Help from any computer gurus out there

[GoldenVulture]

Well following those solutions, replace MB and OS should just about cover every possible thing wrong on the present MB and any and every driver issue...... basically you are telling him to get a new computer... again.... you crack me up.

ER! You said the same thing, pretty much.

I can fix the issue easy... buy a new computer Sorry, I just do not know where to really go from here.

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SF

Okay, here's the plan...

I'm going to reinstall the old PSU, and in the process, unplug and replug everything.

I'm going to check the BIOS version.

If it crashes after this, I'm going to get another motherboard?

It would be such a waste of the rest of it, to " trash it"

[briggleman]

ER! You said the same thing, pretty much.

True, but you did notice the banging the head against a wall icon?? I meant the statement to be a little ridiculous! That's the problem with forums and emails, never can really get the intent across! However, it does feel like we are banging our heads against a wall, all of us want to get our hands on the system to fix it, and we have to rely on the OP to interpret what we say in our emails and then go and do it. We also have our own ways of doing things. I am a Network admin. for a med. sized engineering company. My number one job is to keep the network up and all the workstations productive. To that end I must diagnose problems quickly or come up with a work-a-round to get the "work related project" completed with the resources I have. In the case of the OP's problem, I would have quickly discovered the third drive issue. Then if the problem continued, I would have to assume something was damaged or disconnected during the initial installation of the drive. If reconnecting everything again did not fix it, the engineer would get a replacement system and his or her work would go on and I then would do a complete overhaul of the system...... Which is what uOpt is suggesting, but that is a last resort. Changing the OS is not an option for me, that is like throwing the baby out with the bath water....and does not help at all. Changing the MB, if after following your recommendations of updating the bios did not work, would again be a last resort effort.

But to put a feather in my hat, I run, troubleshoot, and maintain 2 Novell and 6 MS Servers, along with 50 Windows XP workstations. In my 15 years with this company.... My Network has never gone down due to hardware or software issues! All of my servers are very redundant in build (dual memory, power supplys, network cards). I do have workstation issues, however, I keep my engineers, surveyors and planners productive, 99% of the time, only swapping out systems if its going to take me longer than 10 minutes to fix. I have had power outages that after a few hours my battery backups go dead, but I cannot control that.

Knocking on very thick wood now!!!!

Brad

[GoldenVulture]

I can see where you are coming from mate. i have a good friend who does the same type of work as you. His network has about 250+ workstations on it. He also likes to use computers to make music. A couple of tracks I have on my sound click site are his backings.[ Phils Thing and P3 ]

I do home user servicing and installations . I've also put together a few different DAW's. I'm looking at it from experince that way. [ i'm also a trained audio engineeer from back in the early 80's ]

Daw's do seem to be finicky about hardware and particularly motherboards and chipsets. Also drivers for audio devices can be touch and go, too. Some hardware combinations work fine , others don't. My own annoyances are mainly they are too noisy [ MB's ] and audio proccessing cards and such are either cheap and directed towards gamers and similar, or are much more high end and pricy.

My own approach is " what can we do before we start replacing hardware " [ Spending $ ] We seem to have exhausted most of those possibilities. A Different/new MB is the most likely thing to do at this point, it would seem.
My one concern is that it worked fine for a while but now[ with or without the third drive ] it crashes. Flaky board? Flaky drivers? Considering it does it with two different interfaces, I'd lean towards flaky hardware that's getting worse.

I use an Aardvark Q10 interface. It's drivers and driver version can be touchy as to whether they work or not and in the previous DAW I used it in, it depended in what order I loaded the software and drivers for it and other hardware/software I used in it; As to whether the thing worked properly or not.

[uOpt]

I don't say get a new computer.

First of all, of course for me the first step would be to try another OS, namely a 32 bit XP. Windows drivers ****ed up? A possibility? Hell yes.

Second, a mainboard is a pain to exchange in a working computer but it is more work to first replace everything else and then the mainboard. I don't see how a new mainboard is a "new computer". Sure, this board is expensive but then buying an expensive Asus board is not a good idea in the first place.

[SabbathFan0220]

Okay, before I respond in greater depth, just an update. The old power supply is back in, and I'm about to install the latest BIOS version.

