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Hello. I have been the proud owner of the following rig for the past two years:
P5WD2 Premium Asus Motherboard
1 GB RAM
250 GB Hard drive
Norwood Micro 400 Watt Power supply
Connect3d X800XL
Athlon 939 3500+ Venice
Note: Everything is clocked @ stock!
She's a nice rig and has performed flawlessly over the years playing some of the newest games without any sort of problem--Oblivion, FEAR, Quake 4, and hours of BF2142. Never had any sort of problem...until a few weeks ago. I was playing Microsoft's Freelancer (a fairly old game) and the computer completely crashed about 15 minutes into the game. Pressing the power button yielded no result...after alot of experimentation, the only way i could get it to start up again was by completely unplugging the surge protector from the wall, wait 5 seconds, then plug it back in. After this incident, the computer would crash about 2 minutes in no matter what game i played (even Counterstrike 1.6!) but would otherwise give me no problems while typing, checking email, listening to tunes, ext. Immediately I assumed there was a power supply problem, though i could not figure out how that could be considering my 400 watts had been sufficient only days earlier! Well anyway, i spent a couple of days trying to game on my laptop, but frusterated by 5 fps in games as basic as Galactic Civilizations, I made another attempt to fix my gaming rig.
A friend of mine suggested that my video card might be overheating and that did make sense to me. I spent 2 hours cleaning the entire computer desk and went through 2 cans of compressed air cleaning every single surface of the computer and the video card. Sure enough, the card was quite a bit dusty, but after I was done it was good as new. I put everything back together, started up Counterstrike 1.6, and crossed my fingers. I was sure that the problem had been fixed...until it crashed after about 15 minutes (an improvement over 2 minutes).
My friend's next suggestion was to take the video card out and try playing with the onboard X200 core built into the motherboard. Strangely enough, the computer no longer crashed when playing games (though I only tested it with a 5 hour session of Counterstrike; I'm sure it can't handle the likes of X3: The Reunion or Oblivion!). However, this is only a temporary solution; I cant game on the X200.
Next, I ran virus scans with 3 different programs. I had a few adware on my comp which i promptly removed and confirmed they were gone. This had no affect on the crashing when the vid card was put back in.
So last night i went to bed content with being able to play counterstrike, but eager to get this problem resolved. Well, I woke up to find my rig had found itself a NEW routine!Upon pressing the power button, the computer boots for about five seconds, then crashes. I am able to get it back on again by unplugging the surge protector, waiting five seconds, then plugging it back in. Pressing the power button a second time yields the same result. After unplugging, replugging, and pressing it a third time, the computer boots successfully. Gaming with my onboard video core still does not crash the rig. This might seem like a minor inconvinience, but for God's sake, I am not going to fiddle around with this thing indefinitely.
My techy friend is all out of ideas. CompUSA, the place that I bought the rig, the video card, and the power supply at, has closed up all of its stores in Minnesota (the state that I live in.) I am out of ideas.
Does anyone have any suggestions, ideas, or comments for this despirate man?
Much appreciated,
Matt P.
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Originally Posted by scrandman
