Mainboard or CPU?

[garymeds]

my pvr pc freezes quite often (last month or so) and can't work out whether it's motherboard or CPU.

have tested RAM with memtest+ and is ok.

is there anything i can do to check CPU (aside from swapping it)? my mainboard is out of guarantee in march so i got to act fast!

Asus N2MPV-VM, AMD 3800 x2 CPU

[Deusxmachina]

CPUs tend to either work or they don't. And I'd say similar for motherboards after they're booted and running.

I'd start by making sure nothing is overheating. Make sure nothing is overclocked, and it wouldn't hurt to underclock things for the time being. CPU core degrees is easy to monitor, video card core degrees is usually easy to monitor, if the power supply fan isn't working that might do it. Check if any fans on the motherboard have stopped working.

Could be a Windows problem, too.

[garymeds]

thanks for response - temps and fans are ok, have been logging temps.

haven't checked the psu fan - will do though. have vista installed so your thought on it being windows is highly probable! normally get bugchecks though - i always thought a total hang with no errors is normally h/w.

my reason for think is the mb is that if i change a jumper on it, i have to reset the bios by removing the battery and using the reset jumper - otherwise i get power, but nothing else.

also, when installing an os and it reboots during, it tends not to boot from CD/DVD until i intervene - sits there with black flashing cursor...

just when my gbpvr machine was going well too!

[K.S.]

you should do a quick optical check of your motherboard regarding capacitors. read these links here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague & http://www.siliconchip.com.au/cms/A_30328/article.html, they should give you an overview what to look for. if you have some failing capacitors that's your chance to get a replacement MB

otherwise: you should disable automatic restart on syserror (maybe also enable a full dump if you know what to do with that ) it might show you some BSOD with a hint what's failing.

i wish you good luck on your search, you need it in such a case

[garymeds]

thanks K.S. i'll check the m/b when i get chance.

as for memory dumps, i do know what to do with them (debug viewer) but doen't get one - the PC freezes - no mouse movement, no BSOD, no ping response, nothing. is why i think it's m/b or cpu. wish i did get a bugcheck - least then i'd have something to go on.

i will continue...

[stustunz]

try a different video driver
if you have more than one stick of ram pull one out

[K.S.]

try a different video driver
if you have more than one stick of ram pull one out

nope, if it would be the video driver he would get a BSOD & a dump, but the ram idea is a good one

[_Iz-]

Could be flakey powersupply...

[wtg]

Could be flakey powersupply...

A very good point. I had a PC that froze up fairly regularly while gaming. Turns out that the power supply wasn't supplying enoughs amps and under load, the PC would choke. I replaced it with a higher quality power supply with the same wattage, and it's been fine ever since.

[jh61408]

There are Dos Motherboard Checkers out their, It will run the Board Thur a variety of checks. They work pretty well. Just a option of narrowing down what the problem is.