im having a little bit of an issue here. my computer is
acting very very strange. if its not one thing its the next.
I used to have a problem when my video card would malfunction
and the graphics on any program would twist and turn,
freezing my computer (or shutting off my video card). since
then I replaced the video card and this problem stopped, but
right at the end of my old video card another issue popped
up. booting would get stuck at the windows loading screen and
sometimes on the first screen to come up, the bios screen.
After about 8 trys my computer will get past both of the
points and acually start up. Just recently it has started a
new problem, after I finally get it started it now wants to
freeze randomly while im in the middle of anything and shut
my video card off (brand new video card). I thought this may
have been a virus so I switched hard drives, and its still
happening. this cant be an issue with my power supply, thats
new too. the only thing is my mother board but im not sure.

my mother board does have a warranty, should I replace it along with the cpu and heatsink? or is there another problem going on? or is this an easy fix im just not seeing?

Difficult to speculate without knowing the brand and model, or the motherboard part number, or the hard drives you used, but
It could still be a bad video card, or a hard drive, or memory failure, or a bad cpu fan, or no thermal paste in the heat sink.
I would begin by running the free memtest86 for four hours or seven passes, just to rule it out.
Then I would be sure you have the latest drivers for the video card, and that it is not using the old drivers. Sometimes the drivers just don't go away when you install a new card.
Finally, I would use a 7200 rpm drive that you can totally reformat and reinstall.
What you describe doesn't mimick bad motherboard behavior.

ok, this just gets more interesting. it just crashed and now when i start it, there is no video and the quick beep my mobo used to put out has turned into a long beep followed by 2 short ones. ill post system specs next time i get to a comp

= System Specs =

the mobo is an:
MSI K8N NEO4-F NF4 PCI-E

the cpu is a:
939pin Athlon 64 3200+

video card is a new:
Nvidia 7900 GS

Harddrive's are:
WD 10krpm Raptor
and
seagate 7500rpm

The manufacturer of your motherboard (MSI) publishes specs online to describe what all the beep codes mean.
The WD10K RPM Raptor is the SATA 160 GB version, right? I assume you boot to it?

See if you have the same problems when you disconnect the 100 GB

The MSI is an excellent board. I would be very surprised if it is the source of your problems.
I put my suspicians on the nVidia 7900 GS. How long have you had it, and what was the previous video graphics card you replaced?
... depending upon the beep codes...

i have had this video card for about a month now and it was sent to me to replace my 7800 GT

i dont know if its a fluke or not but when I unplugged my wd raptor hd it started up and worked fine (...so far) so I think it might have been something with the harddrive, but then I dont understand the beeping, and it should have at least let me see my bios if my hard drive wasnt working... so im really confused

That is not a fluke, in my opinion, but rather common among the WD Raptors, which is why I suggested you unplug it. When the Western Digital people repaired that series, they changed the color from silver to black because there were so many errors that developed as the drives aged. Which color is yours.

I worry about the beeping, though. The beep codes are generated by the motherboard to defects it detects. They vary from brand to brand and sometimes from old models 200 and before, compared to new models 2001 and higher.
As for the video graphics driver, see if the video graphics driver is flagged with red or yellow in the Device Manager.

Keep trying, and reporting. A lot of us are learning from your efforts.

strap on your helmet, it just got weirder. so it started that once right? well i figured I needed to reinstall my drivers so I started with my video card driver, and after it installed it needed to restart, so I clicked ok, and then the long beep and 2 short beeps came back, restarted again and it started. i started to write this response and it shut off the video card again. so im not sure what to do lol, it cant be the hard drive unless the problem is exactly the same on both.

as for the silver or black thing, I know the top plate is silver, i dont know if thats what you ment or not.

thank god my new dell 1721 laptop gets here in 2 days
==
Windows Vista® Home Premium
4GB shared Dual Channel 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM
Integrated ATI Radeon Xpress 1270
17" Wide Screen XGA+ (1440x900) display with TrueLifeTM
Intel® CoreTM 2 Duo Processor T7300 (2.0GHz,4MB L2 Cache,800MHz FSB)
==
=D

i would have tacked this on to my last post but my psp wont let me

ok so i found out that 1 long beep followed by 2 short ones indicates a "Display Adapter Problem (MDA,CGA)" could this be a problem with the slot it is in, or just the card itself? btw no i dont have another slot for my card to fit in, just the little half slot which i assume is for bridging cards

if anyone is curious about the different beep codes go to:
pchell.com/hardware/beepcodes.shtml