Crashing computer

[theDude5b]

Hi

i am having problems with my new computer,

the spec

AMD XP 2800+
Asrock K7S8X
Geforce 4 MX 440 TV Out
512mb PC2700 DDR333
80gb 2mb Cache
Onboard 5 channel sound card

anyhoo, the computer has crashed on many occasions, i will crash when i am sitting copying CD's to the computer, and it crashes after a while when playing computer games.

any suggestions as to what may be the problem ?
i thought it might be the graphics driver but have installed a new driver but it still does not work. i had problems though installing the driver for it.

HELP!

 

[MrGaribaldi]

:wave: Hello & Welcome to TechSpot :wave:

Did you buy it pre-built, or did you build it yourself?

What OS are you using? And have you installed all the updates from WindowsUpdate.com?

If you answer those, it'll be a bit easier to help you find out what's wrong...


Enjoy your stay here

 

[eLTonno]

It could be a problem with the ram timings. You should check your bios settings. But it can as well be everything else there are soo much possible reasons...

 

[vassil3427]

Also what Power Supply does the Computer have in it? And by crashing are you meaning a random restart, or a blue screen error?

 

[Vehementi]

Originally posted by vassil3427
Also what Power Supply does the Computer have in it? And by crashing are you meaning a random restart, or a blue screen error?

Yes, that may be it, I do hope you're not running that beast off of a 250W generic PSU or something like that.

What kind of problems with the driver?

And yes again, what kind of crashing are you getting???

 

[eLTonno]

Since Windows XP automatic restart on Error setting enabled by default it is often hard to say what kind of system crash it is
I recommend first to disable this setting and then say what the bluescreen says

 

[RealBlackStuff]

I see nobody touched on temperature yet. Check them in your BIOS after you have run your PC for let's say an hour or so.
Or download MBM (MoBo Monitor) http://mbm.livewiredev.com/
and let us know.
ALso, run your PC with the case open for a day and see if that improves things. If so you will need to adjust/install more fans

 

[techy]

El Tonno is the most correct person here. He is completely right. I've been searching on Google around these forums for somebody with the same issue. I built my friend a computer recently with DDR333, an FIC board (socket A, the AU11). It is the Ram timings b/c I put my DDR 266 chip in, and it was no problem. The DDR266 Chip didn't work quite right either, until I upped the voltage on it. That didn't help with the DDR333, I've played w/voltage, on every setting. I moved the settings to aggressive to see if that'd help. Sometimes doing this would allow the computer to run longer, but any high video acceleration programs would close out with an error report, and after a while the computer would restart. The CAS latency is the same as it is labeled on the memory. It's using DDR333, by Apacer, the 32x8 stick, 512 mb. Somebody come up w/a custom setting to help me? EL Tonno is so close.

 

[eLTonno]

You should try to load the BIOS defaults. And then optimize one settings after another so you can see what makes the computer crash.

You should also try to get another DDR333 chip and see if that works. It sounds like your board doesn't like it :/

 

[techy]

well here's the coinkidink. We both have a 2800+, and are using ddr 333 memory. The FSB of my 2800+ is 333 mhz. Are we seeing some relation to the issue?

 

[techy]

ok here's the deal. I recently replaced it with a kingston DDR 400 stick. For a while the bios recognized it as DDR 333, so I clocked the memory to what it was suppose to be and it never crashed in windows. However...In high-end graphic accleration games, they often would crashing give an "error report". I played with many of nvidia's settings as well as the bios'. It uses the nforce 2 chipset, and what I have done is maxed the voltage of the AGP slot, I have changed the aperature numerous times, made video ram not cacheable, which seemed to work the best, and many other things. For some programs, I have found myself needing to overclock the AGP bus just so that it will run smoothly. I'm hoping it is not the video card, and my gut feeling tells me it is not. With PC2100 memory, it would not do this. Please help, here are the stats....

Athlon XP 2800+
512 MB of DDR400 memory
Geforce FX 5600 XT (256 mb)
300 Watt Power Supply
120 GB Hard Drive
Windows XP Professional (corporate edition)
52x CD-RW Drive
48x CD-Rom

Please give me your analysis, I feel I've tried everything.

 

[vassil3427]

Your Power Supply really isnt enough for that system, you need 350w or more....And you REALLY need a new PSU if its a CHEAP 300w PSU.....

It's probably your PSU, with the increased FSB, its using more power, possibly to the point of starvation....IMO

 

[snowman]

im going to agree with vassil and venture to guess its the psu. since you have increased voltages and the FSB of some components, you system is using more power. so i would set everything back to normal and get atleast an Antec or Enermax brand 350 watt psu.

With PC2100 memory, it would not do this.

it probably didnt do it with the 2100 because it didnt require as much power as the newer 3200.

I recently replaced it with a kingston DDR 400 stick. For a while the bios recognized it as DDR 333, so I clocked the memory to what it was suppose to be and it never crashed in windows. However...In high-end graphic accleration games, they often would crashing give an "error report"

when you clocked the memory up, did you run it out of sync with the processor or just up the whole FSB? if you upped the fsb to 400 that is overclocking your processor and it could be overheating when you play graphic intensive games, hence the errors. as for memory timings, if your having stability problems why up them to agressive? leaving them stock would give a little more stability since they would be runing how it was designed to.