[Stinky12]

My system is going wonky these past few days...
Two problems I'm having are system just restart when shutting down and freezing.
I seem to have fixed my shutdown problem (not a true fix) as I disconnect my HDDs (except OS drive, system shuts down)
then reconnect them and the problem went away.
For the freezing, this actually happened right after I fixed my first problem. The freezing is a bit of a annoyance as it happends at random times
but more so if I play anything with audio, wheter it's locally or on the web. And when it freezes I have to do a hard reset just to get the system back up.
When it goes back into the OS, sound doesn't work, but if I remove and reinstert the audio jack, sound comes back.

My system is running on a Xeon quad core socket 775 along with a Asus Rampage Formula. The sound card I'm using is a Creative X-Fi. I remove the X-Fi and
installed the one that came with my board through the PCIe x1 interface (this board's audio isn't built in) and the system ran a bit longer, but it still freezes.
And this morning it froze again with some problems of having no signal and it froze about a hour ago with my HD5850 fan running at full speed.
I'm leaning towards my PSU (Antec Quattro 850w) or is it something else or time to upgrade?
For my upgrade I will have to change my CPU, motherboard, ram, and HSF.

1st option
Intel Xeon E5 (Sandy Bridge E)
8 or 16GB at quad channel
Asus based X79 board (not decided yet)
Cooler Master 212 Evo HSF

2nd option
Intel Core i7 3770S (TDP: 65w and I don't OC so I care less about the K)
8GB of ram
Asus P8Z77-V Pro (has a PCI for my X-Fi sound card)
Cooler Master 212 Evo HSF

For the 2nd option I really wanted a Xeon E3, but Ivy Bridge based Xeon isn't released yet (Xeon E3 v2) so no PCIe 3.0 support for 1155 Sandy Bridge.
As for my first option, the Core i7 3820 looks like a good CPU, until I found out, no PCIe 3.0 support. Don't Sandy Bridge E support PCIe 3.0?
After looking it up, it seems only SB-E Xeon supports PCIe 3.0, desktop SB-E does not including $1000 a pop Core i7 3960x.
In the poem, "The road not taken by Robert Forst, I'm kind of like that traveller standing at this fork path. Should I take the path on the left (option 1) or path on the right (option 2)?
What would you guys think?
Thanks!

[finn4life]

You are probably already informed but read this about pcie 3.0, To make sure you are getting the full benefit.
This is the mobile version but it should convert it.
http://mobile.atomicmpc.com.au/Article.asp...75040&type=News

The two options were pre -builts right ? Or are those the two options you put together?

This post has been edited by finn4life on Sunday, May 13 2012, 05:53

[PrometheusX]

Is there a difference in cost between the two?

[Slamman]

Troubleshooting's tedious reality is removing every main component as long as the system runs, with the fundementals and see where the trouble may lie
If it's audio, drivers, alternative audio means are something to look at directly, do what I do and try a USB audio device, that eliminates any guess work about the ports or card for PCI based audio, it's odd your board lacks any audio codec chip, that's not normal, but servers are perhaps like that, old, old LEGACY boards were certainly found with limited features, even if they were full bore ATX

The other thing I'd do is as you noted, remove the HDD and put an alternate one on, with the OS and main game or app that's causing distress, see how well it works with that

[Stinky12]

First to get out of the way is that article, while a interesting read, it will always repeat itself with this "you don't need it" type of nonsense.

As for my 2 upgrade options here's what I've selected. And these are self built I don't have any pre-built systems (exept for my netbook)
Option 1a

-	Item	Pcs	Price
1	G.SKILL Ripjaws Z Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9Q-16GBZL	1	$89.99
2	ASUS Sabertooth X79 LGA 2011 Intel X79 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard	1	$314.99
3	COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 EVO RR-212E-20PK-R2 Continuous Direct Contact 120mm Sleeve CPU Cooler Compatible with latest Intel ...	1	$29.99
4	Intel Xeon E5-2609 Sandy Bridge-EP 2.4GHz LGA 2011 Quad-Core Server Processor BX80621E52609	1	$299.99
-	Subtotal	-	$734.96

