Very strange errors

Okay. I recently changed out my old mobo/proc setup for an ASUS A8V k8t800PRO and an Athlon 64 3000+ proc. I reformated as is generally required when upgrading the motherboard and now I'm getting an extremely goofy error.

Apparently, the windows visual settings are causing crashes. Forinstance:

With the "Use common tasks in folders" option turned on, whenever I make any attempt to access C: in a window, the computer crashes immediatly with no blue screen, and apparently no memory dump.

And then, when attempting to access internet explorer with various combinations of settings enabled, the same thing occours.

I have not tested any gaming or anything really stressful yet. Here's a full rundown of the system specs:

MB: ASUS A8V K8T800Pro motherboard
CPU:AMD Athalon 64 3000+ Venice core
RAM: 512MB Corsair Value Select PC 3200 RAM
VID: ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
PSU: Enermax Noisetaker /w Active PFC. 320W
Sound: Onboard
Lan: Onboard

Thanks in advance for any help you guys can offer.

 

No blue screen?

Is the following checked:

Click START, then RUN, then type in ( or copy and paste)

RunDll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL sysdm.cpl,,3 (Press enter)

Next click the button Settings under "Startup and Recovery".

Make sure the following is unchecked:

"Automatically Restart".

Also make sure the following are checked:

"Write and event log......"
"Send and admini......"
Under "Write debugging informaition" Make sure that "Small Memory dump (64k)" is selected.

Now, cause the reboot again.

 

Yep, all of that was setup as you said, and apparently the mobo has an 'auto-restart on system failure' too, I loged in with that off, and recreated the error repeatedly, and no matter what I did it still wouldn't give me a BSoD. Also, when I get back on windows XP, the popup, "The system has recovered from a serious error." never appears on these crashs.

All I can figure is that something's up with the mobo. I know the HDD works, and the memory most likely works because everything copies without any problems. As far as I know if the CPU had any problems the computer wouldn't do much at all, much less reformat and install windows without 100s of failed to copy X file pop-ups ( I didn't have one! ).

What the hell would cause the computer to crash without creating a BSoD or a memory dump?!

I'm not sure, but I'm going to RMA the board just in case. If I get the next one and it's doing exactly the same thing, I think I might try uping the PSU to more power. Those are the only things I can think of that might feesibly cause this, and even then, the PSU thing is flimsy, this mobo/CPU combo isn't THAT steep of an upgrade and I never had a power problem in my old rig.

If you got some kinda feedback on what you think the problem might be, I'm all ears.

 

Not really, but what does the eventlogs say?

Click START, RUN, type in: eventvwr.msc (press enter).

Within the time fram of the reboot, is there any red x's, or yellow !'s? Or something else?

 

None of that. It boots and logs in like it didn't just have a crash at all. The boot time dosn't even lag up after the crash or anything like that. It's the strangest issue I've ever run into.

I forgot all about that though, thanks alot for the reminder. Next time I'm at that PC, I'll check the logs and post anything I can find here.

My brother apparently did some serious research while I was off today, and thinks he's found a solution. Apparently, this motherboard simply has a problem with running in 8X AGP mode, and bumping it down to 4X can solve most if not all of the crashing.

My thoughts on it are, it's likely the motherboard is simply powering the system down, and windows fails to recognize it as an error for whatever reason. Just a shot in the dark, as I have no idea how the Error recovery or the BSoD systems really work. At any rate, I'm going to put off RMAing it till I can play with it myself, according to my bro he can play Lineage II on it and hang out in the more busy parts of the server, which sound like good signs to me that everything's running A-OK now.

Thanks alot for the input though bud, sometimes simply reminding people of the basics can help out alot. I'll get on that event viewer ASAP and get that information up here. Anyway, I suppose this is a full fledged Hardware issue now ( my very first instinct being to blame windows ), so I suppose it should be moved there.

Thanks again man, you have no idea how much I appreciate it. ( don't have money to spend on upgrades that arn't going to function at all... )

 

Been running for some time with the new settings and everything's going smoothly. As for the event logs, they're devoid of anything useful.

If you guys ever see anyone reporting strange shutdowns about the ASUS A8V motherboard, I suggest you point them in the direction of this post.

Thanks alot guys, last you'll be hearing from me on this issue.

-Matt.