Villainstone

I'm sure that many of us have had those times where your PC just isn't working right. Your PC just seems like it's bugged but all virus, and malware scans come up clean or harmless. Temps are fine, drivers all check out to be working fine, but the freaking thing won't stop restarting. You are beating yourself in the head trying to figure out is wrong... you have already done everything just short of rebuilding the darn thing. After you put it all back together as a last resort you say to yourself "hey...seems I fixed it...sweet!!".
You have just been a victim of "Chip Creep" caused by hot and cool air.

"Chip Creep"
Chip creep is the process of PC components creeping out of there expansion slot over time. This occurrence is directly caused by the heating and cooling of the ambient temp inside the PC case. As the temperature rises your components, and slots will expand, as the PC cools these same part shrink back down. The constant or frequent expanding and contracting inside your PC causes the "chips" to "creep" and become loose from there assigned slot.

Chip creep can effect all different components and part inside the PC, from hard drives, to PCI slot, and RAM. Even Molex connectors and drive cables can be effected by chip creep and loose solid connection to the hardware. So keep in mind before you throw it out the window or bash it with a hammer... just rebuild it first you may be surprised at what it can fix.

adam144

Nice information! Could save someone's computer :thumb:

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FrankenPC

Excellent and to the point! I would add...it's a great time to clean off the card edges with an eraser or some Liquid Gold conditioner.

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lenzo

Interesting but perfectly logical.
May be the cause of many restarts on numerous peoples rigs.

Villainstone

I hope that many ppl get some use out of this FAQ. It is actually my very first one and hope to write many more. Thanks for the feedback and the REP you all have a good life with your PC.

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Gandalf

Yeah, that happened to me once - It woudn't boot, and according to the beeps, it was the video card. (I found this out by calling ASUS tech support, and was told that, "video card bad. Throw video card away, buy new video card." by some chinese dude. It turned out, however, that after I reseated it (should have done that in the first place, I guess<G>) it worked fine.

Anyway, nice faq, and rep+. (It's nice to see a faq with good spelling and grammar for once, too - lol.)

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Villainstone

Thanks Gandalf for the REP and compliment.

PS: Hows that PSU?

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woop

Good to know,,,thanks

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gonX

I doubt RAM would do it, they have clips for it.

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SuViC

Good info but doesnt anyone use the screw to attatch the videocard to the case anymore?

That could be the issue.

Great info though for other misc hardware.

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