driver, hardware, or software?? lock up

Had a motherboard go out, got a barebones and used old HD, video card, etc. HD had a boot sector virus, cured that and got everything back up except that I have a problem with frequent lockups. The screen will freeze, and nothing will get it to work again except to push the reset button. CTRL-ALT-DLT does nothing.

After killing the boot virus, the only other problem encountered getting everything to work was with the video card, an ASUS 7100 AGP. I downloaded an updated driver and only had 800 x 640 resolution and 16 colors. Wiping the new driver and using the original CD to re-install allowed higher resolutions and more colors. Shortly after that the lockups started occuring. They seem to happen during a screen refresh so it makes me suspect the video, either the hardware or driver. About 20-30% of the time the icon in the lower left corner of the screen will turn black, the rest of the time it doesn't. Sometimes it locks before the computer completes bootup, or it may boot and run for several hours. This afternoon it took 4 reboots just to get to this forum.

Can anyone offer suggestions on how to determine the cause? Am running Win2000 Pro, an AMD3400+, 1 gig ram. Any other info needed?

TIA

 

Motherboard model?

 

The motherboard is a Mach Speed MK8-939A.

 

Go to this link and download the Hyperion drivers. This is kinda an all in one driver bundle for your chipset. http://www.viaarena.com/default.aspx?PageID=420&OSID=1&CatID=1070

After that go here and download the correct detenator driver for your video card, http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_2k_94.24_2.html

Do this and tell me how everything is.

 

Downloaded the chipset driver and installed it without problems. Downloaded the video driver and tried to install it. The installer program ran and then gave an error message, could not find drivers for my hardware. I had shut down Counterspy and AVG before running the install.

 

The name of the file was 94.24_forceware_winxp_english_whql.exe, and I had it in the same folder as the chipset driver you recommended.

 

If that one didn't work then give this file a shot. It's a beta driver but it's been updated.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_2k_162.18.html

Also, you could always manually install the driver. to do this go to device manager then go to display adapters. double click the 7100 GS. go over to the driver tab then down to update driver. When you get here you want to tell the installer that you will specify the directory of the files. Point it towards the folder that the nvidia self extracter puts the files in. I believe it should look something like c:\nvidia\Win2kXp\94.24\

 

Am downloading the beta now but will probably quit for the night before it is through. It says 2hrs 37 minutes to complete.

I tried to update from device manager, pointed to the nvidia 94.24 folder. It said it found a better driver at c:\winnt\inf\oem.inf. Will not be able to get back to this till the weekend is over.

Checked the 94.24 folder, found one .inf file, nv4_disp.inf, and many file names that ended in an underscore, such as nvwss.dl_ and nwiz.ex_. Did the files not extract correctly?

 

they extracted correctly, just point device manager to the folder

Go to Install from a list or a specific file location
Then click the bottom button, the one that says "Don't search, i will choose......"
Then click have disk, then browse to the folder, and when you click ok it should come up in the list. Click next until your done.

 

Did not complete download of the beta driver.

Followed your directions for manually loading the driver yesterday. After rebooting the computer ran about 5 hours without locking up. Today it has been on about 4 hours with no problems. Hopefully, this has solved my problems.

Thanks for your help.