Dell GX620 Unexplainable Problem?

[GuardianAsher]

I have this system at work, a Dell Optiplex GX620. It's having a lot of seemingly random and non-reproduceable problems.

When installing Windows, the system will easily get through the formatting and copying of files procedure, but on occasion, when it boots off of the hard drive for the first time (still in the install process), it will BSOD.

Then again, sometimes the computer will install Windows just perfectly, the drivers will install, but when you try to run Windows Update, it gives a "Generic Host Process" error, and Windows gets corrupted.

All of the Dell diagnostic tests, as well as any other third party diagnostic I can think of, runs and passes. We've tried switching out RAM, HD, CPU, no luck.

The only consistent problem with the system is that when I run Burn In Test Pro, it crashes. But I can't reproduce the error. I've tried adding one component at a time to the stress test, and it runs fine. But sometime during the test, it just crashes, but it's not consistent as to when it does it. It can sometimes last 30 minutes, or 30 seconds.

We've been wrestling with this system for over a week now, and we're at our wits end. Dell tech support is absolutely useless in the problem. I spent an hour on the phone with them yesterday, only for them to tell me that if all the diagnostics pass, there's nothing they can do. Mind you, this was Dell business tech support too. >.>

Any ideas?

[FlyingPenguin]

Some ideas:

- Overheating. Loose CPU HSF or loose Northbridge HSF.
- Bad IDE Ribbon cable, or corrosion on the contacts
- Bad PSU

[GuardianAsher]

So I finally... FINALLY figured out what it was.

I tried every one of your ideas, FP. No luck, same problem. I was just about to chuck the PC out the window when, for some strange unexplicable reason, I was looking over my desk, and the bottom of the CPU I swapped out caught my eye. One of the contacts was pretty nasty. I'm not sure what it was, but I took a pink eraser to it, and it cleaned right up. Then I pulled the system apart, popped the replacement CPU off, and sure enough, the contacts on the board were just as nasty. Don't ask me how I managed to clean an LGA 775 socket without ruining the pins, but I did, and now the system is up and running with the old processor in it.

One whole friggin week...

[normalicy]

Odd, may have been a bit of moisture in there when initially assembled.

[FlyingPenguin]

CRC contact cleaner is your friend.