Computer problem - can't mine, help appreciated

[the joint]

If anyone can offer any advice that solves the problem, you can have the 1.06ish bTC in my wallet.

My problem is that windows 7 won't load, thus prohibiting me from mining.

It's not the hard drive.  Tried 2 hard drives, one is brand new.  Memory diagnostic came back fine but the computer reboots or shuts down inappropriately afterward.  Actually, restarting and shutting down inappropriately seems to be a common theme -- I wanted to start fresh with a new hard drive, so I installed a fresh copy of windows 7...almost.  It gets to the point where all the files are extracted, the computer is asked to restart, and windows attempts to complete the installation process upon restart.  At this point, windows always fails to complete setup and the computer restarts automatically.

I ran a 'repair computer' test that informed me that the "OS successfully loaded" or something along those lines, but it also said something like "problem detected during windows setup."

I've tried different PSUs, hard drives, disconnected video cards, ruled out the optical drive, tried different sata connections, restored fail-safe BIOS settings...The only thing I can think of is that it's my motherboard.  That is my conclusion, but I might be wrong.  I don't want to buy a new motherboard if I don't need one, and I don't want to pay $50 for someone to look at it if I don't have to.  So...any ideas?

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[likuidxd]

System hardware specifics needed.

Sounds like it could be multiple things

Also what version of 7?

[the joint]

System hardware specifics needed.

Sounds like it could be multiple things

Also what version of 7?

MSi ms-7549 motherboard
Corsair HX 750w psu
AMD phenom II quad cpu
radeon 6970
some optical drive that came with a tiger direct comp bundle
not sure what memory...4 gb

Windows 7 Professional

anything else?

[likuidxd]

Up to date bios version?

Are you doing a windows installation from the cd? How old is the cd? Any scratches? You may want to try a usb installation of windows

[likuidxd]

so...get it figured out?

[Revalin]

Start with a real memory diagnostic.  Run memtest86+ overnight and see what you get.  If you have 2+ memory sticks, pull all but one and see if that fixes it; then try a different one.

Try a different GPU if you have one.

After that it's the CPU or board.

[Olly_K]

when you say shut down, do you mean restarts ?

does it bluescreen ?

If you've tried all that hardware, maybe its something like the IDE setting being set to AHCI ?

[the joint]

Up to date bios version?

Are you doing a windows installation from the cd? How old is the cd? Any scratches? You may want to try a usb installation of windows

Yes, I'm doing installation from the CD.  CD was received with computer on March 31.  No scratches or extremely minor ones to the point where I looked at it and was like "yeah, it's fine" almost instantly.  Keep in mind that this problem started occurring before I reformatted my hard drive.  Windows had been operating fine since March.  

My activity on the computer consisted of mostly music production and some gaming from March-June.  From June until the problem (about 3 months?), I was using it almost extensively for mining and some school work.  For a month of gaming, I was using an NVidia 9600 or something and was getting crap m/hash, but I wanted to stay involved.  So, I bought a 6970 because I knew I could use it for gaming later on and it also had nice resale value.


When I bought the 6970, I upped my psu from a 450 watt to a 750.  I noticed after a while of mining, my computer would randomly shut off and restart approximately once every 2 days or so.  I experimented with my mining settings, and although I might not have had enough time to establish a good correlation, I think keeping less work-intensive mining settings resulted in fewer random restarts.  So, this means Windows (or something) was already weird to begin with.  Then again, I don't know much about computers at all, so maybe they were power surges from an overworked psu or something.

Then, Windows stopped booting altogether.  The computer restarted, but this time it failed and from then on wouldn't start again.  This was when I had all my data on my hard drive.  It was only after I had already tried all the different hardware, BIOS, software, and repair options I could think of that I decided to reformat the hard drive.  I assumed at this point that my copy of Windows had gotten totally fucked up somehow, possibly by a hacker or trojan.  Ironically, this was all right after I downloaded Geist Geld (45 GG gone forever), though the restarting pattern began before I downloaded it.

So, I bought a USB/sata cable, transfered my data, files, wallet.dat, and whatever other crap I needed to a laptop.  I transferred the data successfully, so I knew at that point the hard drive was semi-functional at least.  I reformatted my hard drive, tried reloading windows, and now we arrive at the current state -- Windows extracts but doesn't complete installation setup.

And, about the up-to-date BIOS settings, no idea.

[the joint]

Start with a real memory diagnostic.  Run memtest86+ overnight and see what you get.  If you have 2+ memory sticks, pull all but one and see if that fixes it; then try a different one.

Try a different GPU if you have one.

After that it's the CPU or board.

What's memtest86+?  The 10-minute memory diagnostic ran successful sweeps both times I believe.

I could try the memory swap thingy.

Interesting you mention the GPU.  When I removed my GPU the first time and then tried to load Windows (this was before I reformatted my hard drive; see above post for more info if you didn't read it), I was able to load Windows once in safe mode.  But, I had no idea what I was going to do in safe mode anyway, so I rebooted it "normally" to see if it would work.  Never again would it work...not in safe mode, not in normal mode, not with a gpu, not without a gpu.  One thing I didn't try was go back to my nvidia card. 

[the joint]

when you say shut down, do you mean restarts ?

does it bluescreen ?

If you've tried all that hardware, maybe its something like the IDE setting being set to AHCI ?

It's flashing blue screen very quickly before it restarts, yes.  Not sure if it's 100% of the time, but I know I've seen it at least a few times.

For like 1/10th of a sec u can see blue screen with white font.  I admit I don't actually know what the blue screen of death means other than your computer is temporarily fucked. 

[paraipan]

when you say shut down, do you mean restarts ?

does it bluescreen ?

If you've tried all that hardware, maybe its something like the IDE setting being set to AHCI ?

It's flashing blue screen very quickly before it restarts, yes.  Not sure if it's 100% of the time, but I know I've seen it at least a few times.

For like 1/10th of a sec u can see blue screen with white font.  I admit I don't actually know what the blue screen of death means other than your computer is temporarily fucked.  

seems like you tried everything there, hmm
you could try disabling things in BIOS like ethernet, sound, usb2.0 and change prio to integrated VGA first. The previous mem trick could work too. Sound like windows is trying to enable some controller and it gives a bluescreen instead.
Your last opt would be to RMA the motherboard if you can't resolve the issue.

[Revalin]

What's memtest86+?  The 10-minute memory diagnostic ran successful sweeps both times I believe.

http://www.memtest.org/

It's a much more thorough test.

One thing I didn't try was go back to my nvidia card. 

It doesn't hurt to try, but I'm betting on a bad CPU or RAM.

[likuidxd]

It sounds like a bad mobo to me, bad, or starting to finally go, NB if it just started after the new card installation.

[the joint]

K thanks guys I'll keep you posted when I get to it this weekend.

[deslok]

Do a visual inspection of the motherboard for bad capacitors they're the most common failure in non catastrophic overheat scenarios