Arch Linux

Jorje_Villafan

Member

Registered: 2009-01-25

Posts: 13

Frequent Crashes On New Build

On Saturday I  built a new system and installed Arch64. I have had way too many system freezes in the last couple of days. Mostly seems to happen while tranfering files around... I have played Urban Terror multiple times with no issues but while tranfering files from one hard drive to another the system freezes very often..... Also freezes while doing random things, though not nearly as frequent as when tranfering files. 

I have been running 32bit Arch as my main OS for a year and a half (love it). I cant remember one crash... though I havent tested 32bit Arch with this new system yet.

I am in no way a hardware expert bit I'm inclined to think its a hardware situation. Perhaps an under powered powersupply or maybe some bad memory. I say memory because the freeze-ups seem to occur when using up more of the ram. I ran through about 1/4 of a memtest then quit with 160 errors. going to run the full thing tonight and post the results here.

Here are the specs of my new system:

CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor -- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a … 6819103674
Video card: Palit NE3TS25EFHD02 GeForce GTS 250 1GB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card -- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a … 6814261062
Motherboard: ASUS M4A785TD-M EVO AM3 AMD 785G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard -- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a … 6813131406
Memory: OCZ Gold Edition 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1066 (PC3 8500) -- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a … 6820227346
HDD: Western Digital Caviar Black WD7501AALS 750GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5 -- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a … 6822136283 
Power Supply: Thermaltake TR2 RX 450W --- http://www.thermaltake.com/product_info … parent_cp=

Are there amy error repots I could bring up that would make this easier for folks to decipher the issue.

thanks in advance

J

thestinger

Package Maintainer (PM)

From: Toronto, Canada

Registered: 2010-01-23

Posts: 478

Re: Frequent Crashes On New Build

if you got errors during a memtest, that would almost definitely be the problem

you should test out the sticks on by one and figure out which one is bad (possibly both)

memtest86 that comes on almost any linux livecd should be fine for testing the sticks

luckily you bought from newegg so getting replacements won't be a problem - http://www.newegg.com/HelpInfo/FAQDetail.aspx?Module=6

getting bad sticks of RAM is really common, and running memtest and a stress test like prime95 when you build a new computer is good practice

NOTE: it's also possible that the RAM just isn't configured properly in BIOS, make sure all the timings are set right before you return them or anything

edit: I checked out your RAM on newegg, and it looks like there a lot of people that got bad sticks too: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductRe … 6820227346

edit2: OCZ is a great company (and they usually make great products :\), so you'll want to get a replacement through them (no restocking fee) http://www.ocztechnology.com/support/warranty/

Last edited by thestinger (2010-02-22 15:19:10)

Jorje_Villafan

Member

Registered: 2009-01-25

Posts: 13

Re: Frequent Crashes On New Build

Thanks for your reply... I ran memtest last night while I was sleeping. Got a ton of errors..... I'll check on making sure the timing is right in bios. If it turns out that timing is good and the memory is just bad, I dont think I'll need to test individual sticks as I purchased them as a pair and will be retutrning them both in the same package.

Do you think the power supply is sufficient?

Jorje_Villafan

Member

Registered: 2009-01-25

Posts: 13

Re: Frequent Crashes On New Build

I adjusted the timings and also tried single sticks.. the same issue occurs.  I can do just about anything that doesn't take up too much memory and everythings just keeps on workin'. I'll head over to the OCZ site and go from there.