XPS 730 H2C issue. Freezing?

I managed to rum memtest 86, I left all sticks of ram in and ran it for 3 passes for now.  There was no errors but I plan to run it longer over night. Is it correct to leave all sticks of ram in 4 x 1 GB? will they all be tested this way.

Tesla1856 -

I agree. 

You pointed out the power supply and thank you for that as I forgot the PS does cause problems.  Voltages may even measure OK, but under load the PS breaks down and can cause all different kinds of problems.  Be sure it is a Dell PS used as replacement due to Dells quirky connectors and other PS differences from the mainstream suppliers.

Good suggestion about building a new PC.  You get undated everything when you start with a blank case.  Getting conforming formfactor may be the best approach.  Cost may not be much more than buying a new BTX format motherboard.

I'm starting to get very confused with the BTX board talk...

My case specs..

Dell XPS 730 ATX Aluminum Chassis
 - ESA Compliant
 - 4 x 3.5" Internal Bays
 - 2 x 3.5" External Bays
 - 4 x 5.25" External Bays

and the board currently in it an nvidia 790i ultra sli which is an atx? or am I missing some thing?

My board looks just like the image minus the middle heat sink with the nvidia logo on it, that is replaced with a H2C block on mine

Voltages may even measure OK, but under load the PS breaks down and can cause all different kinds of problems.  Be sure it is a Dell PS used as replacement due to Dells quirky connectors and other PS differences from the mainstream suppliers.

I'm starting to get very confused with the BTX board talk...

You have to admit ... that's a nice looking machine.

Ya, that might be BTX, notice ...

- It opens on the opposite side.

- The CPU ends up in front (or does it ??? can't really tell)

- The cards plug in toward the middle.

That motherboard in the pic is ATX.

It is a nice looking machine indeed in my opinion and served me very well untill lately.

everest reports the board in my case as an nvidia 790i ultra sli 

That board is in my case as far as I can figure. See my excellent photo editing skills of the reference pic on the left and my board on the right. Picture is taken as you look at the pc with the case open.

The h2c heat sink (part with silver and black pipes coming off it in the right pic) replaces the nvidia logo-ed one with the black strip, shown on the left

TESLA1856:

Thanks for updating me on PS usage in Dells.   Interesting feedback on the tester you use.  Does it happen to place any load on the PS while testing?  I know there are some types of testers that do.  I suppose if the PS is doing its job, the voltage regulators adjust the voltage to proper levels with varrying loads.   However, if the regulator is not working properly, the voltage will not be within spec. as the load increases.  So I think a no load test cannot be the same as a full or partial load test with a faulty regulator or rectifier for that matter.  Anyhow, if you are finding good results . . .

NUDIMENSIOZ:

" . . . everest reports the board in my case as an nvidia 790i ultra sli." 

I think this is referring to the chipset, northbridge and south bridge and not your case.   I know if you run Speccy and click on Motherboard it will tell you the Dell Model as something like: OCK520 (mine); Chipset Vendor: nivida; Chipset Model nForce 680i SLI SPP; Chipset  Revision: A2; Southbridge Vendor: NVIDIA; Southbridge Model: nForce 680i SLI MCP; Southbridge Revision: A2.  I then lists the BIOS Brand, Version, Date, and lists other motherboard info.  I do not believe any system info program will tell you the form factor.  Mine is a BTX form factor.  This refers to the physical size of the motherboard.  The The Dell customized BTX motherboard was one of the largest PC motherboards that were available.  It allowed more slots, and connections, etc. to be on the board for accessories.  Gateway was the first to come out with the BTX form factor.  It was supposed to keep the system cooler due to the larger footprint and space between components.  Today better cooling systems and lower power comsuming parts allow the smaller ATX and Baby ATX to function well.

If you do indeed have an ATX form factor motherboard, it was probably not from a Dell original XPS 730 H2C unless Dell snuck one in to the XPS7xx series.   It may be a used unit someone modded to use the ATX.   I know on the RAMPANTSPECULATION blog is information about an ATX water cooled retrofit to an XPS 700 (-720 after motherboard retrofit).  You can follow Blog for more info and pictures of the modded retrofit.  I wonder if it was sold and you ended up with it.  Your picture does not look like an original Dell with the expanded metal grate and lack of Dell's quick release connectors on the card slots, although Dell is always changing things.  My unit was one of the original XPS700s that Dell provided the 720 motherboard retrofit for.   I was involved with GBAKMARS and the start up of RampantSpeculation as a result of all the XPS700 issues with Dell, so I am familiar with the XPS 700 series units.  Less so with the H2O cooled XPS730 but the main difference is the H2O cooling and the newer Nvidia 790i chipsets (just an upgrade to accomodate newer CPUs, accessories, and speedup). 

