New Build Up and Running Today -- WindowsXP Spontaneously Reboots Periodically

[Fluidstream]

Build:

Asus Crosshair V Formula Z
Kingston HyperX DDR3 @ 2133 MHz
AMD FX-6300 Vishera six-core
BFG Tech GeForce 7950 GTOC
Thermaltake Smart-M Series 850-watt PSU (Purchased in July 2012)
WinXP SP-3 (no updates installed yet)

I just put this system together on Friday, and after getting an invalid product key for Windows 8 from Newegg.com, I decided to install WinXP with a slipstream SP3 disc. Everything works nicely except for the periodic reboots. I disabled "Automatically Restart" in the advanced system settings so I could get a blue screen, but I get no blue screen... just a sudden reboot.

Now here's what happened. The memory I'm using (Kingston HyperX 4GB x 2 - KHX2133C11D3K4) is listed in the QVL and is in the manual that came with the motherboard.

I had the BIOS set to run the memory at 2133MHz, timing was 11-12-11-30 as per the book and QVL, and I had the voltage set to 1.65v. After the spontaneous reboot, I went back into the BIOS and noticed that all my memory timings and frequency had been set back to the defaults I remember seeing when I first turned the computer on (1333MHz and 9-9-9-24). And the voltage had been lowered to 1.60v, which is still higher than the 1.38v or so that was the default.

I'm wondering what the BIOS is doing here. Is it running some kind of analysis and lowering the voltage on my behalf? The book specifically lists the voltage when running four DIMMS. I have four DIMMS, but I only have two installed because the book said I should get a premium memory cooler if I want to run a full memory load. I can't get a memory cooler right now because I spent all the money I had to spend getting the other hardware and Windows 8. Should I change the voltage to something else with only two of the four DIMMs installed? Or maybe I should go ahead and stick the other two DIMMs in and see if that works? I've never had a memory cooler before, but I've also never built a computer with all four DIMM slots filled. I'm not sure how to proceed.

So I'm wondering if these BIOS settings are possibly causing my reboots. Since I can't get a blue screen for an error code, for now, this is the only thing I can think of that could be causing problems. When the BIOS was set to the defaults, spontaneous reboots happened far more quickly, like within ten seconds of trying to install Windows 8. (By the time I got to installing WinXP, I had configured the frequency, timing and voltage for the memory so I didn't have a reboot problem.)

What suggestions do you guys have at this point for stopping the reboots and/or what explanations do you have for these strange changes to the BIOS?

Thanks,
Fluidstream

[Fluidstream]

Oh well, I tried. I kept feeling better and better about it as I continued using the computer for a few hours. Just as I was reveling in the fact that something might be working and imagining myself coming back to tell you that was it, I got another reboot. I still had the monitor plugged into the battery. I wonder if somehow having anything connected at all to the battery might be causing a problem. My particular LCD/LED monitor has to be turned on before the computer. I wonder if it's losing power and then causing the computer to shut down, too. I'll try hooking the monitor to the same surge protector as the computer is on, but only after I've had some sleep. I think it took about the same amount of time for it to reboot as it did on my last try.

[Chino]

I wouldn't worry about the RAM cooler. It'd take a lot more voltage than 1.65V to fry your RAM.

[mjssge]

I would go back to basics before u turn yourself into knots. The first thing I noticed was that u said the Windows8 you got from newegg had an invalid key. I have had a few probs with win8 not recognising my key after I had to re-format and re-install and it thought I was installing on a new pc. I got it sorted in about 5 minutes using a online chat facility (Microsoft product activationsolution centre).

Often we oc'ers and system builders try to find the most difficult solution first, ditch the xp, install the win8 and then you can move on from there. I recommend the classic start app from the win8 store as it brings back the start menu and familiar desktop.

I had quite a few problems getting win8 tailored to my needs, drop me a msg if u need any win8 advice and ill try to help.

Cheers
MJS

[Fluidstream]

mjssge wrote:
I would go back to basics before u turn yourself into knots. The first thing I noticed was that u said the Windows8 you got from newegg had an invalid key. I have had a few probs with win8 not recognising my key after I had to re-format and re-install and it thought I was installing on a new pc. I got it sorted in about 5 minutes using a online chat facility (Microsoft product activationsolution centre).

