Windows updates?

I have Windows update turned OFF, so that's not the culprit.

And Trevor, I didn't say that Macs never have hardware or other faults. But the situation I'm describing is quite unique to a Windows-based system. Mac OS doesn't have a craptastic installer with cryptic messages. Let alone messages that tell you that one thing is wrong when in fact it might be something completely different.

Comparing the quality of the hardware in any Mac to what ASUS produces for their own branded MOBOs is like comparing the quality of a current BMW to a 1982 Hyundai.

Updating the BIOS didn't help with the ACPI error. It flashed/updated successfully but still the same error when booting the Windows installer.

I finally had to press F7 at bootup to omit the "complete ACPI" - right now it's progressing through the initial stages of a repair installation (the same type recommended earlier and that I used to reinstall Windows last time).

If anyone can think of a way for me to check my memory without booting into Windows and without a floppy disk I'll give it a shot. Something that can boot from a USB key would be ideal.

I believe that Trinity Rescue Kit has memtest on it. Actually, both Memtest86 and Memtest86+ have bootable downloads.

Linux, of whatever flavour you want?

Couldn't proceed with installation because Windows installer for some reason disabled my USB mouse and keyboard. Unplug/replug into any of the 10 ports on my system did nothing to change this.

Now I've plugged in an old IR keyboard that uses the PS2 ports (and doesn't require drivers). Waiting to get back to the same point in setup.

The next reboot will be to run some of the tests you guys linked, which I'm about to download now.

Yeah, definitely you need MemtestX86.

Let it run for many many loops. Sometimes subtle RAM errors don't show up until it gets warmed up.

MemTest 86+ started reporting errors immediately. In fact, after letting it go through 4 complete tests it was reporting that only 8% of results were good. AT least that's how I interpreted it - the top said PASS: 8%.

The bottom of the screen was perpetually RED (error/fail).

I'm bringing the system upstairs now to start pulling components. I don't understand how the memory could suddenly go bad in a system that runs cool all the time. Not only that, but if the memory is truly as faulty as reported, how is it that the Windows installer loads at all?

I would have a much easier time believing it's the motherboard and memory controller that have gone to crap. More finger pointing at ASUS.

Prior to running MemTest, the Windows install failed again. This time after confirming some drivers (that were already on the system and have been there since day 1). The blue screen error this time was "irql_not_less_or_equal"

As mentioned, I brought the machine upstairs to work on, next to my Mac so I can hit the net at the same time.

I've removed the only two cards in it, both Hauppauge capture cards, removed the memory (Crucial dimms) and then re-installed the memory and booted the system to the MemTest.

Right now we're on the 4th test with no reported failures yet. The only other difference at this time is that I don't have the USB nor PS2 keyboards or mouse plugged in.

This might be power supply or a heat issue. Try adding the cards back in, does it pass memtest? Close the case back up does it pass memtest?

Didn't the x86 motherboard architecture run one of the PS2 keyboard lines and the memory lines together? Maybe it's a keyboard problem or a jack problem.

Also, with the way DMA works for things like PCI video cards, it could be a problem with one of the cards.

That meant that it was 8% of the way through that pass.

Ok, done two complete passes now with not a single error. Now I'll add the cards back in.

The issue is not likely a heat issue since the system has run pretty cool since it was set up. It's using on-board video, the cards are for video capture only (PVR). It's also rare that one of the cards (the QAM/ATSC) is used at all.

Normally only a USB keyboard and mouse are plugged in - if at all. This did not change to cause the problem I first reported today. The PS2 thing was connected only to try and get past a point in the Windows install during the repair. It could have been what was causing the memtest errors which I'll know shortly.

BUt if Memtest doesn't fail, I'm back to square one, not knowing what the problem is at all.

Think of everything that changed including subtle/weird things.

For instance, simply reseating the RAM or cards could have fixed an intermittent pin connection.

Opening the case to remove the cards might have been a factor.

Once I had a problem with a whole series of identical systems, they were all reporting "out of memory" dialog boxes in Windows when our company's software was run on those systems. When I took the CRT off the top of the computer's "pizza box" style case, the errors went away. It turned out that all the systems had been built with the IDE cables for the CD-ROM drive folded across the top of the drives and the cables were being crimped between the case top and the drives. (I'm not saying that's your situation, I'm just saying it could be something as simple as moving the case around could make a hardware problem go away).

The system has been untouched physically since December and has been running without an issue.

Only updates to SageTV have been applied.

Right now I'm back with the Windows setup... And again I notice that I can't move the mouse pointer, so I know I'm going to be screwed when it asks me to click on something...

EDIT: OK, at least the PS2 keyboard/mouse work.

This time no IRQL error when installing devices. I'm now at the Regional/Language prompt. I'm going to see if I can finish this and then I'll do a repair again and try WITH ACPI...

So far so good. I had one problem device (PCI-e root hub) that Windows said it didn't have the resources for, but that seems to be OK after doing a new repair without crippling ACPI.

In the above situation I also had Windows showing that my floppy device wasn't installed properly (it was disabled in BIOS). Now it doesn't show up at all, which is what I expect (and how it used to be before).

