Serious Hardware Problem. Someone Please Help.

My computer crashes at random intervals. It could be during the post, during the bios, during the windows XP launch, or in windows.

My Specs were as follows

AMD Athlon XP 3000+ 333MHz bus
Asus A7V600
Kingston Ram 2x512 400MHz (clocked to 333MHz in bios)
Creative Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 Platinum
Nvidia Geforce FX 5900 Ultra 256MB AGP

What the computer would do is freeze at random intervals. But mostly in videos or graphics intensive applications. When it would freeze the screen would jitter up into randomly colored squares. Some representing stuff that was on the screen before the crash. (Kind of like a bad cartridge in an NES).

I called PNY and they said they've seen this before and that it was a graphics card problem. I replaced my graphics card with an.

ATI Radeon X800 SE 256MB AGP.

I didn't even bother to try to remove all previous drivers, I just did a clean reinstall of windows XP.

It still crashes, in the same places it used to, only now, the computer will Get a black screen, then reset itself. It's at random intervals.

I thought, maybe it was my sound card. So I removed the sound card... still crashes... I'm running out of options!

Anyone have any idea how to troubleshoot this problem...?

 

Some more Q's?

When did the problem begin?
How is the cpu temp?
Any error message?
How are your chipset drivers?
Any new upgrades?Service packs?
Did the system work with the same configuration before?

 

I just ran 3dmark05... not a single crash... wtf.

 

Some more Q's?

When did the problem begin? around a week ago
How is the cpu temp? 67C / 152F (I thought this was hot but according to AMD it's "normal")
Any error message? (nope, just black screen or junked up squares like bad NES)
How are your chipset drivers? The latest VIA drivers.
Any new upgrades?Service packs? All the updates and virus free.
Did the system work with the same configuration before? Yes. Worked for a year or two..

I answered your questions

 

How is your RAM?
Did you have the same sticks for the two years it worked?

 

My computer just crashed literally after making my previous post.
Then it crashes before I got into windows.
Then it wouldn't start up, I guess it crashes before it got into post.
Then it crashed before I got into this topic.

I'm on my laptop right now because my PC is acting weird.

Also, I'd like to mention that I installed windows XP and it's service packs and all it's updates without a single crash.

Now it's crashing really really badly.

I don't know how the ram is, I'll try to run memtest86 on it later... right now I'm too pissed at this to do anything correctly right now.

 

Yes, the same two sticks, always worked.

 

Try lowering your resolution.
See if it still crashes.

 

How is your device manager?
Try installing asus probe,it will tell you a bit,
and monitor your temp.

 

dont know if this might help but see if your cpu fan is failing if you can watch it and see if it ever stops or anything like that


and i was wondering what did you do with that "Nvidia Geforce FX 5900 Ultra 256MB AGP" i am always looking for old agp cards working or non working

 

The randomness of your problem is pointing a lot of fingers at either your CPU overheating or your RAM. Even though the same sticks have treated you well so far, it is possible that they may have gotten damaged in the transit to the new system, and RAM is prone to just "die" for no reason. I would sugjest running Memtest86+ to rule out your RAM, and make sure to be checkin those temps on your CPU.

 

I tried memtest86+, my computer crashed in it, without showing any errors in memory. I'm trying it again now...

 

It just crashed again. No errors in memtest, just a crash...

 

Just use one stick of memory for the test,then test the other,then both together,then switch the slots they are in.

BTW an x800 for a 5900U Thats a good warranty.

 

I didn't go through the warrantee. I just bought a new card. I need a new one anyways.

 

hey you want to sell off or trade off your old one? if so i can give you a trade i have 2x infineon 256mb duel channel pc2700 ram would you want to do that?

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