I actually called Microsoft on the phone about the key and the guy on the phone said he couldn't help me and I'd have to contact Newegg.com to get the situation resolved. Apparently, if you want help from Microsoft with a key not being recognized, you must have purchased the key from Microsoft directly. I don't know how Newegg is going to handle it. And I thought the key was actually encoded in the disc. I don't know how Newegg can give me a key that works unless they have some backup key recorded that's associated with the key printed on my DVD sleeve.

Often we oc'ers and system builders try to find the most difficult solution first, ditch the xp, install the win8 and then you can move on from there. I recommend the classic start app from the win8 store as it brings back the start menu and familiar desktop.

Well, it's not that I was hating XP or anything, but I like the look of Win8, plus I wanted to use more RAM than Windows XP 32-bit would recognize, but I didn't want to get WinXP 64-bit. I just decided to take the plunge. After I already had Windows 8 and a key that wouldn't work, and I started getting blue screens while trying to install an old WinXP SP1 upgrade disc, I learned about slipstreaming discs. I made one coaster trying to slipstream XP on a Vista machine, then I made a working disc on my friend's XP machine, after doubling her RAM from 512MB to 1GB so I could use it myself without feeling like pulling my hair out. I really like this slipstreaming concept. If I have to RMA Windows 8 for a new disc, I'm planning on downloading all the updates for this installation so I can make an up-to-date slipstream disc in case I ever have to install XP again.... like if Windows 8 is so bad that I just can't stand it.

I had quite a few problems getting win8 tailored to my needs, drop me a msg if u need any win8 advice and ill try to help.

Thanks. I feel like I can handle it, but I'm sure I'll at least be using search engines to find where this or that was moved, or why I can't customize something anymore, like system colors. It seems like each new release of Windows removes more and more options for customizing the system colors. I hate that. I had a really cool color scheme in pre-XP versions of Windows. I prefer dark backgrounds and light-colored text, but there was a problem when some coders didn't bother applying a system color to a font used in a program, so if I had black or dark backgrounds, the default "black" would make some text impossible to read without resetting the system colors. I used to find that on web pages, too. Some webmasters would author a page and set a background color to white without bothering to set the text to black. My system default was white text, so I had to "select all" to read many web pages. Or they wouldn't set a background color at all, assuming everyone just loves a giant sheet of blinding white everywhere they go on the web, but they did specify black text, so their pages were also unreadable. I wanted to see pages the way they were meant to be seen, but if a black-on-white page is 780px wide in a table, I like the areas beyond that to be black to minimize the amount of white light coming at me.

[mjssge]

I bought my win 8 from ocuk and had no problem activating via web chat with ms (dont phone)

Your pc/components shud have worked out of the box, you seem to be going at it from all angles. I have 20 years of problem solving relating to pc's. Take it back to basics, sort out the win8, disassemble and re-build your rig. Then you are more likely to be able to isolate any h'ware/s'ware issues.

With luck you wont have any probs.

Best of Luck
MJS

[HalloweenWeed]

If you had your PSU powered, regardless of whether or not your computer was actually on, when you removed the CMOS battery; it did NO actual good, no acual test. You need to remove it after you unplug your computer, or while the PSU power switch is off.

[Fluidstream]

HalloweenWeed wrote:
If you had your PSU powered, regardless of whether or not your computer was actually on, when you removed the CMOS battery; it did NO actual good, no acual test. You need to remove it after you unplug your computer, or while the PSU power switch is off.

Yes, I had the power switch off on the power supply and it was unplugged, then I removed the battery. And yeah, the CMOS was actually cleared because the date was reset. I noticed that after getting into Windows.

[Fluidstream]

Well, I'm not in full trust of this thing so far, but aside from a few reboots I did on my own, this thing has not rebooted on me spontaneously all day today! Basically all my settings are set on automatic defaults except:

I disabled Turbo Mode because it seems to get stuck in that mode in Windows XP.
I enabled the "Load 4GB Settings" that raised the timings a little to slow things down just a little. So instead of 1333 @ 9-9-9-24, I now have 1333 @ 10-12-11-28, and so far, so good.

Voltage set to automatic registers 1.488, but I think it goes to that even if I set it to a straight 1.5v.

Thanks for all the help in this thread, and thanks for your patience!

I should soon be installing Windows 8 when I get a working product key. Hopefully it won't start the reboot cycle and make me scratch my head over all that's been done here.