Lock up STOP 0x00000009c

[djstepanek]

There are two cases where this problem seems to happen, when I am playing a game, or when I have bit torrent open, and then I watch a movie say at the same time, I'd say about 40% of the time I lock up once. I was playing BF2 tonight and locked up 2 times. Basically what happens is the screen freezes, my sound beeps sometimes turning off sometimes making loud noises until I hardboot (which I always have to do to fix the problem).

I had my computer for 6 months in college with no problems at all ran solid as hell. Not sure when it started but I am thinking it might be a PSU problem because when I went home for the summer I got the WD Raptor, and have been problems every since I went home and now back in college I am still having those problems.

After about 4 months of this problem I finally got a BSOD the other day that had the stop 0x00000009c message displayed. Researched it a bit, and thats an error that has to do with:

Insufficent Power from the wall/ bad power strip (not likely)
Insufficent Power from the PSU
Overheating
or Bad Ram

Setup:
Abit KV8 Pro Mobo
AMD64 3400+ 1mb
1gb 3200 DDR
1x Raptor 32gb hdd
1x WD 80gb hdd
NEC Dvd burner
Dvd player
ATI X800XT w/ artic cooler
PSU 420W
4 case fans, 2 in, 2 out

I checked my RAM and that is fine I think, ran Memtest for a while and it was fine.

My temps are messed up I think, right now MBM is reading 53C for my CPU and 30C in my case, along with 45C for my PSU...pretty much idle.

ATI Tool reads 35C on the x800.

I don't think that CPU temp is right, I think I read somewhere about abits not being very good on temp recordings? Not sure, but last time I checked my temps I went back and redid my thermal compound correctly but never noticed a change so assumed it was a problem with the sensors.
But that might be the problem, I dunno why it would be running so hot though, I know I have it installed correctly.

The power strip thing is bogus I think, it happened at home and it still happens here.

I am leaning towards a insufficent PSU, at 420W it has alot to power, but I thought it would be enough, can anyone review what I have and tell me if they think that should work? Also if anyone has info on how to fix my mobo temp sensors or a work around so I can see the actuals that would be helpful too, just trying to get my comp back to the way it was last semester.

 

[mgob]

420W is more than enough on the CPU, my thinkings are when you are gaming you are setting off the proc's temp alert and the bios locks the system as not to burn it out, check the CPU fan and heatsink for dust or clogging and reset the heatsink on the chip with new thermal paste.

 

[birdpup]

Could be:

• overheating,
• dirty power,
• failing power supply,
• failing hard drive, possible due to overheating. (it has happened).

Do you have a fan blowing air directly over your hard drives?
Does each hard drive at least have an empty bay directly above it?

Test each hard drive with WD's DataLifeguard test utility and see if any errors result.
You have already run memtest, which is a good thing.

Western Digital

It would also be a good idea to clean out your cpu heatsink and possibly even remove and reseat your heatsink as mgob mentioned.

You may want to consider purchasing a UPS battery backup with undervoltage (brownout) protection to clean the electrical power coming into your power supply.

Last resort, replace your PSU.

What kind of PSU do you have?

Read the following link for more information concerning power supplies.
Power Supply 101

 

[stevty2889]

Sounds like it's overheating the way you describe it, double check to make sure the CPU fan is spinning, and the the heatsink and fan aren't clogged with dust. Might want to reseat the heastink, clean it off, and apply some fresh thermal paste. Could also be the PSU, but sounds more like a heat issue. What brand is your 420w PSU, 420w itself is meaningless, if it's generic. Generic PSU's tend to have very weak 12v rails. If your video card has a power plug connected to it, the beeping could be from the video card not getting enough power, my Nvidia card will beep like crazy if I forget to plug in the power.

 

[djstepanek]

CPU Fan is fine, I blew out my computer the other day with some dust off so thats all clear.

It's an antec 420W PSU that came with the case I bought. I went in and did some power reconfiguations and got the video card on a single dedicated line. Maybe that was the problem, not sure.

The only thing with the overheating is that just running bit torrent and playing a movie isn't very cpu intensive is it? Thats one case when it happens and like I said it can also happen in games.

I'll see about reseating the heatsink, I just did it about 4 months ago and I am pretty sure I did it correctly, but may check it out just in case, going to have to order more paste for that. Pretty sure though its not the problem, I've always had funky readings, and I've tried to seat it like 5 times and get the same results each time.

edit: I don't have a fan blowing directly on the hdds, and they are sepperated, my raptor is in a seperate bay all together (I have two). I have one side fan that blows where the video card is and my other intake is underneath my drivebays in the front of my computer, with all of the exhaust being at the back.