Problem 1: I get occasional reboots with stop 0xA, stop 0xD1 and stop 0x8 amongst others.

Problem 2: My PC does not recognise primary IDE when the temp inside the case is low, and only works if I leave the PC on long enough to heat up the inside.

When: The reboots occur often (not always) a few minutes into playing a gfx-intensive game and often (but not always) when I have a CD in any drive, even while the computer is idle. USB devices do not affect the problem's frequency.

Booting up the computer with a CD in the drive sometimes results in a blue screen either at the desktop after a few minutes, during the booting process or while playing a game. The common factor to this problem seemed to be the CD in the drive.

Here are my stats, I would post the whole HWINFO32 log but it's giant and would rather hear some general ideas before posting it in full.

CPU: AMD Athlon XP 2800+
Mobo: FICA AU31, Nforce2 chipset (MCP+APU)
PSU: 300W stock
GFX: ati radeon x1300xt w/4 pin connected
Memory: 1gb & 512mb DDR dual channel, 166mhz clock, 3-3-3-7 timing
HDD: 80gb, swapfile 2.5gb
OS: XP SP3

I noticed the 1gb module reads a supported timing of 0.0-3-3-7 whereas the 512mb module reads 2.5-3-3-7 ..is this an issue? Might be causing some STOPs but as they havn't occurred unless a CD is in the drive I wonder..?

Summary: Now problem only occurs when CD is in any optical drive whether or not i'm playing a game. Problem does not consistently occur but occurs far more often when I am booting up with a CD in the drive.

So, please enlighten me or point me in the direction of enlightenment. New PC suggestions will be ignored as it doesn't fix the problem. Sorry if this problem is not entirely GFX related but if it is a power drain issue then GFX will be a factor as I am getting a replacement card eventually and will need to buy a better PSU if wattage is an issue.

Thanks,

theo

UPDATE: new gfx card and no problems yet, am testing with CD in drive and under heavy load to see if problem can be recreated. PSU seems to not be the problem after all. Windows is throwing me CRC errors and fatal exceptions when i enter DXDIAG but it does not affect DXDIAG's operation other than give me four consecutive exception errors.

Replace the power supply first, and see if the computer settles down

a quick update.. the problem seems to be less to do with audio & video and more to do with windows, so i don't think it's relevant in this section anymore.

We are here already, so lets continue... It is up to the moderators to move a thread. Replace the power supply and see if the computer stablizes

Computer is stabilized after adding the ATI X1300XT card. No further BSODs under load or with discs in any drives.

Might have been an nvidia display driver issue as it occurred with both the onboard gfx and my previous vid card, both of them geforce.

Still testing it rigorously to recreate the error. If it repeats itself I will replace the PSU and retest.

I got several BSODs after installing latest Catalyst drivers and playing a few seconds of FEAR gameplay.

Consistent crashes with the same STOP 0x8E error.

I rolled back to the old Catalysts that came with the card and so far no more crashes even after extensive testing using both Bioshock and FEAR.

I am skeptical that it's a PSU issue because rolling back the drivers fixed it and running a far more intensive game didn't cause the error.

Any thoughts?