Computer freezing and not booting

[elvc2004]

Help!!

anybody help me!!! i dont know whats wrong with this pc, sometimes, i try to turn power on, and it just freezes the moment i press power button, the hard disk light stays on, the cd drive light stays on (doesnt flash) and my monitor doesnt turns on either, and thats it, no error beep, no nothing, i cant even reset the thing, i have to turn power off manually, and then sometimes it just works fine, i dont know if my cpu has been damaged or burned, its and AMD athlon xp 1800, my video card is ATI 9600 pro have 256 ddr mb ram, and its been running fine for a year before this happens, anybody has a clue?

 

[Liquidlen]

Welcome to Techspot!
You say the computer boots sometime.have you checked system events for errors or did you see any errors on booting.
You problem could bad memory ,Mb PSU ,but any errors would be helpful to start troubleshooting from there.

 

[elvc2004]

when the cpu burns, the pc starts?, i mean, could it be that my cpu burned, or it just dosnt boot if it burns, because i had no previous errors during boot up(when the freaking thing decides to work), except some games that crashed when playing, only some games, others ran perfectly fine.

 

[elvc2004]

ok, i made an advance, i said my video card was ati 9600 pro, well my problems started just when i installed it, and, when the pc frozed this morning, i decided to remove the video card and try to hear the no video card beep when i turn on the power, well idid heard the beep, so, i thought it wasnt the cpu, i placed my old geforce video card in the agp slot and the pc started normally, what could be wrong with the ati card? couse sometimes it boots normally, as now that im writting this message, could the AGP slot be damaged?

 

[Liquidlen]

When you swapped the ati on the first installation did you uninstall the drivers etc. for the geforce crd and then reboot with standard VGA drivers before the ATI install.
This procedure help[s to ensure old drivers are not laying around messing up the new card

 

[elvc2004]

i didnt uninstalled the old drivers, as i thought windows xp did it normally, but what i found today, is that i had two drivers installed for the ati card running at the same time, i removed one of them and the pc launched a message saying that no ati card was installed, even though i had the remaining ati driver enabled, so i enabled it again, and disabled the other one, and now i have only one driver for the ati card running, a friend of mine told me it could be the video card not placed properly in the AGP slot, well, i really dont think so, if its misplaced why would it work sometimes and sometimes no, i dont think it can move to right position by itself can it

 

[Liquidlen]

It is not good that you have variuos drivers in your machine .From your description I am not sure you have a clean install of your card's drivers .If you continue to have intermittent trouble ,you should refer to my post above and get the drivers installed properly.
Also your friend is correct.Small amounts of dust and corrosion can build up on the contacts of various add on cards.Not to mention the vibration from fans ,etc. It is a common maintenance procedure to remove your cards, remove dust from them and even clean the contacts with an eraser.

 

[Arris]

You should have 2 video cards listed for your 9600 Pro.
Because it listed a primary and secondary, one for each output on the card. The standard RGB and the DVI connections. This is fine. I suggest trying what has been suggested first. Uninstall all the video drivers so the machine is running with only standard vga drivers. Then replace the geforce with the new card and run the install from the CD or download the latest drivers from ATI.

If you were running quite an old Geforce (2 or 3) then the 9600 Pro probably uses quite a bit more power. Your system with the 9600 Pro could be near the edge of your PSU's supply capability. Sometimes it manages to get the necessary power to boot with all devices, other times it hangs but still some devices get power. What wattage is your PSU rated for?

I have always found that the Power Usage info from PC Power and Cooling has always helped work out Power needs.

 

[elvc2004]

thanx for the advise, i think i solved it, it was a bit dusty that agp slot, cleaned it, and problem solved!!!!!! thanx, ill do the drivers thing anyway, and my PSU is 350 watts