Option 1b

-	Item	Pcs	Price
1	G.SKILL Ripjaws Z Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9Q-16GBZL	1	$89.99
2	ASUS Sabertooth X79 LGA 2011 Intel X79 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard	1	$314.99
3	Intel Core i7-3820 Sandy Bridge-E 3.6GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 2011 130W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80619i73820	1	$299.99
4	COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 EVO RR-212E-20PK-R2 Continuous Direct Contact 120mm Sleeve CPU Cooler Compatible with latest Intel ...	1	$29.99
-	Subtotal	-	$734.96

For the first upgrade choice, both are at the same price except there are two different processors
Xeon E5 2609 2.4GHz/No HT/PCIe 3.0/80w TDP
Core i7 3820 3.6GHz/HT/PCIe 2.0/130w TDP

Option 2a

-	Item	Pcs	Price
1	G.SKILL Ares Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-1600C10D-16GAO	1	$114.99
2	G.SKILL 4GB Micro SDHC Flash Card w/ SD Adapter Model FF-TSDG4GA-C4	1	$0.00
3	ASUS P8Z77-V PRO LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard	1	$224.99
4	Intel Core i7-3770S Ivy Bridge 3.1GHz (3.9GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 65W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4000 BX80637I73770S	1	$319.99
5	COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 EVO RR-212E-20PK-R2 Continuous Direct Contact 120mm Sleeve CPU Cooler Compatible with latest Intel ...	1	$29.99
-	Subtotal	-	$689.96

Option 2b

-	Item	Pcs	Price
1	G.SKILL Ares Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-1600C10D-16GAO	1	$114.99
2	G.SKILL 4GB Micro SDHC Flash Card w/ SD Adapter Model FF-TSDG4GA-C4	1	$0.00
3	ASUS P8Z77-V PRO LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard	1	$224.99
4	COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 EVO RR-212E-20PK-R2 Continuous Direct Contact 120mm Sleeve CPU Cooler Compatible with latest Intel ...	1	$29.99
5	Intel Xeon E3-1235 Sandy Bridge 3.2GHz LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Server Processor BX80623E31235	1	$264.99
-	Subtotal	-	$634.96

Again processor were changed with
Xeon E3 1235/3.2GHz/HT/PCIe 2.0/95w TDP
Core i7 3770S/3.1GHz/HT/PCIe 3.0/65w TDP
Price difference between option 2a and 2b is about $55 dollars.
Price difference between socket 2011 and socket 1155 is about $45-$100

To make a better upgrade path, here is my current specs
Xeon X3350
Asus Rampage Formula Intel X48 with 2x PCIe x16 at full x16/x16
HD5850+GT240 in hybrid PhysX setup
500GB Black for OS, plus a some blue and green drive for storage I have bought through out the years
Antec Quattro 850w
Creative X-Fi PCI
Win7 Ultimate x64

[PrometheusX]

I'm leaning towards 2a, but I'm not sure. That seems like a hard decision to make.

[Slamman]

I would say if you could find a deal, moving from 1155 might allow you some future upgrade wiggle room, so why not? The Why Not on Intel's end is they may introduce new sockets with Haswell and onward

[Stinky12]

Only managed to test out my system a couple of hours yesterday (Mother's Day, was out the whole day) and so far the problem hasn't pop up yet. More further testing is needed...

update: I've ran it again yesterday and freezing seem to have magically disappeared. Now the shutdown problem has come back.
A quick backup and format install of the OS to isolate the software side, so that if it still happens, then it must be something wrong with the hardware.

update2: I have managed to pinpoint my shutdown problem is caused by one of the faulty PCI slots on my motherboard.
Inserting my SATA controller card to the faulty slot result in system can't shutdown. Moving the SATA controller to the other PCI slot and system shuts down properly. Then I insert my sound card to the bad PCI slot and Windows will not detect it at all even though my sound card was working with that slot when the board was new. To further confirm that slot is indeed no good, I reinstall my SATA contoller card
and shutdown problem comes back. Now I'll have to use my supplied PCIe sound card instead of my X-Fi.

Fixed 1 problem, as for freezing, my system again froze yesterday, this time just browsing the web. I had to do a hard shutdown as reset won't even work. The freezing even occurs during the Windows 7 loading logo. Might be my PSU...?

This post has been edited by Stinky12 on Wednesday, May 16 2012, 15:49