Personal computing discussed

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WaltC
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Re: My computer is broken (formerly blamed on Civ V)

Sun Oct 03, 2010 12:23 pm

I recently had to do some work with my wife's machine--and tested quite a few things before finding the culprit. You might get some ideas from my post:

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=73751

In my primary machine, though, several months ago I was getting some errors similar to the ones you reported. The culprit there turned out to be a bad hard drive, and I didn't actually succeed in identifying the source of my blue-screen crashes until the drive actually failed, unfortunately. In 25 years it's about the third hard drive, out of dozens I've owned, that actually failed before I had the chance to voluntarily retire it. Good luck!
 
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Re: My computer is broken (formerly blamed on Civ V)

Sun Oct 03, 2010 12:38 pm

Not sure I agree with the PSU being the most likely culprit; flaky mobo or memory controller seem about equally likely based on the evidence so far.
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Mentawl
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Re: My computer is broken (formerly blamed on Civ V)

Sun Oct 03, 2010 1:51 pm

Have you made sure that the RAM is running at the voltage required for whatever speed you pick? Some RAM requires a higher voltage setting than other stuff might.
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pedro
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Re: My computer is broken (formerly blamed on Civ V)

Wed Oct 06, 2010 5:42 am

I just got a call from the shop. They said the graphics card was busted. They've since replaced it and it has apparently been stable for two days now.

I'll give it a go myself and report back.
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Waco
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Re: My computer is broken (formerly blamed on Civ V)

Wed Oct 06, 2010 7:21 am

pedro wrote:
I just got a call from the shop. They said the graphics card was busted. They've since replaced it and it has apparently been stable for two days now.

I'll give it a go myself and report back.

The graphics card wouldn't make your machine fail Memtest86+...
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pedro
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Re: My computer is broken (formerly blamed on Civ V)

Wed Oct 06, 2010 7:40 am

TheWacoKid wrote:
pedro wrote:
I just got a call from the shop. They said the graphics card was busted. They've since replaced it and it has apparently been stable for two days now.

I'll give it a go myself and report back.

The graphics card wouldn't make your machine fail Memtest86+...


Please don't tell me these things. I've just carried this heavy lump of crap 2 hours in sweltering Bangkok heat.
Ubuntu 12.04 AMD64: E8200 // P35 // HD 4850 // 4GB
OS X 10.8.x: iMac12,2, MacBook 5,2
 
pedro
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Re: My computer is broken (formerly blamed on Civ V)

Wed Oct 06, 2010 8:14 am

15 minutes - 59 Memtest86+ errors.

All I wanna do is play some Civ V... I'm not asking too much, am I?

***

OK, so far it's seen two trips to the shop. The RAM has been replaced. The graphics card has been replaced. I've tried one DIMM at a time. I've rotated DIMMs. I've tried different wall outlets and different power boards.

What's my next move?
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tfp
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Re: My computer is broken (formerly blamed on Civ V)

Wed Oct 06, 2010 8:24 am

Motherboard then CPU I guess.
 
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Re: My computer is broken (formerly blamed on Civ V)

Wed Oct 06, 2010 8:26 am

pedro wrote:
What's my next move?

Swap out the motherboard, PSU, CPU (one at a time). You need to narrow it down by process of elimination.

If you need to take it back to the shop again to get help with troubleshooting, have them run Memtest86+ on it there before you bring it home again. Maybe you want to try a different shop though, since this one apparently replaced the video card when it wasn't the cause of the problem?
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pedro
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Re: My computer is broken (formerly blamed on Civ V)

Wed Oct 06, 2010 8:55 am

OK, back to the shop then I guess. I don't have all the spare bits lying around to do this process of elimination by myself which is a shame. I also don't have a choice of shop regrettably. The way things are run here is a bit like a cartel.

I'll force them to run Memtest there - this is going to be fun! - the place is like a madhouse.
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pedro
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Re: My computer is broken (formerly blamed on Civ V)

Thu Oct 07, 2010 4:30 am

Another trip out to the shop today, another new set of RAM. These babies have looser timings but they have prettier heat spreaders. Hoorah! It took the good people at said shop 3 hours and 50 minutes to swap out said RAM. Unbelievable stuff. They also admitted to me, in Thai, that the entire shipment of GEIL RAM they bought recently is totally defective and they're trying to offload it as soon as possible. I don't quite know what to make of this tale. I ended up with Kingston HyperX.

