System jinxed

[firelance]

hi,
i had sent a mail earlier but i cant find it..so i'm typing it all over again...figures how desperate i am......

it all started after i put in an xtra 256 ram for my system....cant boast of a state of the art system..but a P4,1.6ghz,512ram,120Gb,S3 prosavage card shud serve the purpose....

now i cant seem to play any divx movies at the 1024 resolution although my monitor is samsung 17''....the movies begin to frame badly...and xvid movies frame and to top it off appears upside down....i managed to circumvent it by lowerin the resolution to 800 by 600....the weird thing is tht in the task manager the cpu usage is up at 100% while normally it is under 20% for applications like playin a divx movie.....i cant run more thn 2 applications at a time..for eg. winamp and a photo application...the entire thing hangs up..reinstalling XP or the drivers do no good.....somehow i hav every reason to believe tht the video card does not work coz the processor is doin all the work.......
stranger thn fiction the video quality of the cds i play seems to hav gone down...the system has slowed down to turtle speed even after the 512 ram.....is it my video card.. or is it the ram?

strange as it may seem..the monitor builds up high levels of static charge during operation...i touch the screen and i get a nasty shock.....i keep the UPS next to the monitor so tht cud be the reason.....?

cud some good soul plz help me out....

godspeed

 

[Nodsu]

Do the problems go away when you take the extra 256 RAM out?

 

[firelance]

i havent taken the ram out as yet coz i wuz thinkin wht cud the ram hav to do with all this.....?
will a defective ram cause a big problem such as mine?

 

[Nodsu]

The problems started after you put in the new RAM.. It doesn't take a genius to point a finger in that direction.

 

[young&wild]

Originally posted by firelance
coz i wuz thinkin wht cud the ram hav to do with all this.....?

Why not? Clearly the problem occured right after you inserted a new memory module. Get it off now to confirm if the memory is at fault.

The problem could be due to the fact that you are RAMs of two differemt brand.

 

[firelance]

RAM's fine

hi,
i removed the ram as suggested ..with some improvements.......the xvid movies tht used to appear upside down suddenly sorted itself out upon using just one stick....however the divz movies continue to frame and the cpu usage in the task manager for a simple application like decoding the movie is shown at 100%..this means tht the processor is doin all the work tht is supposed to be shared by the graphics card......
both the ram sticks seem to be of diff make but tht doesnt explain the 100 % cpu usage even with a single 256 ram.....
is somethin wrong with the motherboard...coz i transported the cpu over 2600kms by air and then there was a rickety bus trip to the final destination......cud anythin hav got damaged during transport.......it defies logic coz if damaged i dont xpect it to work at all...as is usual with all computer components!!!
i'll be grateful for any suggestions
-firelance

 

[lowman]

Just out of curiousity - how big is the paging file on your system?

 

[MrGaribaldi]

It could very well be that the system was "damaged" during transport. But the damage could be as simple as a card having dislogded itself a bit.

Try checking that all cables and cards are securely fastened.

Also, try updating your videocard drivers and re-installing your codecs.

As for RAM slots, have you tried putting the new ram in another slot? It could be something as simple as the motherboard having a weakness using 2 of the ram slots. (An annoying, yet not uncommon flaw)

Hope this helps

 

[firelance]

hi,
yea, maybe the card got dislodged or somethin..coz when i tried puttin in a GeF 2 in the agp slot... the system worked like clockwork....or close to tht...so maybe i'll go around tryin to get a new GPU...
but theres still somethin tht bothers me....when comin out of hibernation,inspite of the 512 ram,the system takes time..i mean i've seen systems with 128 ram come out of hibernation as fast as mine...as well as systems with 512 ram come out at a thunderin pace...is there somethin missin??

 

[StormBringer]

hibernation is a bit hit and miss in my experience. It works perfect on one system, while being a big pain on another identical system. I wouldn't worry too much as long as it comes back.

 

[firelance]

i dont know...but technically the more ram u hav means u can load everythin into the ram faster...uhh..maybe not....but somehow i feel it shud be faster.....wht has the system got to do with the hibernation speed anyways...

 

[Didou]

You're saying it's a bit sluggish when it comes out of hibernation & SB pointed out that hibernation doesn't always work as it should ( I never us e it myself ).

Btw what kind of Ram did you install ? Brand / model ?

 

[StormBringer]

There are several factors that can affect the speed of your system returning from hibernation(aside from it being sketchy) the speed of the HDD, since the system loads an image of everything as you left it into a file on the HDD. The fragmentation of the disk will also have a bit of influince, the amount and speed of the RAM, and the CPU would all have some affect. The biggest things though would be the speed of the RAM and the speed and condition of the HDD.

 

[firelance]

ok will having a defective graphics card slow down the system when it comes out of hibernation..coz my rams perfect sdram 133 and HDD's new 120GB maxtor

 

[Didou]

You can try running a memtest to make sure the Ram is working well.

What kind/model/brand of VGA card is it ? ( You can also fill all the extra info in your user profile to make things easier for everyone ).

Is the CPU at 100% when playing any one of your DivX files. Some codecs might be more CPU intensive then others & higher quality ones might need more CPU power as well.

 

[firelance]

memtest....thnx..i'll try it out
the card is an S3 prosavage DDR onboard...
the fact is tht the cpu usage is 100% for all my divx movies and xvid movies...but i know maybe i need a new graphics card coz when i fit a GF2 into the agp slot and the cpu usage fell to 20%..and tht is the xpected usage...
fact is tht the processor and graphics card share the work of displayin any images on the screen..and when the graphics card decides to go bust then the entire workload is on the processor and hence the 100% cpu usage...i cudnt think of any better xpalnation with my limited know-how in computer techs
oh..yea...put up my info..i'll do tht

 

[Didou]

Yeah onboard VGA cards are quite slow when it comes to displaying anything other then basic 2D ( except for the nForce 2 IGP ).

Allthough your system should be more then capable to play DivX files easilly, it certainly won't hurt to get a newer card, especially if you get one that is supposed to have a semi-hardware DivX decoding such as ATI cards ( 9100 & above ).

 

[firelance]

i got a problem now....my system does not come out of hibernation......the monitor does not switch on...it completely reboots and this message pops up " delete restoration data and restart?"......and it restarts and the serious error message shows up..cud anyone tell me wht has gone wrong?