Mobo Problem?

[idahosig]

I'm new here so give me a break if this has been answered a thousand times already.
I built a computer in July last year. The major specs are, AMD Athlon X2 4400+, Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe mobo, GeForce 6800 GPU, 2 Gigs of Crucial Memory, 180gig Western Digital HD.
The problem is that it randomly freezes when doing different operations. Sometimes I will be playing a game, other times I will just be surfing the internet and it just stops. The HD LED stays on continuously and the system stops responding, no mouse movement, keyboard functions.
Recently, I turned my computer off and started it up getting a BSOD saying a SAM file is corrupt (I think I may have been hacked for that one).
I have run memtest for about 1 day straight, with no errors. I have replaced the Hard Drive which doesn't seem to be the problem.
Any ideas on how to figure out what is causing the random crashes? Thanks for your help.

 

[vnf4ultra]

What exactly do you mean by "freezes"? Do you mean, it just hangs and stops responding, it acts "jerky", or reboots the pc?

 

[idahosig]

It hangs and stops responding completely.
I was able to do a manual system restore to get the operating system back up. I don't believe the system is overheating, after running for about an hour the CPU was at 32C.
The system is recognizing all the components, and runs perfect for a while. Then it will just stop and I will have to restart manually.

 

[kirock]

It's always a good place to start. Have you updated to the lastest mobo chipset drivers, I presume nVidia nforce4? Goto the ASUS website not nVidia.

And the classic, what PSU are you using?
A rig like that you'll need 550W, +5V 50A, +12V 30A (approximately). Hopefully it's not some generic that came with the case. (or actaul it would be a good thing, prob solved!)

 

[Rick]

It's always a good place to start. Have you updated to the lastest mobo chipset drivers, I presume nVidia nforce4? Goto the ASUS website not nVidia.

And the classic, what PSU are you using?
A rig like that you'll need 550W, +5V 50A, +12V 30A (approximately). Hopefully it's not some generic that came with the case. (or actaul it would be a good thing, prob solved!)

That wattage is totally unnecessary, but the amperage is important. A quality 450w will be more than enough. 30a on a single +12 rail is a bit silly, but 24-pin PSUs will come with 2 x 12v rails, hopefully around 17a or more each.

Calculate estimated wattage based on parts:
http://www.extreme.outervision.com/index.jsp

A corrupted SAM file can easily happen with (but not limited too) memory, overheating and/or disk related problems.

If you changed your drive and are still experiencing the issue, based on experience I'd look at memory being the greatest possibility. Just because the memory test passes does not mean that your memory is OK. But typically, it is a good sign. www.memtest.org is a pretty good test. Run the complete diagnostic, not just the default "quick" test.

But to be really sure, the best thing to do is to swap out your memory with known good memory, or if you have multiple modules, use only one at a time and attempt to reproduce the problem. Software utilities are only so good.

 

[idahosig]

Thanks for your help guys. I will give all of those suggestions a shot.
To answer your question, I have a neopower 480 power supply. I have moved some wires around, so I'll see if that helps.
I run the memtest for a full day, doing the full diagnostic with no errors. I will run another one. Thanks for your help so far, I really appreciate it.

 

[kirock]

That wattage is totally unnecessary, but the amperage is important. A quality 450w will be more than enough. 30a on a single +12 rail is a bit silly, but 24-pin PSUs will come with 2 x 12v rails, hopefully around 17a or more each.

I guess I was out by 2Amps for the 520W unit described below. I must admit I thought I saw X2 GeF6800, so I was trying to recommend a good PSU that gives you a little head room for further expansion (HDD, Video up grade etc.)

Here is a typical high end powers supply spec:
450W: +3.3V(28A), +5V(45A), +12V(26A)
520W: +3.3V(28A), +5V(52A), +12V(28A)
Over-voltage/Short-Circuit protection
DB output performance: 17db at idle and 21db at load.
Part Numbers
OCZ45012U – 450W
OCZ52012U – 520W

Source:http://www.extreme-pc.ca/showproduct.asp?productid=368362&menu1id=12&menu2id=88&menu3id=104

Just to make sure, are you OC this rig? Here's a quote from HardOCP about the A8N-SLI-Deluxe:
"We also tested the board with all memory slots filled with Corsair PC3200XL 512MB modules, and found no stability related issues at stock speeds. In this configuration though, we were only able to push the CPU FSB up to 235MHz. Running 2GB of Ram higher than 235MHz led to hard disk corruption on our A8N-SLI." source: http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NzAzLDc=

I still suggest update your nForce4 chipset drivers, I did this the 1st day my computer came to life (last weekend of Aug/05).