EDIT: From everything I just read about updating a BIOS, it's pretty risky...should I wait on this?

Here's the other thing. I emailed the company that built the computer for me, because it's only 6 months old and there is a one year warranty on it. Seeing as you guys are starting to agree that something in there is broken, I want get them involved in replacing it.

I read all the latest posts and I'm starting to believe it's a faulty part somewhere as well. Even though the crashes didn't happen before the third drive was there, it's looking less and less like it was the source of the problem, even though logic would say it must be related.

[uOpt]

If you bought a whole computer there is hope they replace the mobo for you and give it to somebody else.

[GoldenVulture]

EDIT: From everything I just read about updating a BIOS, it's pretty risky...should I wait on this?

It's relatively simple. These days it's even easier than it used to be. Some can be done in windows. In the old days you'd have to boot up a dos disk and do it that way.

I emailed the company that built the computer for me, because it's only 6 months old and there is a one year warranty on it.

A lot of warranties are voided the moment you open the enclosure.
Don't tell them you have.

[briggleman]

If you bought a whole computer there is hope they replace the mobo for you and give it to somebody else.

uOpt, your opinion of human nature amazes me. Is the glass always half-empty for you? I have to trust most folks will do the right thing.

[uOpt]

uOpt, your opinion of human nature amazes me. Is the glass always half-empty for you? I have to trust most folks will do the right thing.

Well ... not much longer

This what happens in Asus RMA service when you send in a motherboard.

No motherboard manufacturer gives you a new-new board when you send in a broken one. They give you another one from the pile that tested OK. The difference with Asus is that they skip the testing except for a simple "posts yes/no". They either send you your old board back after flashing the BIOS or they randomly draw one from the pretty much untested pile of other returns. Other manufacturers are more willing to send boards to the trash after some real(er) testing.

This isn't a rumor. You can even call them and ask. Of course they don't admit to the non-testing but there are numerous threads tracking boards and they will tell you that you get a "refurbished" board, not a new one. This is often justified as most of the boards indeed do come back due to pilot error. What is not good is if the testing is lousy. For example it is pretty obvious that an error description like "hangs on heavy harddrive activity" or "bluescreen with obscure USB" device will not see the test staff run out and buy the hardware to test. They rate this as "excessive and unusual load demands" and they simply send it to another customer hoping for one with less disk activity and/or one willing to buy the usual excuse which is "windows sucks, that's why your PC hangs".

That is why I don't buy expensive Asus boards anymore. I buy the cheap ones in the intend to throw it in the trash if anything is wrong. Except I don't have to. Cheap Asus boards tend to work, as in all components and forever. Expensive Asus board almost always have heavy problems, usually around I/O reported on forums and people often don't get them resolved. BIOS updates from Asus tend to be more useless than other manufacturer's, too, probably due to the higher number of competing requirements. The simpler the board the less things the BIOS needs to sort out and the less lines you have to draw on the PCB.

[SabbathFan0220]

Still waiting to hear back from this computer store before I do anything else. I'll keep you guys posted...hopefully soon.

[SabbathFan0220]

An update: I think I solved this problem. After like 6 months of troubleshooting.

I'll try to explain as concisely as possible. I had two versions of Reaper on my computer: 32 bit and 64 bit. Originally, I had been using only the 64x version, but later discovered that some plugins could only be modified in the 32x version, so I stuck to using the 32x because it seemed to work fine (all this happened before any crashes).

So the other night, I thought I'd try to run all the same projects in 64x. Some of the plugins didn't work, but I could open as many projects as I wanted without the computer crashing!

I'm going to find 64x compatible plugins to replace the others, but it looks like this is going to work (finally). I guess I just maxed out what 32 bits can handle...I dunno.

[hagop injeyan]

dear friend
if it's a driver issue
1. run in command prompt "verifier /standard /all" . to turn it off ( cause this may bring problems) .. "verifire /reset"
2. RAM issue, they mensioned, memtest is perfect
3. hard disk probelm ... HDtune
otherwise... maybe CPU or probably motherboard.
wish you good luck
PS if you turn on verifier it will bring you a blue secreen of death with the name of the driver.