It would probably be good to see if you could borrow one off a friend maybe before you go and buy one. 420w should really be enough for the stuff that you have connected,but then again if it is a power supply fault that could most likely cause the crashes.
Regards,
Moltenz

thx alot. ill try to use another psu

If the new PSU doesn't help, I would suggest getting a new MoBo. If that doesn't work, just get new everything. . . i had to when my old computer stopped allowing internet connections of any kind. . .

I change my statement about 3.3v. It may be used for most mobo functions, if at all. But CPUs suck up a lot of 12v, that's why we have the extra 4 pin and 6 pin, for more 12v. Those suckers need a lot!

I don't know what i think......maybe it's worth....because you said something about power fluctuation ....it may be the power source...or the mb....i don't know

i shoud have mentioned this b4. i built my cousins comp as well with the same mobo and same exact ram. they are having no probs. but they reaaly dont play any games on it so i dont know if it will crash. but i built there comp with a different case w/ psu. it was an X-Infinity case, i believe. i will try to use their psu and see wat happens.
thx again for replying.

let us know how it goes

i don't know....i have a bad feeling about this
you must know some of murphy's laws:
-If anything can go wrong, it will
-If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong
-If anything just cannot go wrong, it will anyway
-If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something
and tha most important:
-Smile . . . tomorrow will be worse

so wat would u suggest doing if u were in my shoes? get a new psu? cuz a psu is a psu and i dont think the chances of my psu and my cuz's psu are gona be high of having the same exact problem (i.e. the voltage drop).

wat do u think of this psu?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817103928

or this one

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817103939

btw the one i have now is 20 pin. the latter is a 20+4 pin, will this work? and wat does the PFC mean?

Antec is good to stay with.

If you get a PS with a 24 pin plug, make sure the extra 4 pins are removable, most are, if you still need the 20-pin.

A good, high powered power supply is a good thing to have, as an upgrade, whether you "need" it or not. The power supply isn't some piece you replace ONLY when it goes bad. It needs upgradeing just like any other part.
However, I still can't say if that is your issue. I'm just saying, if you have the money, it's not a bad buy either.

And where do you see "PFC"? I don't see what you mean.

-----------------------------
SPEC
Type ATX12V
Maximum Power 430W
Fans 1
PFC No
Main Connector 20+4-Pin
Dual +12V Yes
Power Good Signal 100-500ms
Hold-up Time 17ms min.
---------------------------
the above was where the PFC was mentioned on the antec link.

PFC means:

Power Factor Correction (PFC)
A method of increasing the power factor of a power supply. Typically referring to a European requirement. Needed when input power is above 70 watts - normally 60 watts of output will pass without special circuitry. Elpac power supplies with FWP or MWP in the series name have PFC circuitry included.

Power Factor:
Power Factor is defined as the ratio of actual power to apparent power in a circuit. Ideally, we want the input current waveforms and input voltage waveforms to match and be in phase. When this happens we get Power Factor of 1 (1:1 Ratio) which is the maximum in efficient power handling. Power Factor is important in switching power supply discussions because, unlike traditional electrical devices (those with resistive loads such as light bulbs, heaters etc.) which are driven by a smooth sine wave, switching power supplies draw input current in high peaked pulses that are out of phase with the input voltage waveform. This mismatch of waveforms will cause inefficient power handling resulting in higher operating costs and may also inflict harmful stress to the electrical wires and network.

I hope this helps you understand a bit more. And Antec is deinately a great choice if buying a new PSU and you have the money
Hope all goes well.

Ah, I see it now.

Learn something new every day.
Forget something you knew tomorrow.

i uninstalled my games and cleared out my page file, defraged, reinstalled my games (steam, call of duy 2, NFSU 2, NFSMW, BF1942). i tried steam first it worked flawlessly. i tried NFSU 2, it worked flawlessy (better than b4). i tried NFSMW, and it crashed again. i think my system is crashing only on graphically and memory demandng games. but after NFSMW crashed, i restarted and tried steam again, it crashed. i restarted again, and it crahsed. so i think when i reinstalled and played MFSMW it ruined my flow of working games. im thinking of buying the Antec NeoHE 430w PS, so i hope this helps.

Very odd indeed.
Did it crash with a bugcheck? A BSOD? Or some kind of error this time?

How long could you play before it crashed? Did you have your settings up high?

Anyhow I hope the PS helps, otherwise I might point a finger at the video card. But that depends on how it crashes and the errors it gives.

hey, did you end up checking the memory with something like memtest????
if you did, how did it go? any errors at all?

i checked my old memory w/ memtest, there was no errors. i had about 2 new sticks of memeory added to check it and there were no errors.

my settings are not that high really. only up to a point where grahics are aesthetically plaeasing enough and has enough room to run somewhat smoothly wihtout lagging.

no i didnt get any BSODs or errors when i restarted. the thing is the game loads, but right when its about to play the EA GAMES intro video and then freezes and has some sound glitches, like the sound is being forced to play but its not playing and u hear wierd glitching noises. so i have to shutdown manually by holding the power button and then i restart. on counter-strike, i load the game fine, i try to find a server to play, i double click it and when its about to load the map, it crashes completely (ie by itself w/out me manually restarting).

like i posted in my first post when i started the thread, if i wait like 10-15 min after loading windows, the games work wilthout freezing, locking up, or crashin but i still get the voltagge drop errors. its just that when i load windows and try to play right after it freezes and i have to restart. but it does crash at times but not as often as it freezes.

You're positive it is a "complete" freeze? You have absolutely no keyboard or mouse control?

This is a hard one fellas. Unless there is some really odd software bug, one single app or dll or other thing that is near impossible for us to find this way, it would have to be a hardware problem.

The only way to rule out software is to reload.
And unless you have a full system hardware testing suite that runs outside of Windows, we can't pinpoint hardware either.
Without a BSOD and bugcheck (because the game just freezes) it makes it hard to track errors.

If it is hardware, look into the PS first, then video card.

Otherwise, check your Windows error logs and see if there is anything useful in there. By right-click My Computer-manage-event viewer. Look for errors, not info or warnings.

Faulting application idriver.exe, version 8.1.0.293, faulting module ntdll.dll, version 5.1.2600.2180, fault address 0x000106c3. (this was from uninstalling NFSMW i think) in apllication folder

Faulting application wmplayer.exe, version 10.0.0.3802, faulting module unknown, version 0.0.0.0, fault address 0x035bdd76.

Faulting application aim.exe, version 5.9.3861.0, faulting module unknown, version 0.0.0.0, fault address 0x1221254f.
(i get a lot of errors from aim and whenever it loads up it has a debug problem:A runtime error has occurred. Do you wish to debug? Line 13 Error: 'adsD' is undefined. Yes No)

The hpdj service failed to start due to the following error:
The executable program that this service is configured to run in does not implement the service (i had alot of these) in system folder

and yes it is a complete freeze. no mouse control, no keyboard control, nothing.
is there such a suite that i can use? which would u recommemed becuz i can get my hands on one if i knew wat it was. (.......a little creative invention called bittorent)

thank you both Vigilante and moltenz.

there is a program called TuffTEST Pro - http://www.tufftest.com/ttp01.htm which is known to be pretty good, it can test hardware outside of windows like you want to do