I'm about to install AVAST since I've tested it on another system successfully. This will be the first time I've had anti-virus software running full time on a PC.

Currently in the process of applying SP3 and if all goes well I hope to have the system connected back to my TV sources and recording by 8pm.

I do wish I knew what the hell happened to cause this headache.

Also, check for Bad caps on the mobo -- Mac's can suffer from this too!

Yeah, but all the ones I've seen on Macs have been on known-bad motherboard revisions and they've all produced tell-tale smoke.

Don't you just get a sad mac when something goes wrong?


You have enough good memory that the installer can load and run. It doesn't have all the drivers for your hardware installed so lots of things are dormant. The installer itself doesn't use much memory since it has to be able to fit within the minimum system requirements. If the extra ram is used at all then it will be for caching.


Memory issues can/will cause bizarre problems or errors. If it is using that part of bad memor for ACPI then it will think something is wrong with ACPI.

Nope. The sad mac was part of the ROM on machines older then the CRT iMac. They also did away with the death chimes that would accompany the sad mac.

I think Mac folk just don't admit they have problems.

I was doing a publishing project one using Pagemaker on a PC, which would crash several times a day, sometimes taking the data file with it. I bought a Mac based on this idea that they don't fail when doing such things and found that Pagemaker crashes just as much and still thrashes the files. I've since learned to hate all things Adobe.

We used to have a Jaguar XJ6, a car which, in the US at least, has a mostly undeserved reputation for unreliability (they were never as unreliable as, say, a Chevy). One day my wife had it and it wouldn't start after work, so she went back in to call me. When her cow-orkers asked if she was having problems with the Jag, she said "No, I just forgot something".

Well, something is definitely bad in the system.

This morning Windows was stuck in a restart loop. After running last night for a good 6 hours without any visible issues.

When I did the memtest today at 9am it was coming up solid failures. We're talking thousands of failures by the time it got even part way through test #4.

I turned off the power supply, waited about 2 seconds and turned it back on. Still lots of failures, but noticeably less.

Turned off the supply again and unseated and reseated the RAM modules. This time only a handful (10) failures by the time it finished test #4.

WTF? Neither of the shutdowns waited long enough for anything to cool down. The only thing I can think of is that with a quick shut down there's still data in the memory that isn't getting cleared. But I still don't know whether to blame the RAM or the motherboard.

And here I find myself with one of the pitfalls of building my own system. Which item do I return? If this were a Dell or Apple, I'd just swap the whole system with the vendor, probably the same day.

Should I just go ahead and RMA the memory and mobo each on their own? I wonder how long this is going to take - the memory is Crucial and the mobo, as mentioned before, ASUS.

I'm past the 90 days of warranty offered by the store for the mobo, so now I have to deal with ASUS directly. For the memory I think the store offers service for 1 year - Crucial's warranty is lifetime I believe.

That phenomenon was in the news last year -- it can take *minutes* for the DRAM capacitors to drain. Apparently governments use this "feature" to extract data (such as hard drive crypto keys) from the RAM of recently powered-off notebooks.

-ml

Except that Dell would probably want the hard drive(s) back as well, which is a major PITA.

Cheers

Yeah, I used to do the same thing on the Commodore 64 to liberate code from memory.

Mmm... bad PSU ?

Can you try it with first one DIMM, then the other? Or is it one of those motherboards that requires paired DIMMs to work?

Peter

Reading through all of this again, I feel for you, man.

You really could use a second system right now, so that components can be swapped to isolate the failure. I have a couple of them here, but like that does you any good 5.5hrs down the highway from me.

We're supposed to be trying to narrow down the bad parts, not adding more questions.

The PS is as new as everything else, from December. A big Thermaltake. Any suggestions on how I might isolate that?

I can run a single module at a time, but it will run single channel instead of dual channel. The mobo can also use either memory slot when using a single DIMM. I'll go unplug one right now. But I suppose to be thorough I've got to then later swap the DIMM to the other slot to see if it's a slot problem...

I have a Shuttle system which I was just about to throw SageTV onto and then let it run my recordings for the week while I'm away, and while waiting for replacement parts. Not ideal, but I think I can get it set up quickly, since it's mostly just installing the PVR software and the drivers for one capture card.

Most of my media is on a RAID0 box, which does get me thinking that I should likely have some redundancy in the hardware as well. I'm tempted to have a spare identical motherboard and RAM for this such issue.

Here, I have a backup box (mobo, CPU, PSU, etc..). Any of the components of the Mythtv system can be swapped for those of the backup box.

Including just moving the hard drives and tuner cards from the Mythtv system directly into the backup box.

Linux/Mythtv automatically reconfigure themselves for changes like that without user intervention, driver reinstalls, or telephone calls to Microsoft, so it's an easy swap.

A buddy of mine here recently turfed his pirated SageTV setup in favour of Mythtv, despite me suggesting he was probably better off with SageTV. But he begs to differ on that point, and is really happy he made the switch. But of course, he's a non-technical user, so he doesn't know about that kind of thing.

It was especially fun to watch his expression when he later moved the hard drive and tuner card from the original old-P4 system into a faster AMD64 box, and didn't have to tweak anything for it to boot up and work perfectly. Useful feature, that.

Cheers