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First let me start of with my specs. I know this is an overclocking setup, but I haven't had the time, environment, and lately the stability to even think about overclocking it right now, so everything is stock.
Specs:
PS: Corsair TX850
Mobo: EVGA P55 Classified 200
GPUs: 2 nVidia Quadro FX 3500 SLi
RAM: 4GB Corsair DDR3 1600MHz (CMX4GX3M2A1600C8)
Processor: i7 870 @2.93GHz
I do have some extra PCI cards, that I could look up their part numbers if requested, but I haven't even used them lately, and they have been installed without issue for a while, and no new drivers have been installed for them.
SSD: Crucial M4 64GB SSD
Hard Drives: 2 2TB I wanna say Seagate Barracuda drives in RAID 0 for data only
O/S: Windows 7 64 bit Pro SP1 currently up to date with all updates
Pre-Problem History:
When I built my setup, I went ahead and bought 4GB of 2400MHz Transcend RAM (404093-0081), for when I wanted to overclock, I would already have the appropriate RAM on hand. It was sitting around still in the box, so I went ahead and tossed it in a couple months back into the extra DIMM bays on the mobo. Booted it up, and the system recognized the now 8GB of RAM, but said that only 3.99GB was usable. I didn't really mind too much because I hadn't maxed out my RAM yet, so I just left it in. I had figured that maybe it would just run at a lower speed, but on the sticker, it says `1.65V, so I probably would have had to up the voltage just to get it to work. Again, not worth the hassle when I didn't even really need it. Anyways I left it in, and really didn't use the computer too much because I was doing other things for school (This was built to be a CAD machine). Well now that I am starting to get into my ME classes, I really needed to start using SolidWorks and MATLAB so I went ahead and started using this computer on a regular basis. There were still a couple kinks, like a hangup on shutdown, and a sometimes the computer wouldn't wake up after shutting the displays off. So I target those and finally worked them out after some driver updates etc. The computer was running pretty well and I decided that while I was at it, I may as well remove the extra 2400MHz RAM that was in there. Along this same time I had setup LogMeIn, and had installed their "blank screen" driver so that I would be able to control SolidWorks from my laptop when I wasn't home. The blank screen driver caused a lot of issues, but I didn't realize that it was causing the problems, so I clicked the reset CMOS button on the back of my mobo in order to be able to see the BIOS (I couldn't see anything until the windows login screen). This caused the Mobo to give me a "Check Video Card" error, so I had to restart the system with only one of the cards plugged in, and then load some default settings into the CMOS, and then I could reboot with the two graphics cards in.
Pre-Problem Changes:
Again, the only things that I really touched were the RAM, and the Graphics Cards. Everything else stayed the same. I reseated the 1600MHz RAM while I was in there, but have reseated it many times over while trying to troubleshoot this issue. The graphics cards seem to be working fine right now, but again, they are definitely a possibility.
Problem:
The problem has happened pretty much every time the computer is on, but it is after a set amount of time. Recently I haven't been using the computer a lot, so it has happened after probably a rough guess of .5 hour after boot time, after the displays have been turned off. Basically, the screens will be off, and then all of the sudden one (either) or both screens will just pop up with a BSoD screen with the 0xF4 error, and then say something about a crash dump at the bottom.
Tried Solutions:
When it first happened, I was in the middle of copying a rather large file in explorer, I was browsing the internet, and I had a slightly complex file open in SolidWorks, so I thought that it could have been the SSD, so I ran a Chkdsk /f multiple times, and every time it came up perfectly fine.
Next I thought that maybe it was the RAM, so I ran Windows Memory Checker, and that came up perfectly fine, and then I ran Memtest 86 2 times, 2 passes the first time, 3 passes the second time (second time was well passed the amount of time it would take for the BSoD error to come up) and it came up perfectly fine both times with that as well.
The graphics cards are really the next culprit, but I really do think it has something to do with the RAM, as the graphics cards haven't been forced to do anything too intensive yet. I used an ESD bracelet when removing the cards, and made sure they were seated correctly every time. Both cards have 6 pin connectors plugged in, and both have the SLi bridge connected properly.
My CPU temps are pretty low, again, nothing I have done is too intensive (around 38-42 when idle, and 48-50 when working with solidworks and other programs. I don't have a way to measure my RAM temps I don't think but when I took out the ram to reseat it, it was a little hot. They have heat sinks on them though so they should be fine. GPU cards are a little warm as well, but again, nothing too alarming, and the fans on both cards are working fine. Probably could stand to throw another fan onto the case, but I'm not overclocked right now, and not really working it too hard so I don't really see the need for it right now.
I don't have other RAM other than the 2400MHz RAM to try, and I'm not gonna overclock it just to test for faulty RAM unoverclocked. Don't really have it in my budget right now to go buy some test sticks of RAM either.
If someone knows how to read the BSoD dump files or whatever, I would be more than happy to post them up here, I don't really know where to find them though. Any help at all is greatly appreciated. Thanks Again.
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