Anyway, they've passed Memtest86+ a couple times and now it's just a case of re-installing Windows, re-downloading Civ V, and then finally, hopefully, getting my Civ on.

Thanks very much to all those who gave advice in this thread.

And be sure to stay tuned for the next episode.
Ubuntu 12.04 AMD64: E8200 // P35 // HD 4850 // 4GB
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Re: My computer is broken (formerly blamed on Civ V)

Thu Oct 07, 2010 6:30 am

pedro wrote:
They also admitted to me, in Thai, that the entire shipment of GEIL RAM they bought recently is totally defective and they're trying to offload it as soon as possible. I don't quite know what to make of this tale. I ended up with Kingston HyperX.

Well, a defective batch of RAM would explain why it was still failing after you had the RAM swapped out once. I feel really sorry for the victims they decide to "offload" it to! Kingston RAM is decent stuff; I've always had good results with it, and it is my first choice these days when buying RAM.
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Buub
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Re: My computer is broken (formerly blamed on Civ V)

Thu Oct 07, 2010 9:47 am

I've not heard much good about Geil RAM. Personally, I prefer Crucial or Corsair. But Kingston and OCZ are good too.
 
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Re: My computer is broken (formerly blamed on Civ V)

Thu Oct 07, 2010 9:53 am

Buub wrote:
I've not heard much good about Geil RAM. Personally, I prefer Crucial or Corsair. But Kingston and OCZ are good too.

Yeah, Crucial is good too. I've had (very) occasional issues with Corsair, so I'll generally go for the Kingston or Crucial first, unless the price is really good on the Corsair. OCZ had a poor reputation years ago, but seem to have cleaned up their act.
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Buub
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Re: My computer is broken (formerly blamed on Civ V)

Thu Oct 07, 2010 12:05 pm

just brew it! wrote:
Buub wrote:
I've not heard much good about Geil RAM. Personally, I prefer Crucial or Corsair. But Kingston and OCZ are good too.

Yeah, Crucial is good too. I've had (very) occasional issues with Corsair, so I'll generally go for the Kingston or Crucial first, unless the price is really good on the Corsair. OCZ had a poor reputation years ago, but seem to have cleaned up their act.

Yes, OCZ was a horrible company back when they were founded. Very deceptive and cut a lot of corners. But they were sold to a new owner many years ago, and the current company is nothing like the original. I mean they currently own PC Power and Cooling power supplies, and all indications are that they've kept the quality of the best made PSUs in the industry intact.
 
Corrado
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Re: My computer is broken (formerly blamed on Civ V)

Thu Oct 07, 2010 1:17 pm

I actually had a bad stick of OCZ Ram 2 years ago that I chased for weeks. They were really good about it and actually replaced both sets of RAM i had bought with higher specced stuff for the inconvenience. Maybe it was another situation where they knew they had a bad batch and were just pre-emptively replacing it? No idea, but they did me right and the stuff was dirt cheap when I bought it anyways.
 
Waco
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Re: My computer is broken (formerly blamed on Civ V)

Thu Oct 07, 2010 3:12 pm

Buub wrote:
I've not heard much good about Geil RAM. Personally, I prefer Crucial or Corsair. But Kingston and OCZ are good too.

I've had pretty good luck with them over the past few years (especially their RMA process). My current desktop has 8 GB of their Black Dragon stuff and it's rock-solid even at well over their rated frequencies. The one stick I had die (out of 12 sticks...horrendously overvolted in my n00bness) was a 512 MB stick of PC-4000 DDR-500. It was out of production for a while by the time I RMA'd it and they sent me a 1 GB stick of DDR2-800 as the return - this was great since I was just moving my rigs to DDR2 (this was before DDR3 was around). Can't argue with a free upgrade. :)
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pedro
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Re: My computer is broken (formerly blamed on Civ V)

Mon Oct 18, 2010 10:50 am

Everything's going swell now. Just thought I'd let ya'll know.

I'm managing pretty comfortable victories on Immortal difficulty. This indicates to me that the game is, in fact, broken after all (AI-wise).
Ubuntu 12.04 AMD64: E8200 // P35 // HD 4850 // 4GB
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