Totally Stumped And Goin Mad :-0

[Herbster63]

:knock: Hi all first time on a forum site
My problem is with my kids 800mhz amd its fitted with a ti 4200 64mb card and running 384 mem.
It all started with a reformat with xp after they got a virus off the net which took out explorer, once i finished the format i put the sims two back on for then but as soon as it would start it would lock the pc up with now way out but to reset,while i was thinking what might be the prob the pipe screen saver flashed up and also give me a lock up with no way out but a reset?
I tried new drivers, changing ram ,ide lines and sockets, different h/drives and also my video card all to no avail, still locked?
I just put far cry on just to see if that game would lock it all up but to my amazement the dam thing played so tried screensavers and sims again and it locked again.This has got me totally stumped as fary cry certainly needs more grunt than a silly little screen saver
thanks for reading regards Herb

 

[SOcRatEs]

Bios?

Welcome!
Maybe look into a fresh bios for MoBo.
G'Luck

 

[Rik]

The specs on the pc are just too low on a pc like that for those games. Sounds like a directx problem, i have an xp 2000+ and that struggles with farcry a bit, if u run dxdiag it may possibly help but i doubt it will much.

 

[mailpup]

Did you happen to install the 77.72 graphics card driver? If so, uninstall it and try the 71.89 version.

 

[Herbster63]

Thanks for all the replies. SOCRATES:Internet dialed out after messaging you this morning thought i should go to bed 5.am the MoBo is a AOPEN VT 8363 133/A Board if that makes sense to u any more help would be good.
RIK:The old comp runs Far Cry ok on all low setting sticks abit when ya got alot of stuff happening but i just dont understand why it wont run any thing else eg: pipe screensaver, leadfoot maybe they are all T & L and Far Cry is direct 3d .
MAILPUP:Tried it with the standard XP drivers locked also three other versions of the driver.
Thanks once again for all your input i dont mind if you give me more
Maybe the Mobo is broken

 

[Rik]

Just a thought, i fried a graphics card up once and all that went on it was 1 surface mount capacitor which i replaced and the card worked fine for over a year, have replaced it with a better card now but it never played up. Could be worth u having a good look just in case its happened to u.

 

[Herbster63]

Thanks RIKbut i changed cards in the machine and the stupid thing still locked , even if it was that thing you said im not smart enough to do that sort of stuff thanks a million just gunna have tobuy a new mobo i think found 1 on Ebay for $30 bucks hope that works


thanks all for your help regards herbster