Alright after doing as much troubleshooting as I know how, I'm hoping someone on here knows how to help me!
tldr: I am having issues with the screen being jumbled(Pic below) I have tried testing everything(details below) and don't know where to go from here.
Let me start by giving you my system then I will go into the problem. This is going to be a very long post, I have been troubleshooting myself for the past 4-5 days with no luck. I am going to post in as much detail as I feel necessary to explain the problem and what I have tried.
System:
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium SP 1
CPU: i7-3820 @ 3.6GHz
CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i - Push-Pull setup
MOBO: Intel DX79SR
RAM: G.Skill Ripjaws Z 4x4 Gigs
SSD: Crucial M4 CT064M4SSD2 x2 in a RAID0
HD: Seagate Barracuda 320 Gig
Video Card: Asus GTX 560 Ti
PSU: Rocketfish 700 W
It started a few days ago. I got a random blue screen, didn't think much of it as its the first one i've had in a VERY long while. The problems progressively got worse, the blue screens started to come more often and the computer would freeze without any warning. The one night I left it on it blue screened 8 times in about 2-3 hours.
All of the dumps it put out are found here:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/m1joyfdyezwevr3/RrdCMJ_H71
During all of the blue screening I noticed something weird with my processor temps. Normally I sit at 38-40*c at idle. Some of the times the computer would restart it would sit at 60-66*c and wouldn't ever drop. Few restarts later and it would drop back down to around the norm. Not sure if this could be caused by some different bigger problem, or if my CPU cooler's pump is just failing(Software always shows it spinning at around 2200 RPM, which is full on and normal. Yet the temps seem to fluctuate)
This lead me to believe that my CPU cooler might be to blame, but the software that comes with it was reporting all fans/pump spinning normal speeds and from what I could tell by looking/listening they were all normal.
My friend took a look at the dumps and said that it was a video card driver issue. So I made sure all of my drivers, BIOS, firmware was up to date. Problems still continued to happen. I wasn't sure if this was because of some program I installed or what, so I reformatted the RAID0.
Windows installed fine, as far as it let me know, but when it came to the part where I name the computer and put in my CD key it began to look similar this -
![]()
Which sadly happened the first time I installed windows onto this computer, but the first time I just restarted and everything was fine. Now any restart looks like this.
So from here we thought it was the video card having a problem. I took my video card and put it in my brothers system and it worked fine, played games/anything we asked of it without problem. Thinking that it might have been a quirk I ran a memory test on the video card for 12h - 258 passes, 0 Errors.
Thinking it could possibly be a RAM problem, I ran Memtest86. It make it through 1 pass perfectly fine, 0 errors. But then the computer started to restart 20-30 minutes into the test. (First pass took 1h 20m) and I couldn't get another full pass. Frustrated and pissed off I went to bed and gave up testing the RAM.
Not really knowing where the problem was now we just started testing piece by piece. I reformatted my spinning disk and both SSDs(individually) with a new copy of windows and the results were puzzling. If I plugged my spinning disk into any SATA port on the mobo it worked every time, no screen jumble. If I plugged the 1st SSD into any of my SATA 6 ports(Blue) it wouldn't work but any of the SATA 3s(Black) worked. If I plugged the 2nd SSD into any port it would never work. (Again the difference between working and not working is the screen being messed up, they all booted into windows just fine)
So now wanting to test the SSDs further, I took them and plugged them into my brothers rig, both drives worked flawlessly for several boots. Putting them back into my rig the problems came back.
My friend thought that me running Windows 7 Home Premium(only able to recognize 16gigs of ram) was causing the problem. So I removed 2 of my sticks(8 gigs). Tried both SSDs in all the ports, they both worked every time. Trying to bring back the problem to make sure it was the RAM, I reinstalled the 2 sticks. Both drives worked every time again......
Thinking this was weird, but glad it was all working. I reformatted the 2 SSDs back into a RAID0 and reinstalled windows. Upon getting to the same spot(Asking to name the computer, time zone, etc) the screen jumbled again.
By now I am completely lost for what to even test. Trying my friends 16Gigs of RAM theory again, I removed 1 of the sticks. The computer booted fine, Restarted it, the problem came back.
The only device that I knew how to test that hadn't been tested yet was the PSU, took that to BestBuy to make sure it wasn't the issue(its 6 years old). They said everything on the PSU checks out fine.
My final test was to try testing the RAM again since I never got it to go more than that 1 pass without the computer restarting. I have taken each stick of ram, put it in Slot 1 and ran it through 2 passes of Memtest86 (Version 4.3.2) and none of them have shown any errors. The only odd thing is one stick did take considerably longer than the other 3 to finish the test, but it still came back clean. Also while doing the last 2 sticks the tube leaving the CPU and heading to the radiator became rather hot.
So now I am to where I am now. Lost not knowing what to do or try next. In the morning I plan on taking 1 stick and seeing if I can get memtest86 to work in all 8 RAM slots. Other than that I am lost, nothing seems to point to a definitive problem, its like a giant circle.
Any help will be so much appreciated, its been just under a week of trouble shooting myself with no luck. If anything needs to be clarified please let me know. Thank you.
Also side note - Dates Purchased:
To long ago - PSU, Seagate HD.
1/15/2012 - Video Card, SSDs
3/8/2013 - RAM, CPU, CPU Cooler, Mobo
4/3/2013 - Mobo was RMAed, thought I had an issue with it blue screening, but it turns out there was a firmware update for the SSDs fixing the issue. This is the first problem I have had since.
tldr: I am having issues with the screen being jumbled(Pic below) I have tried testing everything(details below) and don't know where to go from here.