I probably shouldn't have commented on the pretty whole machine pic (being BTX) without being able to see the MB. I assumed the CPU was under the solid black box in front. I see that might not be the case. I'm pretty sure there WERE some BTX XPS-7xx machines, but maybe that was just the older ones (700, 710, 720).

Yes, yours appears to be ATX. Strange it opens on that side and is turned like that ... but I guess it was necessary to use up all those cases.

Doing a little research on the XPS703H2C turned up nothing useful on Dell.   I used a clue to the HotHardware website in one of the pictures and discovered that Dell did do away with the BTX motherboard with the introduction of the XPS-730 series PCs.  I see why NUDIMENSIONZ said he was confused about BTX vs ATX.  The XPS 700, -710, -720 were BTX form factor.  The XPS 730 series were all ATX.  :emotion-10:

Quoting HotHardware:

"While Dell has ditched the BTX form-factor, they have kept the "inverted" motherboard setup that visually characterizes the BTX form factor. The motherboard is mounted upside down with the CPU near the bottom of the case and the graphics cards near the top. This is a popular alternative to the original ATX standard configuration and it is used by many computer chassis manufacturers such as Lian-Li. The attraction to this alternate motherboard mounting configuration is that in certain conditions, this configuration has been shown to provide superior cooling efficiency. " 

TESLA1856 - since Dell did one of their usual custom jobs and kept the inverted motherboard  design of the BTX motherboards, it was easy to get Delled!  :emotion-15:

Getting back to the freezing up issue, I wonder what happens if the H2O cooling lines get plugged up.  Or even partially plugged.  Or trash in the cooling fluid causing random blockage.  Or thermal paste breaking down.  You would expect to see heating up of the CPU that may be difficult to catch if it is a random event.

One left field thought.  I had McAfee Total Protection for antivirus, firewall, etc.   It did scheduled scans at night.  Sometimes it was still scanning for viruses the next day and would take 8 hours to complete.  Other times the PC would hang up when I began use after a scan.   I have since removed McAfee and use Microsoft Security Essentials - no more problems.  Don't know which antivirus you have.  If it is McAfee - get rid of it!  It is hard to remove McAfee completely.  I used Revo Uninstaller and then ran McAfee's removal tool MRE.exe downloaded from their site.  Rebooted and ran registry cleaners.  Then installed Security Essentials (free from Microsoft believe it or not).  No problems since. McAfee interfeers with many programs or vice versa.   Don't know why Dell keeps using it.

Interesting feedback on the tester you use.  Does it happen to place any load on the PS while testing?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16899705003

Yes, some. Depends on what voltage you are testing. You could leave PS connected to MB and check most voltages at SATA.

TESLA1856 - since Dell did one of their usual custom jobs and kept the inverted motherboard  design of the BTX motherboards, it was easy to get Delled!  :emotion-15:

Ya, I definitely got Delled on that deal. Serves me right for Assume-ing things :emotion-1:

Good research TacoSlammer :emotion-21:

Getting back to the freezing up issue, I wonder what happens if the H2O cooling lines get plugged up.  Or even partially plugged.  Or trash in the cooling fluid causing random blockage.  Or thermal paste breaking down.  You would expect to see heating up of the CPU that may be difficult to catch if it is a random event.

You would think either would show as an overheat in something like CPU-ID HW Monitor or similar. Also, it shows PS voltages (if MB supports it) ... that would be full-load right? Also, some MBs (like my ASRock) shows voltages in BIOS.

Anyway ... it being ATX helps (they are plentiful and cheap). I would still be cautious since it's a Dell case (and installed very strangely). And like always, watch things like chipset tech if trying to reuse all the old stuff (cpu, ram, etc.)

Thanks for clearing that up, as I say this has all been quite a sharp learning curve with this pc and I

I have had the cooling unit off about 5-6 months ago due to blockages in the radiator.

It was cleared out with a compressor and thermal paste was cleaned and reapplied. This brought my temps down into normal range and never had a problem again until this issue.

Some mildly good news... the pc has not crashed/frozen with the black screen usb issue since my last post on Friday, it has had 2or 3 restarts and have run memtest since again with no errors.

PC idled all night and currently this morning sits at idle temps of cpu 23 gpu 53

Anti virus is avg however the issue was there on my last fresh install. programs have been slowly added since the crash/freeze has been recurrent throughout.

I will leave the pc idlin today and see what happens

Thanks for all the input and research 

[quote user="tacoslammer"] Interesting feedback on the tester you use.  Does it happen to place any load on the PS while testing?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16899705003

Yes, some. Depends on what voltage you are testing. You could leave PS connected to MB and check most voltages at SATA.

[/quote]

That tester really looks nice.  Checked at Rexus too.  Not much more info but linked to reviews.  If I were working on PCs a lot, I would get one.  Will keep the links for future need.  Thanks.  :emotion-1: