You know how the expression says that problems come in 3’s ? I get 3 lots of 3’s most of time but this week I think I have managed to get rid of 3 problems.
I was posting about my woes at Comluv and just a few days later I finally managed to track down the random freezes on my AsRock M3A790GXH – 128M motherboard and OCZ DDR3 Gold Series RAM
Random crashes on Vista/7 – AsRock M3A790GXH/128M with OCZ DDR3 Gold RAM – Solved
Shiny, SHINY! RAM!
The crashes were driving me crazy, I could never repeat the action that caused the crash and there was never any entry in the event log except for after the reboot. I tried removing one stick and running it with that one to see if it was a faulty stick, it crashed on the first try so I thought that was it but after swapping it with the other stick, the pc crashed within a day.
It turns out that OCZ DDR3 RAM needs 1.9v instead of the regular 1.5v that it would get from the motherboard. A quick visit to the bios and I switched the DRAM voltage to 2.0v and the pc has been up and running for days without a problem. yey!
Dedicated server non responsive after high traffic – solved
They put the fast in, um, ukfast 
Another problem was my server, it is fast and a nice bit of kit but it was getting overloaded at times with so many requests to the CommentLuv API. I had a word with UKFast explaining to them that I expected my server to be able to stay up if a lot of traffic came in. They did their utmost to help and sent me a very nicely priced invoice to beef up my server with an extra 1 GB of RAM.
It’s been up for 7 days and the CTM graphs are showing me that my CPU usage and system load are down a lot from what they’ve been.
Monthly view upgrade shows better performance
Looks more dramatic on the 1 year chart
My last issue was my laptop charger, it went poof! I did a search online for a universal charger and the best price I could see was over 60 quid! luckily, I was able to buy a Toshiba charger from ebay for 9.99 for next day delivery.
sorted! (for now)
24.11.09 9:24 pm
Twitter: lottomad
Andy, wow
Not been on your blog for ages oh my god, what happened to it, did you go crazy and spill pain all over fidyp???
Anyway fella servers are a complete nightmare, mine cant even run my blog, because it gets soo much traffic so I need to upgrade. Also had to turn of comments as the spam bot were increasing the traffic load even more!
Regards Dave
#1Dave T´s last blog ..elottery syndicates update 24th November 09
24.11.09 9:24 pm
Twitter: psychicgeek
#2So, you would have had to change your bios settings no matter what Microcrap O/S you were running?
witchypoo´s last blog ..Open Mouth Insert Foot
24.11.09 10:34 pm
Twitter: commentluv
Dave: hiya mate! this blog has moved from server to server through it’s life so this theme was a ‘doofernow’ but I liked it so kept it!
Witchypoo: yup, going up to windows 7 didn’t fix the problem. Somehow I managed to land on a post someone had written who uses the same motherboard and memory which led me to OCZ website and finally to an obscure reference to the Asrock board defaulting to 1.5v . yippee!
#326.11.09 10:02 pm
Twitter: lottomad
#4lol @ doofernow Andy, presume all is well with you, the Take Away and Comment Love? Do you still do much with the old lotto ?
Dave T´s last blog ..elottery syndicate blog update
27.11.09 12:34 pm
I hope you have backup your database already
#5Eric´s last blog ..Ayo Kita Mengembalikan Jati Diri Bangsa
28.11.09 11:40 am
Twitter: wpaddict
I do notice bad tidings go in 3s, however, with you, I am sure the positives will drive out the bad. It is bollocks when things go bad. I fear for that on my own servers. However, since my dedicated is on a world top 10 host, it eases my mind a bit. I am still paranoid as all hell…lol
I
#6Nile´s last blog ..Canonicalization in Your WordPress Blog
04.12.09 3:02 pm
Do you use super cache or any other cache plugin at all, it helps stabilise sudden traffic peaks nicely
#7Peter G´s last blog ..Advent Roma 2000 Laptop Review – Windows 7 Laptop Specs & Deals
06.12.09 10:04 am
nice post, i think you a little crazy
#8birth control´s last blog ..Side Effects of Birth Control
23.12.09 9:22 am
I think problems that come in three’s have no chance against your genius. It’s fun to imagine you troubleshooting and trying to find out what is behind the random crashes, eventually finding out about the mismatch in voltage and finally fixing it and exploding out a shout of victory.
#9Jenny M.´s last blog ..Cheap Popcorn Machines
27.12.09 11:10 am
Twitter: andrewkeir
#10Good news with the hosting, I’ve just ditched my last host, got sick of their excuses why my site was dying almost weekly.
27.12.09 11:11 am
Twitter: andrewkeir
#11And also wow, 60 quid for a charger : /
Andrew Keir´s last blog ..Pantone colour of the year