MCE media center always kills my pc

[insomniacc]

Hi

Okay, ive just built up a pc for my sister, now the pc itself is built from parts that i have been using for a while, the motherboard, cpu(1.8ghz) and ram(768mb) are all the same, ive installed a radeon x1650 pro and a haupage tv card and a nice new hdd. Ive got it running on windows media center edition 05 with quite a few updates, rollup2 etc.
It works fine when im browsing the web, watching videos and such. However when i load Media centre given time usually only a min or two and it will crash completly freezing up my pc and forcing me to manually reboot. sometimes the screen goes black and states theres no monitor input, sometimes the screen freezes, you can see where you were last but nothing responds and sometimes and this is the odd bit, it goes weird, you'll get a little graphic glitch, its only short, but it lead me to believe there might be and issue with the graphics card, ive installed the cd drivers that came with the card and later on reinstalled them to make sure. I cant figure out whats up with it, ive even swapped out the ram because i thought there might be an issue but it does the same still.

Im guessing that there is some sort of software glitch with mce but i dont know how to fix it. any help would be greatly appreciated

thanks

 

[insomniacc]

Just tried uninstalling all ati drivers and related software, then installed the latest official mce drivers off the official website for my graphics card but still unfortunatly this has not fixed the problem.

 

[gbhall]

There are a number of suspects. First the power supply. How old is it, is it up to the job of powering new peripherals you have added?

Try removing all hardware, e.g. haupage card, CD's DVD's etc etc except those actually in use when the circumstances of lockup occur. This reduced power usage may keep it working, and if so, there's your answer - a new power unit.

Second possibility is static-electricity damage during the PC assembly. This could affect the motherboard or the graphic card.

Third possibility is ram timings. In effect you are under- or over-clocking the ram, through not having the proper settings. To sort that one out, you need to carefully research the motherboard and Ram specifications. If you cannot do that, then at least run memtest86 for a few hours.

Fourth possibility is overheating of the processor. If that was disturbed in any way during the build, you will need to reseat the processor with fresh paste. Also run a temperature monitor if the processor and motherboard supports one.

Finally, check all the fans are working, that none are obstructed, that the power supply has been blown out with compressed air. Old components collect the most astonishing gunk on and inside them.