repeated BSODs getting worse

[eagl]

I'm not sure what to do about this.

My main rig has very slowly gotten more and more unstable.  At first, I thought it was heat related so I made some changes to the cooling, made sure I wasn't overclocking anything, etc. but it kept getting worse.  It finally got to the point where it would sometimes run for days, including hours of AH play, but sometimes would BSOD 5 times in an hour.

I figured maybe it was software or windows, so I wiped the HD and reinstalled windows, but it did a BSOD during the windows installation.  After a reboot, it continued ok and worked fine for another hour as I updated windows and got all the security patches, but then it did a BSOD while downloading some of the windows updates.

I then cracked the case, blew out some dust, did a hard CMOS reset with the jumper, detached an old cdrw drive that seemed slightly flaky, and pulled out my audigy2 ZS.  To get sound back, I enabled my mobo onboard AC97 8ch audio solution which seems to work ok.

Any other suggestions?  I carefully inspected the mobo and found no charred marks or popped capacitors.  All cables were checked for security.  Voltages and temps in the bios HW health status page are ok.  Before I started all this, memory passed a full day of memcheck.

I sure don't want to start swapping out random hardware because I'll have to start with the mobo, and that means I toss my still-almost-new nvidia 6800GT because I'll be going from AGP to PCI-express...  And that will run me $500 minimum for the mobo/vid card combo.  And then if that doesn't fix it, I'm stuck buying a new cpu.  And if that doesn't fix it, a new power supply even though it's the last thing I currently suspect...

[straffo]

It can be a faulty memory ,I had this kind of trouble recently  
try http://www.memtest86.com/

[Skuzzy]

This will be a bugger to track down.  Gradual failures like this (if software has been ruled out) are normally related to a capacitor failing somewhere.

It can be anywhere.  Motherboard, RAM module, CPU module, video card, sound card, power supply and on and on.

They do not neccessary burn-out.  Depending on the capacitor, they may swell (if they are electrolytic), or overheat, eventually failing, but you have to get it there first.

You have removed the sound card, without success, so it appears to be good.  

I am guessing RAM or motherboard.  Check the history of the motherboard on some sites (google) and see if there is a history of these types of failures.

[eagl]

Actually, I think I wasn't clear in my previous post.

It hasn't failed since the soundcard and extra cdrw drive came out, but I haven't been actually USING the computer since then either.  I ran prime95 overnight and temps are ok as usual, but the BSODs came with the processor at idle doing things as simple as posting to this forum so it wasn't system stress that was causing the failures.

If it's the soundcard, I'll be in an interesting spot because my rudders and wheel need the analog joystick port and my mobo doesn't have one built in.

[eagl]

An update, because I don't want the audigy2 card to get a worse name for no reason.

I was still getting occasional MSIE errors and some instability.  When I reset my bios, it automatically set memory command rate to 2T, which has a measurable negative impact on A64 performance.  With it set to 2T, I didn't have any crashes.  I set it to 1T as I set my computer back to "normal", and the crashes came back.  I set the command rate back to 2T, and it hasn't crashed yet.

So it may be a weird memory issue where it only crashes with 1T command rate, pointing to a BIOS or mobo incompatibility problem since the memory otherwise tests just fine at rated specs and 1T command rate.  This could also be a cpu issue since the memory controller is really on the cpu.

Either way, the only way to really troubleshoot it is to swap out the mobo or cpu (or both), but I'm not going to spend $400 just to go from 2T to 1T command rate.  I might try to gain back the few percentage performance loss by overclocking, but if it remains stable at 2T command rate then I'll leave it there.

Next on the test card is re-installing the audigy2 card to get my joystick port back so I can play AH again.  My pedals are analog and I don't want to spend the $150 it would cost to buy and ship a pair of new USB CH pedals.  Plus they only make/sell the "Pro" pedals, and I really like the generic CH pedals better than the Pro ones.  If I get the pro pedals, I'll probably permanently install the slider blocks to disable the rudder axis, and just run the rudders off of the "toe brake" axis like the older and cheaper CH pedals.