Help me figure out what's wrong with my computer.

AMD Phenom II X3 720 2.8GHz Socket AM3 95W Triple-Core Black Processor
G.SKILL Trident 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600
MSI 770-C45 AM3 AMD 770 ATX AMD Motherboard
Radeon X1950 ATI Graphcis card / Sapphire ATI Radeon 8850
500 GB Philips Harddrive

ANYWAYS

So usually i'm pretty good with this thing, but this time I've ran out of ideas.

I was in the middle of replacing my graphics card when I tried to turn the thing on and got no response. I put the older one back in and I got the same response.... this black screen would come up and say "CMOS check bad"

Press 1 to load setup
Press 2 to load default settles
Press 12 to.... I dunno.

ANYWAYS, regardless of what I press, the computer will freeze. Pressing 1 does nothing, pressing 2 will load the computer, but the computer will be extremely laggy. And to test this, I decided to play WoW and it crashed hardcore with this LOUD staticy screeching in the speakers which wouldnt stop until I turned the computer off. And ever since, I couldn't get any response. Not even the old black screen. The monitor wont even respond, almost like there's graphics card.

For a little while when I managed to get the newer graphics card installd, the computer worked just fine. I managed to play WoW on it for about 3 hours without a single problem, it wasn't until I returned home that this started acting up again.

I tried tweaking with the SATA cable from the harddrive to the motherboard.
I tried adjusting the graphics card.

I dunno wtf to do anymore. Anyone have an idea what's corrupted?

Im WANTING to say my Motherboard is dead/dying or I'm using a bad SATA cable.

Those are my two best ideas. Anyone got any ideas or questions?

 

CMOS check SUM bad sometimes means the battery (coin-like CR2032) is bad. Replace and see if it makes any difference.

 

Is that an easy fix?

 

I'm leaning more towards a mobo issue. but first, what kind of power supply do you have?

is this random behavior? or does the computer boot everytime you choose defaults? problem with defaults, is that you might need to go in and tweak some settings for your ram, etc. keep in mind, defaults are intended to just make sure the computer will boot. performance afterwords is not necessarily guaranteed without tweeks.

 

500w Power Supply...

 

oh, and could you clarify which new card you are trying to put in? I'm not familiar with this one, Sapphire ATI Radeon 8850. could it be a typo?

 

ATI Radeon HD 5800 is what my dxdiag says.


Thought it was an 5880 though. I don't have my box near me.

 

from sapphire's page for the 5800 line

If i had to guess, your power supply is probably not up to snuff for the system with the new card in it. I know you said you have a 500w supply, but my guess is that it's still not powerful enough.

 

That was my original idea, but like I said... the same problem occured with my older card too.

 

I'd agree with tsg, even though the new card worked it takes a lot more juice than the 1950, I'm assuming an old mobo and PSU too. PSU's die some 5 to 10 percent every year or more depending on quality. If it came with your machine then I'd suspect it. Are you overclocking anything?

Try running OCCT for an hour, see what that gives you. It'll beat your machine to hell and back but if it BSOD's while testing OCCT keeps current info in graphs for you to check. Beware at this point as a cheap or dying PSU could take your whole machine down. I will not take any responsibility here for fried components.

 

I agree it's likely a PSU issue. What probably happened is when you tried to install the new card, the power supply overloaded, and when you put the old card back in, the damage was already done. Let's just hope it didn't bother to damage other computer components along the way. You should replace the CMOS battery as a first troubleshooting step, though. It's a coin-shaped watch-type battery, as already mentioned CR2032. It's easy enough to pop out and replace, and usually easy to spot on the motherboard as well. While you're looking in there, examine the motherboard for any of the capacitors (little metal cylinders with the + on the top) having ballooned on the top or burst. If that's happened, you might be looking at replacing the motherboard.

What brand is the PSU? You should replace it with a 750W Antec or Corsair and see if that fixes the issue (if not, it'd still be a good idea to get a beefier quality power supply).

 

No I'm not overclocking. For a little bit there I overclocked just to stress my system out and see if I get better results, and to be honest with you... my computer started freezing more ( This is why I got the new graphics card. )

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817152036

Should that cut it?

Oh and I know better than to use the Power Supply that comes with the case. =P

 

Another ineresting thing that always happens, everytime I just SLIGHTLY move my computer ( I moved it so I can see my monitor better ), it completely froze up on me. I remember it doing this before, too.