Intermittent problems booting my Intel Core 2 Quad PC

**fabian21** · February 21st, 2007, 11:47 AM

I've upgraded my PC and currently have installed the Asus Striker Extreme mobo w/ the Intel Core 2 Quad processor and 2 GB of PC2-6400 Crucial RAM. I have a PC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool 510 SLI PSU.

Installed in the expansion slots I have 2x EVGA Nvidia 7800 GTX-KO PCI-E video cards running in SLI, and an Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro sound card. The sound card is installed in the last PCI slot (not in between the 2 video cards) and does seem to sit a little too close to the 2nd video card in my opinion.

For HDD's, I have all SATA drives, a mix of 3G and 1.5G SATA interfaces, and they consist of 2x 500GB WD HDD's in a RAID 0 striped array, 2x 250GB WD HDD's in a RAID 0 striped array, and a single WD Raptor 74 GB HDD running as a standard NTFS formatted HDD.

I also have 2 Plextor optical drives , PX-516A DVD+/-R/W and the Premium CD-RW drive. Plus, a floppy drive w/ multi-card reader built in.

Ok, so my problem is the system intermittently will not POST. I turn the power on, the LCD POST reporter on the mobo gets to "CPU INIT" and stops there....sometimes. Other times, it will POST just fine and Windows boots up no problem. When it doesn't POST properly, I usually have to cycle the hard power switch on my PSU a couple of times and then restart the PC and it will boot. Now, I've ran it for up to a week straight with multiple reboots in between every day and it ran fine and booted up each time no sweat. But then, on a given day, I rebooted it, and the problem started happening again. Only once, when POST failed, the LCD screen read "DRAM INIT" when it stopped, but this only happened once out of several times this problem has struck.

When the PC is running, it runs great. Benchmarks just fine, performs all that I ask of it no problem. No instability that I've seen, and like I said, usually reboots fine.

Now, could I be overheating something? I don't think so since I've rebooted in between DVD re-encodes and/or a little COD action several times w/o issue but then I reboot after the PC has sat idle for a day or done nothing more than surf the web and the problem returns.

Not enough wattage from my PSU? Possibly. I could upgrade it if need be.

Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks guys!

**NooNoo** · February 21st, 2007, 01:26 PM

Ir's possible that your cpu faulty, or your ram is... if it is stopping at post. The PSU you have is something of a beast with favourable reviews but yes it is possible it has developed an intermittent fault... but I would doubt it...

Did you use your own thermal paste or the paste already supplied on the hsf? The mountings on the hsf could be a little off, creating a problem - that design is fiddly.

PS - that is overkill for a desktop and yes I am very jealous!

**fabian21** · February 21st, 2007, 02:25 PM

I think it may be related to the PSU especially since at power up is when the most power is required from it. I'm going to test with a beefier PSU to see what happens. Thanks for your help though.

**CCT** · February 21st, 2007, 07:24 PM

I was surprised when I went through the manual for that mobo that I couldn't find (or missed) a BIOS setting for staggered spinup such that all the drives didn't start spinning at once (eases the PSU load on startup but slows post I believe).

Your manual shows a power hungry mobo and you far exceed what they describe.

**fabian21** · February 23rd, 2007, 10:25 PM

Well, i'm now testing with a 1kw PSU. will see how it goes.

**NooNoo** · February 24th, 2007, 04:51 AM

I'm glad I don't have to see your power bills....

**fabian21** · March 1st, 2007, 11:11 PM

Well, still have problems. Now the darn thing won't POST period! The mobo's LCD poster readout displays "CPU INIT" the whole time and nothing. Sits idle doing nothing at all after the fans and drives spin up when I power it up.

But I've now had my mobo and RAM independently tested w/ a different physical PROC but same model and they woked just fine. Even had the mobo's BIOS flashed to the current version during testing to ensure that wasn't it. So that only leaves my actual processor. I now have an RMA # in hand and will exchange it to see if that's the culprit.

Alhough I do believe my original PSU was under powered, that's not the only problem I have now. Does anyone think the under power situation could have zapped my CPU?

**NooNoo** · March 2nd, 2007, 04:22 AM

Unlikely given that the psu was of good quality... but nevertheless possible.

Sometimes electronics fail straight out of the box, other times after a few weeks... the only guarantee is that at some point, they will eventually fail.

**fabian21** · March 14th, 2007, 11:09 PM

Ok well, new CPU received, still had problem.

Discovered after playing w/ CMOS reset switch / jumper the thing booted. Positions were correct according to the manual but the CMOS reset button was loose and after simply removing it, it started working.

Now also discovered mobo wasn't setting memory timings correctly so I manually set those.

Now it appears to be running stable but only time will tell.

**CCT** · March 15th, 2007, 07:52 AM

Glad things seem to have been fixed.

Another case of 'Loose clips sink chips" wasn't it?

**fabian21** · April 7th, 2007, 12:39 AM

Well, the topic has been greatly helpful but I don' feel anyone's response has truly been the answer.

I've just about given up on the Asus Striker Extreme mobo. My previously discovered success has been very short-lived.

Since my last post, I upgraded my RAM to Corsair's TWIN2X2048-9136C5D memory. The mobo didn't respond well to it. I tried several different timing settings on it and the 1st few times, if it failed, it would come back after a hard power cycle (with settings reset). Then, on 1 last tweak, it wouldn't come back up at all. Similar symptoms as before mentioned but this time there is nothing I could do to get it back.

So I dumped the mobo and bought the Evga 122-CK-NF68-A1 N680i SLI board. I set it up and bam, works like a champ. No problems from the get go. Memory running at full speed no sweat. Will OC my proc & RAM next, then probably my GPU's.

Now I'm stuck with this Asus board I can't return 'cause I've been fighting w/ it for way too long. Anyone interested? Also included would be the original Crucial RAM I have for it.

Thanks for all your help.

**NooNoo** · April 7th, 2007, 04:11 AM

The warranty is usually a year, can you not return it directly to Asus?

**fabian21** · April 7th, 2007, 08:31 AM

Yeh but only for replacement, not refund. I'm not interested in it anymore after this....can you say Ebay?

**NooNoo** · April 7th, 2007, 09:11 AM

Get it replaced, then Ebay it... you cannot ebay a faulty board and if you say it's faulty, you won't get much if any money for it.

**Matridom** · April 11th, 2007, 11:04 AM

I'm not sure where you got that board from, but around where i live, if it was purchased through a retail vendor you do have the option of returning it for money back, Considering your track record with this board, i could easily see it being returned. Now if you bought it online with an explicit "no refund" policy, you could have mucked yourself.

I'm dealing with a similar board (p5n32-sli) and i got a faulty one out of the box also, but i'm not blaming asus for this one, mine was repackaged by the vendor and sold as new

I was missing the q-connector, Sata cable, stickers and driver CD, not to mention thermal grease smudged on the CPU retaining braket. I had a faulty fan header. I'm seeing if they will upgrade me to the striker for the same price. I can complain pretty loudly.