Boy, i can tell one thing from your post, you never build your PC self up from scratch !
I build my current PC 5 years ago, im a minimalist, i don't need extrem grafics and bling, so it was enough.
But this year, i whanted to upgrade and maintain the system.
So i put 2 more GB of RAM in it, changed the water of the watercooling, new graphiccard, blow the dust out of every fan, new DVD player, a new cardreader (SDHC), two old HDDs where replaced by new ones (more space for porn).
And while i have the watercooler from the cpu removed, i thought take out the cpu sandpaper the cooling paste from it and add new one, after 5 years, it's about fucking time.
So, yesterday everything was in the tower, i try to start the system, but the system doesn`t boot propperly.
You hear the fans running and the booting progress, but after 4 seconds, it stops and trys again to boot from the beginning.
First thought: RAM is defect, old RAM in it again, same problem, next thought: graphiccard busted, build old one in it, doesn't boot either.
CPU busted ? Okay, i phone my brother, i build his PC too and it has the same motherboard and the same CPU, but slightly better.
He brings his tower, i take the CPU out, put it in my tower, booting complete, everything works fine, but the CPU temperature is too high, arround 60 degrees cesius.
So, it could be the cooling system, taking it appart, cleaning it, check the waterflow, everything normal.
Then, just to try, i put my CPU in his tower, and it runs. Remember: the same motherboard !
Okay, the problem must be somewhere else. Considering the heat problem, perhaps the bios runs with false data and the CPU gets to much power.
Try to clear the bios. Nothing changed.
Just because i'm a very curious person, i place my CPU again in my brothers tower and run a stress test via Prime95, and the test was aborted, because of hardware failure.
So, this is the explaination, the CPU is defect, but produces only crashes, when under 100% pressure. And it got burned by a malfuncional Bios, it got to much power.
The manual of the motherboard was not accurate enough, they wrote it is enough to take out the battery for one minute, to reset the Bios.
But to really set it back, you also have to set a jumper on the metal pins at the motherboard.
This explains why Fallout 3 or Oblivion crashed so often, and i thought, it was just the bugy game.
The hole thing took us 5 and a half hours, i shortend it, because my english is not very good and i don't whant your eyes to start bleeding from my terrible writing.
So, now tell me, do you REALLY have a problem or is it just a minor inconvenience ?
