Problems on booting up.

[Mick]

Hi all,
This Windows 7 64 bit computer (Spec below)
Computer system.
AMD Phenom (tm) II X 4 965 Processor 3.40 GHz
ASRock 96OGM- GS3 FX Or 96OGM-S3 FX Motherboard
6GB DDR3 1333Mhz DRAM
ATI HD 5670 51MB GDDR5 DVI VGA HDMI Out Graphics
Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64 bit Operating System
Office 2007

When I got it from the computer shop, this is a built machine not branded
I gradually moved everything from my previous XP Computer, and all seemed ok
then I had problems in that if it went into hibernation it did not wake
reliably and went into repair mode.

Since that after making sure that all programmes were properly closed and
shutting down can result in again reporting problems in starting, and goes
into repair mode, then suggests using restore, which so far has then gone
ok.

Every time this happens I set a new restore point, and have set it to not go
into hibernation.

I do not want to take it back to the supplier if there is something I can do
myself, with your help of course

Any thoughts welcomed,
Mick.

 

[charlie]

ATI HD 5670 51MB GDDR5 DVI VGA HDMI Out Graphics

I think you meant 512MB. this is a low end video card. Most 5000 series
cards have 1Gig or more of memory.

As to your problem, I don't know what or how you copied over from an XP
system. It's certainly possible that your problems are the result.
One simple thing to try is to disable hibernate. It's not of much
benefit on a desktop anyway. I'd also suggest deleting the hibernate
file. Win 7s power management settings may also be involved.

 

[Paul]

Hi all,
This Windows 7 64 bit computer (Spec below)
Computer system.
AMD Phenom (tm) II X 4 965 Processor 3.40 GHz
ASRock 96OGM- GS3 FX Or 96OGM-S3 FX Motherboard
6GB DDR3 1333Mhz DRAM
ATI HD 5670 51MB GDDR5 DVI VGA HDMI Out Graphics
Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64 bit Operating System
Office 2007

When I got it from the computer shop, this is a built machine not branded
I gradually moved everything from my previous XP Computer, and all
seemed ok
then I had problems in that if it went into hibernation it did not wake
reliably and went into repair mode.

Since that after making sure that all programmes were properly closed
and shutting down can result in again reporting problems in starting,
and goes into repair mode, then suggests using restore, which so far has
then gone ok.

Every time this happens I set a new restore point, and have set it to
not go into hibernation.

I do not want to take it back to the supplier if there is something I
can do myself, with your help of course

Any thoughts welcomed,
Mick.

http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=960GM-GS3 FX&cat=Specifications

http://www.asrock.com/mb/photo/960GM-GS3 FX(l).jpg

The CPU support chart, shows your processor is supported.

AM3 Phenom II X4 HDZ965FBK4DGM(BE) 125W Deneb 3400MHz 512KB x4 6MB C3 P1.10

It's just surprising, as the motherboard only appears to have three power phases.

You've got 6GB of RAM, in two DIMM slots, meaning 4GB plus 2GB.
The motherboard probably runs that in some single channel mode.

Still no drop dead issue, that I can see.

You can test with just one stick of RAM installed at a time, and
repeat your testing.

*******

Based on the symptoms, it sounds like it is having a problem
with the disk drive, like corrupting files or something. But
exactly why, I can't tell from here.

You can use HDTune, and check the SMART statistics.

Or, use the hard drive manufacturer disk diagnostic and test the hard drive.
If the hard drive was bad, that might account for the problem. But
just as easily, if the software was turning off the computer, before
the file system had been flushed to disk, that might do it too.

Paul

 

[Mick]

"charlie" wrote in message

ATI HD 5670 51MB GDDR5 DVI VGA HDMI Out Graphics

I think you meant 512MB. this is a low end video card. Most 5000 series
cards have 1Gig or more of memory.

As to your problem, I don't know what or how you copied over from an XP
system. It's certainly possible that your problems are the result.
One simple thing to try is to disable hibernate. It's not of much
benefit on a desktop anyway. I'd also suggest deleting the hibernate
file. Win 7s power management settings may also be involved.

Thank you both for your help,
All I reinstalled from my XP system computer were files like photos files
and word documents plus programmes like printers and Photoshop.

I have set hibernate to "never"

If it is the Hard drive then it will have to go back to the supplier.

Do I read it that the memory is miss matched? and the video card would be
better if it had 1Gig or more of memory
Now is the time to bring this up with them, it was supplied as a high end
computer!
They are a long establishes computer builder with a good local reputation.
Mick.

 

[Paul]

"charlie" wrote in message


I think you meant 512MB. this is a low end video card. Most 5000 series
cards have 1Gig or more of memory.

As to your problem, I don't know what or how you copied over from an XP
system. It's certainly possible that your problems are the result.
One simple thing to try is to disable hibernate. It's not of much
benefit on a desktop anyway. I'd also suggest deleting the hibernate
file. Win 7s power management settings may also be involved.

Thank you both for your help,
All I reinstalled from my XP system computer were files like photos
files and word documents plus programmes like printers and Photoshop.

I have set hibernate to "never"

If it is the Hard drive then it will have to go back to the supplier.

Do I read it that the memory is miss matched? and the video card would
be better if it had 1Gig or more of memory
Now is the time to bring this up with them, it was supplied as a high
end computer!
They are a long establishes computer builder with a good local reputation.
Mick.

Generally, you try to purchase matched pairs of RAM DIMMs.
That format of purchasing, makes the RAM easier to recycle later.
With a two slot motherboard, I would have selected 2x2GB or 2x4GB.
I don't see a particular benefit in the long run, to using 2GB + 4GB
in the two available slots. There might be some other motherboard
you want to run those in, where they don't work as well when mis-matched.

AMD processors have two possible values for RAM operating mode
in the BIOS. There is ganged and unganged mode. With a quad core
processor, you'd want unganged mode. Unganged mode is normally
the default. If you had a Sargas single core processor, you'd
select ganged mode. What I'm not sure of, is the implications
of mismatched channel sizes and usage of unganged mode. Perhaps
the average memory bandwidth suffers, for a portion of the
address space ?

I found some tests here. They don't seem to show much difference.

http://ixbtlabs.com/articles3/cpu/amd-phenom-x4-9850-ganged-unganged-p1.html

*******

You don't have to send the computer back, to test the disks.

Both seagate (seagate.com) and western digital (wdc.com) have
download web pages, with diagnostic software. For example,
Seagate has "Seatools for Windows" to test a hard drive.
Western Digital has "Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for Windows".
Those are examples of tools you can run, from within Windows,
and test the hard drive.

There are also DOS versions, but the last two of my computer
builds I tried them on, the DOS version didn't work (no driver).

You can also look at S.M.A.R.T statistics, to determine drive
health, and there are several utilities that will display that
data. But if you can figure out where to get the diagnostic,
that'll do the job too.

My order of testing, is to test the RAM first, with memtest86+.
It's not a complete test, but it's there to rule out bad RAM
as being a source of upset for other things. If I can do at least
one clean full pass of memtest86+, I'd boot back into Windows
and run the disk diagnostic. I like to prove the hardware first,
before resigning myself to fixing some software problem.

Paul