_Slacker_

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Apr 7, 2011
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18,510
I recently bought a bunch of new components to upgrade my old system. I assembled everything, and it POSTed and booted the first time. However, I am getting random problems. My specs are in my signature.

Problem 1:
My computer randomly locks up completely and can only be fixed by doing a hard reboot. This freeze has happened when the computer has been idle, web browsing, and gaming. When it happens, most of the time the screen completely freezes up and the audio is caught in a loop of the last tenth of a second or so. Occasionally, the screen is black and not responding. Once, the screen turned bright orange and froze.

Problem 2:
This is most likely related to problem 1. I've only seen it a couple times. Occasionally, the screen edges seem to "flip". What I mean by that is the right half of the screen becomes the left, and the left half becomes the right. There is a big black bar down the middle that the mouse can't cross. To move the mouse to the other side, I have to bring it to the far edges of the monitor and then it wraps around. This is only solved by rebooting.

Problem 3:
When playing games or watching stuff in VLC or youtube, occasionally the audio will crackle for a fraction of a second. The freeze doesn't seem to have any effect on the playback of the video.

Problem 4:
There is a constant background hum of white noise. It mostly happens when running full-screen applications, but I also noticed it when the smilies on this site are on screen.

To fix these problems, I have done the following. I reinstalled Windows, reinstalled my audio drivers, reinstalled my video drivers, did 6.5 hours of memtest86, 2.5 hours of FurMark, 3.5 hours of Prime95. I have also swapped out my video card for a known working HD 4890. I changed the Vdroop settings in the BIOS to low, and forced the RAM to perform at 9-9-9-24 timings at 1600 MHz and 1.5V. Everything is at stock ratings.

If anyone can help me out here, it will be much appreciated. Thanks!
 
Where is the hum coming from? Speakers or the PC itself?

Are the MB standoffs installed correctly? Only under the MB holes?

What does the PSU label say? 650TX or 650TX-C?

Can you swap out the monitor data cable?

How clean is the power at the wall? Do you have a proper ground?
 

_Slacker_

Distinguished
Apr 7, 2011
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18,510
The hum is coming from my headphones.

I'm fairly certain that the standoffs are all tight to the case and the screws. I'll double check out the standoffs tomorrow morning.

The PSU is a TX650W, not a -C.

Unfortunately, I only have the one DVI cable, but it was working perfectly up until I upgraded.

I'm not sure how clean the power is since I'm in an apartment without a multimeter of any sort, but this outlet has been providing power solidly for the last two years.
 
The problems indicate a short somewhere to me. The most obvious culprit would be a standoff making inappropriate contact against the back of your board. This could cause all those symptoms by itself.

The hum is interference generated by either the short or the PSU itself.

If you don't find a short I think you should replace the MB.