Video card/ powersource mess

System stats:
WinXp service pack 1
up to date nvida drivers

300W power supply
SY-P4X400 Dragon ultra platinum (soyo)
1.8 ghz pentium
256megs RAM PC3200
geforce 4 TI 4600 (i think)
60 and 250 gig western digital HD
40x cdrom drive

then i started to get scrambled image on the screen just what ever was suposed to be on the screen was scattered. obviously a vidocard problem bc the comp worked fine when i swapped out the video card and tested it with my brothers video card. So i upgraded to the Nvidia geforce 6600 GT 128 (PNY). I also got more ram. I added 512megs of PC3200 ram by the same company as the first stick i had.

After trying to use the computer and realizing that it crashed(restarting the computer) when ever i tryed to do any thing graphically intensive (play a game, play video ect.) After some resurch i realized i needed more power. My 300w wasn't cutting it. So i got a 500w monster with nice clean round cables and a glowy thing inside it. Now the computer doesn't restart it freezes durring games and sometimes just durring me typing (seemingly not related to graphically intensive programs). I have also left it on all day downloading stuff and come back to it not frozen at all. It seems to only freeze while i'm using it not when left to do a task. what could the problem be now? plz help as you can see i've spent alot of money trying to fix it already what do i do?

 

Have you installed the lastest VGA drivers? What is the VGA & CPU temp? My first guess is over heating, I'm sure the 500w PSU has increased your system temp.

 

Good move upgrading PSU, got a nice 550w myself.

So that's covered, enough grunt

Dare I ask a basic question? Power Management, ACPI etc, notoriously badly handled by default.

Check sleep, hibernation, wake up settings etc.

 

cpu temp should be good i have a monster thermal take fan on it, says 50 degrees C. the new powersource has some monster fanage on it too so i dont' think it is heating up.

VGA drivers? where can i get them, i want' aware they got updated.

what should my powermanagement settings be like? they are currently set to turn off the monitor after 20 min, and never turn off HD and never go on stand by or hybernation.

what is ACPI?

do you mean the windows settings or the bios settings?

 

Go to
http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp
Select graphic drivers, geforce series

Drivers and updates go hand & hand

 

Of course i have the latest nvidia drivers i said that didn't I?

I really need some help on this i dunno where else to ask for help and I don't really have any money to pay someone to fix it. Are their some other forums I would be likely to get help at?

 

Can anyone help me with this? or point me to some forum or site that will? i can't seem to figure it out and i need my comp to be relyable for school.

 

Is the 50c the max temp during games? Also what is the temp of the VGA card? Temp inside the case? Is the CPor memory overclocked? Are you using a memory controller, how many programs do you have running in the background? What is the system idle CPU usage? DO you have norton anti-virus, is it running when you play games?

 

how can i tell the temp of the video card?
case is like 30
nothing overclocked
i don't think i'm using a memory controler
nothing unusual in the back ground
i don't have an antivirus prog right now I guess i'll try that next
its crashing at all different times not just when i'm playing games
and it doesn't have any problem locking up when i leave it on all day to download somthing. it will only freeze when i'm using it.

 

Where is the temp being reported as well? If it's in the Bios, use MBM5 to check it from the desktop, since windows increases load on the processor.

 

Seems to me, ur running to hot... if u are getting ur temps from the bios and they are at 50 C then u are running to hot... Most likely ur threshold for temp would be 70 c and could be acheived by putting stress on the CPU. Try installing MBM5 as recommended and put a hard hit on ur cpu. and see what ur temps are at..... also, what is the speed of the ram purchased and the one previously installed.

 

the ram is pc3200 mushkin
i'm using the soyo hardware monitor software that came with the mother board. it says 50c. I'm not so shure heat is the problem. i have a monster thermal take fan on my cpu i've been leaving the side of my case off just to make shure its not heat, and the new power source has 2 monster fans in it.

right now the cpu temp is 45c

 

after installing MBM5 it says my cpu is 28c and my case is 51c.

The hardware monitor that came with my mother board (and might be out of date or just a piece of crap) says my cpu is 51c and my case is 28c. wich is right?

but then again i'm not 100% on how to set up this mbm5 thing.

 

I think it would be ur cpu at 51 C, Just seems more logical. Still seems fairly hot... Try running a game that puts demand on the cpu and other components like HL2 or run a benchmark program like 3dmark 2001se or 3dmark 03, then record ur temp right after it finished

 

As well, run the game, and check MBM's settings, under the high low temp tab. It lists the peak temps on processor and such. It should have the highest recorded temp.

As for setting it up, just select the type, and model of your motherboard, and it's calibrated. If you mis-calibrate, just reinstall.

 

K, i set mbm5 to record my cpu temp, then i ran the nvidia demo graphics show off prog: nalu, the records say that the temp went from 44 to 45c.

the highest recorded is 51

my processor fan has a variable speed switch (low, medium, and high) all these recordings were on medium.

i'm only trying to run steam games, and play video clips, that is what really makes it crash.

 

Video clips? Shouldn't do that. What do you mean by Steam Games?

 

steam games, are games such as Counter strike and HL2... those kinds. I'm wondering if it might be ther ram?!?!

 

steam games i mean halflife 1, i've also tried warcraft 3 and the new vampire masquerade game that is the HL2 engine. I've been talking to PNY tech support for hours and they can't figure it out. they say test the card in another computer to see if it is defective. I havent' done it yet and it will be a huge pain in the ass since i have to move the powersource too.

PNY tech support said make shure the card has its own private power cable, not a split one. so i changed that. they also said i needed the nvidia beta drivers so i got that too. and nothing is any different. (although now that i think about it i didn't really uninstall teh old drivers when i installed the betadrivers how do you unistall drivers? its been soooo long since i've had to)

 

Try shutting down steam while playing the games. I've heard that it causes massive usage spikes in the processor and RAM, which can shut you down. And yes, even if you've got 256 MB. I've had it happen with 512.