Let me start by giving you my system then I will go into the problem. This is going to be a very long post, I have been troubleshooting myself for the past 4-5 days with no luck. I am going to post in as much detail as I feel necessary to explain the problem and what I have tried.
System:
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium SP 1
CPU: i7-3820 @ 3.6GHz
CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i - Push-Pull setup
MOBO: Intel DX79SR
RAM: G.Skill Ripjaws Z 4x4 Gigs
SSD: Crucial M4 CT064M4SSD2 x2 in a RAID0
HD: Seagate Barracuda 320 Gig
Video Card: Asus GTX 560 Ti
PSU: Rocketfish 700 W
It started a few days ago. I got a random blue screen, didn't think much of it as its the first one i've had in a VERY long while. The problems progressively got worse, the blue screens started to come more often and the computer would freeze without any warning. The one night I left it on it blue screened 8 times in about 2-3 hours.
All of the dumps it put out are found here:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/m1joyfdyezwevr3/RrdCMJ_H71
During all of the blue screening I noticed something weird with my processor temps. Normally I sit at 38-40*c at idle. Some of the times the computer would restart it would sit at 60-66*c and wouldn't ever drop. Few restarts later and it would drop back down to around the norm. Not sure if this could be caused by some different bigger problem, or if my CPU cooler's pump is just failing(Software always shows it spinning at around 2200 RPM, which is full on and normal. Yet the temps seem to fluctuate)
This lead me to believe that my CPU cooler might be to blame, but the software that comes with it was reporting all fans/pump spinning normal speeds and from what I could tell by looking/listening they were all normal.
My friend took a look at the dumps and said that it was a video card driver issue. So I made sure all of my drivers, BIOS, firmware was up to date. Problems still continued to happen. I wasn't sure if this was because of some program I installed or what, so I reformatted the RAID0.
Windows installed fine, as far as it let me know, but when it came to the part where I name the computer and put in my CD key it began to look similar this -
Which sadly happened the first time I installed windows onto this computer, but the first time I just restarted and everything was fine. Now any restart looks like this.
So from here we thought it was the video card having a problem. I took my video card and put it in my brothers system and it worked fine, played games/anything we asked of it without problem. Thinking that it might have been a quirk I ran a memory test on the video card for 12h - 258 passes, 0 Errors.
Thinking it could possibly be a RAM problem, I ran Memtest86. It make it through 1 pass perfectly fine, 0 errors. But then the computer started to restart 20-30 minutes into the test. (First pass took 1h 20m) and I couldn't get another full pass. Frustrated and pissed off I went to bed and gave up testing the RAM.
Not really knowing where the problem was now we just started testing piece by piece. I reformatted my spinning disk and both SSDs(individually) with a new copy of windows and the results were puzzling. If I plugged my spinning disk into any SATA port on the mobo it worked every time, no screen jumble. If I plugged the 1st SSD into any of my SATA 6 ports(Blue) it wouldn't work but any of the SATA 3s(Black) worked. If I plugged the 2nd SSD into any port it would never work. (Again the difference between working and not working is the screen being messed up, they all booted into windows just fine)
So now wanting to test the SSDs further, I took them and plugged them into my brothers rig, both drives worked flawlessly for several boots. Putting them back into my rig the problems came back.
My friend thought that me running Windows 7 Home Premium(only able to recognize 16gigs of ram) was causing the problem. So I removed 2 of my sticks(8 gigs). Tried both SSDs in all the ports, they both worked every time. Trying to bring back the problem to make sure it was the RAM, I reinstalled the 2 sticks. Both drives worked every time again......
Thinking this was weird, but glad it was all working. I reformatted the 2 SSDs back into a RAID0 and reinstalled windows. Upon getting to the same spot(Asking to name the computer, time zone, etc) the screen jumbled again.
By now I am completely lost for what to even test. Trying my friends 16Gigs of RAM theory again, I removed 1 of the sticks. The computer booted fine, Restarted it, the problem came back.
The only device that I knew how to test that hadn't been tested yet was the PSU, took that to BestBuy to make sure it wasn't the issue(its 6 years old). They said everything on the PSU checks out fine.
My final test was to try testing the RAM again since I never got it to go more than that 1 pass without the computer restarting. I have taken each stick of ram, put it in Slot 1 and ran it through 2 passes of Memtest86 (Version 4.3.2) and none of them have shown any errors. The only odd thing is one stick did take considerably longer than the other 3 to finish the test, but it still came back clean. Also while doing the last 2 sticks the tube leaving the CPU and heading to the radiator became rather hot.
So now I am to where I am now. Lost not knowing what to do or try next. In the morning I plan on taking 1 stick and seeing if I can get memtest86 to work in all 8 RAM slots. Other than that I am lost, nothing seems to point to a definitive problem, its like a giant circle.
Any help will be so much appreciated, its been just under a week of trouble shooting myself with no luck. If anything needs to be clarified please let me know. Thank you.
Also side note - Dates Purchased:
To long ago - PSU, Seagate HD.
1/15/2012 - Video Card, SSDs
3/8/2013 - RAM, CPU, CPU Cooler, Mobo
4/3/2013 - Mobo was RMAed, thought I had an issue with it blue screening, but it turns out there was a firmware update for the SSDs fixing the issue. This is the first problem I have had since.