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Question

Encountering an issue that has made my computer unusable.

Jul 30, 2012 7:45AM PDT

Basically, I was playing minecraft one day (Windows had installed some updates the night before, IIRC), my computer shuts down out of nowhere, about 5 minutes into me playing. Now, when I reboot and attempt to log in (Windows Vista), it acts like I logged in successfully, but then the screen goes black, no mouse, pointer, etc and the computer basically shuts off or reboots. I said screw it, and installed Windows 7 from scratch on a fresh partition, that does the same thing (Go to log in and it shuts down after logging in). Both versions of Windows will boot up and allow me to log in via safe mode, which is where I tested my RAM, which came up with a few errors, so I replaced the RAM. Just installed it ten minutes ago and tried again, still getting this error. Any ideas? All my drivers appear to be fine, so unless it's a failing piece of hardware that isn't used in safe mode, I'm pretty much stumped.

Discussion is locked

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Answer
Failing the RAM test is doubly bad. Why?
Jul 30, 2012 8:34AM PDT

Because RAM is used to buffer writes to the hard disk, any app, OS or data on the hard drive can be corrupt now.

It's a shame not much is told about the machine. It could be the old PC that the owner didn't know about canned air, cleaning and more.
Bob

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Well...
Jul 30, 2012 11:13AM PDT

Hence why I opted to install a new OS on a fresh partition and the same issue was happening. Start up, log in, and black screen/shutdown/reboot. This computer is about 3 years old, well-maintained... custom built i720 with 6gb ram, 512mb video card, total of 3 hard drives w/ about 850gigs of memory... It's not a POS or anything, and I'd never had any issues with it until now. I could just wipe the HD and start from scratch (I kept the OS and games on one HD, and all my media on another...) but I would much prefer to just fix what is wrong with it. From my guesses, I'm thinking it's a hardware or driver issue, but in safe mode, all the drivers look fine.

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Drivers do not go bad.
Jul 30, 2012 11:52AM PDT

But that ram issue can be a reason to refresh heat sink compound and check the settings in the BIOS as well as other hardware checks such as the power supply size. I've lost count of just big enough power supplies and your story.
Bob

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I meant corrupted drivers... not bad drivers.
Jul 30, 2012 2:28PM PDT

Which I've had happen on an older computer, the first I built. Anyway, I think the issue is the video card, so tomorrow I'll be replacing that and seeing if it has any effect. I figure it boots into 16 bit (safe mode), but once I go to sign in and it launches 64 bit (with HDMI out and whatnot) the system collapses. If it's not that, I'll probably wipe the drive and start from scratch. BTW, it's got a 650watt power supply (iirc), plenty big from what I understand.

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Even a 650 may not be big enough when
Jul 30, 2012 3:25PM PDT

When those 650 Watt PSUs have the 3 +12V Rails I've seen them collapse. I know, I know, too technical. But without checking I can't rule that out.

Corrupted drivers are also rare. They are not written to so what could corrupt them?
Bob

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It was...
Aug 1, 2012 1:15AM PDT

The video card. Swapped that and it's running great again.

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Good to read.
Aug 1, 2012 1:23AM PDT

I wonder which video card it was. I've seen a lot of those older cards fail and I don't want to give anyone the impression that the usual 8400/8600/8800 cards are "bad" since most of the time I find the owner was never told about keeping the heat sinks clean with canned air once in awhile.
Bob

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Sapphire card...
Aug 1, 2012 4:06AM PDT

Radeon 4850 chipset, IIRC. 2.0 x 16 PCI-E, 64 bit, 512mb. New card is good bit better, haha.

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My 4850 was odd even new.
Aug 1, 2012 10:33AM PDT

I gifted it to a friend the didn't need it for games and it lived a long time.

Go figure.
Bob