. From what I've researched it is mainly a driver problem though. Primarily that the ram cannot be set too high or the card can't really use it or something. I have the ram speed like 100 less than what it's stated top non-OC marks are because of this. I've been considering just buying SLI GeForce 280 and using the ATI as just for video to 2nd monitor. That's a bit of cash to throw down at the moment though. lol If ATI can fix this problem I may stick with them but 2 months and still no fix is weak sauce on ATI's side.