Mobo running games flawless until a certain time

[Rolfman]

PC Specs
I recived a mobo yesterdat Foxconn socket 478 intel pentium 4 processor running at 1.28 gh with 1GB of RAM DDR1 and 128 MB G-Force Card Fx 5200 asembled by asuss , 7.1 sound Blaster card , UsB card 2.0 , DVD pioneer 16X , 120 gb HDD , and a 450W power supply.

Problem Description

the pc only has the standart cooling fan that comes with the procesor ,
the rest is an AC in room were the pc is located and a big 6 speed lakewood
fan aiming directly to the hole mobo.

The issue is that during game play the games become very slow , making it imposible to enjoy them.

the guy tells me that he recenly bought 2 brand new memories of 512mb
each , that helped but still the problem persist.

Plus the pc crashes and performs sudden reboots , and it makes an awfull lot of noise wen it gets slow , in addition to this problem if the pc stays on for a long period of time it gets frozen.

What have i done to help

we formated the hard drives , reinstalled windows , reinstalled the games ,
and still nothing , i also tryed to persuade thu guy to sel that old piece
of **** symply get a new one , but , he want to fis that one and also get a new one.

i checked the memorys and they were ok...
i also checked the wiring and voltage and it turned out that
every time he turned his 17 inch relesys monitor while the pc was on
the computer beggun to make this anoying Humming sound.

Resolution

My fort is networking , so i know that i miss lots of test that should provide
me with a diferent result.

*i think the hard drives are messed up.
*i also think that the procesor has also something to
do with it.

also heres the list of pc games that he is trying o run

C&C generals Zero hour
Need For Speed Most Wanted
MVP Baseball 2005
FiFa 2002
and DIABLO 2 Lod of destrucction

if anyone can provide me please with some solutions
please i am open to all of them

i really want to help'em.........

 

[raybay]

You blamed the hard drive, but mentioned everything but the brand name of the hard drive and whether SATA or EIDE.
It appears to me your processor isn't fast enough, nor a good one for gaming. The speed and capacity of the video graphics card is not fast enough. The optical drive is suspect.

 

[Rolfman]

Both drives are EIDE .
But i have seen a pc like that one
running those games with no problems.

Again i might be wrong...

how can i fix it?

 

[Boogityboo04]

Is the noise that the PC makes when it gets slow a fan noise or a mechanical grinding noise?

If it is a fan noise it is probably the computer speeding up the fans trying to cool itself. Have you checked it the heatsink is seated correctly on the processor? It could also be that the graphics card is overheating and underclocks itself to try to cool down, which would cause the slowdown.

Have you checked the power supply and the voltage at the wall? If the noise is a whining or buzzing it would probably be a power supply dying. If turning on his monitor makes the computer fail it might be the voltage draw is effecting the input voltage...

 

[Rolfman]

I know about the standart behavior of the fan wen he is getting
overheated. but the cooling system i ok the pc is in a room with and AC
constantly on non stop.

plus it has a huge fan enhancing the cold.
But you did made a good question...... about the grindig noise wich is actualy the reason why posted the thread...

It's a mechanical grinding noise. it way out of the ordinary.

 

[raybay]

The 478 CPU socket goes up to 2.4, 2.6, 2.8 and 3.0 GHz... which would make a big difference, but I don't know the front side bus of the motherboard... It takes both to boost the speed.

Be sure to run the fitness test of the hard drive. I would like to know what the brand and model are.

You have a motherboard and CPU that are just almost the slowest of the combinations... not a gamer, but more of an office machine... The motherboard is definitely an office machine...
Memory is PC2700, but can take PC4000... four slots or two pairs of two. 4 GB of PC4000, together with a 256 Mb nVidia or ATI higher end video graphics card, Zalman CPU fan designed for the 3 GHz cpu, faster hard drive, would boost it... but if the FSB of the motherboard is slow, it will never be fast.
Cost to change out, is as much as buying a new Gigabyte board or an ASUS.

Good luck to you.

 

[MaHaBone]

I would recommend taking a really good look into the radiator of the heat sink. Really check in between the metal sheets and make sure they are not clogged with dust, etc.

I ha d a similar problem years ago. And five minutes with some compressed air revealed a magical kingdom of dust bunnies hiding in my seat sink. It was far and away, the easiest, most effective cure I've ever had to a PC problem.

 

[Rolfman]

Hey ray Bay thanks

i' am at work right know , but ill get you the model number of the motherboard.
thanks for the extra-info , my customer will be pleased.

ill run the test's that you sugested and i'll give you
an update in how they turned out.

but what you say is true , i also supected that the Boost
would be as expensive as an upgrade.

********
thanks also , i allways vacune the equipments that i recive to aboid just that.
thanks for the heads up.

 

[Rolfman]

you were also right on the money

I would recommend taking a really good look into the radiator of the heat sink. Really check in between the metal sheets and make sure they are not clogged with dust, etc.

I ha d a similar problem years ago. And five minutes with some compressed air revealed a magical kingdom of dust bunnies hiding in my seat sink. It was far and away, the easiest, most effective cure I've ever had to a PC problem.

**************
i checked it , and it was covered in this courtain of piled and compressed Dust
It was unveliabeable clogged.

e cleaned it all up , and know is Running all nice and cool.

lol..... this is actulally quite funny...
on my previws post i said i vacuned every thing..... but i never took a look into the heat synk .
it was within the pins . deep within the heat sync.

i had to remove it and used presurized water.

 

[MaHaBone]

Cool, glad it worked!

I think if you have pets that stuff is even worse. Cat hair is to dust what steel rebar is to cement.