Computer - Lemon

My computer has been a lemon since the first month that I bought it.  If anyone can help me fix it, it would be much appreciated.

About once a month, the computer either locked up or blue-screened.  When I tried to restart, it said, "Disk read error".  Digital storm replaced 4 hard drives for free, but I had to pay the shipping each time.

I finally decided to ship the whole computer back so they could take a look at it.  DS said that I had to pay the shipping - about $200.  I deployed to Iraq and by the time that I decided to send it, the warranty was out.  I never shipped it back.

Each time the crash happened, I was either browsing windows, or playing a graphic intensive game, such as CoD4.

I connected my 5th hard drive to the IDE cable rather than the SATA.  It crashed about a week ago.

A few of my friends say it would either be the mother board or the power supply.

Here are my system specs:

Case: Digital Storm Twister LITE (Black Aluminum Edition)
Power Supply: 750W Thermaltake (SLI Compatible) (Silent Toughpower Edition)
Processor: Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6600 2.6GHz Quad Core (1066MHz FSB) (8MB Cache)
Motherboard: eVGA Core 2 Quad (Chipset: nForce 680i) (SLI Compatible) (Quad Core Conroe)
Memory: 4GB DDR2 Corsair at 667MHz (Dual Channel)
Floppy / Media: - No Thanks
Hard Drive 1: 250GB Western Digital (16MB Cache) (7200 RPM) (SATA)
Hard Drive 2: - No Thanks
Raid Option: - No Thanks
Optical Drive 1: Sony DVD±R/RW/CD-R/RW (DVD Writer 18x / CD-Writer 48x)
Network Card: High Speed Network Port (Supports High-Speed Cable / DSL / Network Connections)
Video Card: nVidia GeForce 8800GTX 768MB (By: XFX) (PCI-Express)
TV Tuner: - No Thanks
Sound Card: Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer (Up to 7.1 Channel) (Recommended)
Physics Card: - No Thanks
Cooling: Air Cooling (Blizzard Extreme Silent Arctic Cooling Heat-sink and Fan (Stage 2 Cooling)
Case Lighting: Blizzard Internal Lighting (Blue Edition) (Cold Cathode Tubes)
Round Cables: - No Thanks
User Manual: FREE! Personalized Elite Digital Storm Binder (Paperwork/Benchmarks/CDs/

Manuals)
Windows OS: Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Restore Kit: FREE! Digital Storm Image Recovery System
Protection: - No Thanks
Surge Shield: - No Thanks
Warranty: 2 Year Platinum Care Extended Parts & Labor Warranty

DS's customer service was very good despite the bad product.

If anyone can help, it would be much appreciated.  I'd like to turn my $4,000 paper weight into a working computer.


Edited by Lord Pickle - 05 Dec 2008 at 9:35pm

Out of curiosity, did you ever try to reformat any of the failed hard drives and do a fresh install of Windows?

hmmm.....

After installing a new power supply and hard drive, it blue screened again today.
The computer rebooted after the blue screen, so I didn't have time to write down the code.
I ran chdisk and it said the volume was good.
Any other recommendations?
Computer out of pocket cost tally to date: $353.89

It happened again today and here is the error code:
0x1000008e (0xc0000005, 0xbf8bca09, 0xb47de64c, 0x00000000)
I googled it with no results.
Any ideas?

The computer is not overclocked.


Edited by Lord Pickle - 05 Dec 2008 at 1:06am

0xc0000005 is pointing to a memory issue HM, What is making your think its creative?

Well like I said, lets hope its just the drivers, that would be the easiest to fix.

I'm a bit surprised to see 0xc0000005 being related to drivers tho, MS needs to update its codes maybe

Thanks Alex I see you think its the memory too

Originally posted by Lord Pickle Thanks for the discussion guys, and thanks for using my rightful title - Lord Pickle!I did run MemTest86.  It had 2 passes with no errors.I let it run the default test, and the 2 passes took about 1 hour and 40 minutes.  Are there more tests that I should run with the software?I will pull out the sound card and see if that could be the problem.

Actually I'd Run it longer then two hours, thats is no were near long enough to be conclusive. Give that a try, and we can wrk on other things when my pain pills wear of.

I'd also take a look at the board, i've seen alot of 680's die and its very possible.

Edited by Chris W. - 05 Dec 2008 at 11:51pm

boot to recovery console from your windows cd and run chkdsk command

Chkdsk /f /r

check your hdd and its cables and make sure everything is tight.

that code is pointing to bad/corrupt sectors in your HDD.

Edited by DST4ME - 06 Dec 2008 at 9:00pm

Originally posted by DST4ME boot to recovery console from your windows cd and run chkdsk command Chkdsk /f /r check your hdd and its cables and make sure everything is tight. that code is pointing to bad/corrupt sectors in your HDD.