My pc is making me mad!

[madocks]

ok folks here goes,

For the last 6 months my pc has been playing up, random crashes, little boxes advising of "corrupt registry" on boot up, Blue screen of deaths, Problems installing certain games and software.

At first I thought it was the HDD, so that been replaced.

Then I ran memtest, my ram was fooked, so thats been replaced

My case was running fairly hot, so ive bought a new one, case is now very cool.

Its had a new sound card within the last 6 months.

The gfx card is brand new.

I have run Motherboard monitor for 4 days and the logs show stable psu rails. I have also pluged a voltmeter up to it, I cant see any spikes, however, I have not been there, or seen the voltmeter prior to a crash / Blue screen of death. I have checked the logs of motherboard monitor for the entry prior to the last blue screen of death and it show stable. Although I have a budget PSU, i dont believe this is the problem, Or could it be, you tell me

The operating system has been freshly installed 7 times with 3 different copies of xp. Unless all 3 copies are farked, but i doubt it.

The only things I havent changed, is the Processor, Mobo & PSU

Your thoughts gents..................

My mrs pc has the same processor, so i may be able to grab that for a few tests etc, to eliminate the processor. (Is it worth it? wot does a broken cpu do?)

[CrapshoT]

it could be your psu !!
are you overclocking anything?
it would be a good idea to list your pc specs so we could have more of an idea of what might be happening

[madocks]

it could be your psu !!
are you overclocking anything?
it would be a good idea to list your pc specs so we could have more of an idea of what might be happening

No overclocking, all standard.

Athlon XP 1800 PROC
Coolermaster AEROLITE 7 HS+FAN
1 X Seagate 120 gig hdd, 1 X western digi 60 gig hdd
512 Crucial PC2700
Thermaltake VM200a CASE, running at 33.4 deg
Nvidia FX5900XT GFX card
SB 5.1 sound card
Standard 350 watt psu supply.

New ide cables,

[LayZeh]

Let me have it for a day, i'll fix it.

[skattrd]

I don't know what it is, but doubt its the psu - as when my psu was dodgy it would randomly reboot, no BSOD or anything

[Falcon2004]

It could be the PSU, 420W is min recomended for Windows XP

[Flash]

5900xt on a 350w supply hmmm! I think theres your problem short term

have you reinstalled the OS could be registry is FUBAR'd

[madocks]

5900xt on a 350w supply hmmm! I think theres your problem short term

have you reinstalled the OS could be registry is FUBAR'd

8 times from 3 diff cds

[bledd]

what motherboard?

bios updates + drivers for it are a good place to start


could be the VIA + creative issue if you're using default drivers

[madocks]

ASROCK, K7VT4 - 4X

Yeah, drivers cam from theiur website, aint done the bios, dont know how too

[mike_w]

In my opinion, there's a small chance of it being the CPU - I've heard and seen before CPUs that aren't completely finished off, but cause problems like freezing and crashes. Generally caused by overheating in my experience.

[madocks]

Mike, i can grab a spare 1800xp from my mrs pc,

but ti di that, would i need a fresh install of windows?

[mike_w]

If you change the RAM and CPU, then it doesn't affect Windows at all (apart from being faster or slower obviously)

[madocks]

yes, but at the moment, my windows is unstable, that could of been through using a rubbishrubbishrubbishrubbishe processor. Could cof corrupted the install in the first place,

May be better to reinstall

[mike_w]

Probably best to reinstall in that case, I assume it shouldn't be too much bother since you've done it so many times already.

[chrisf6969]

I think its the mobo, VIA 4-in-1 drivers, etc, (via mobos = blue screen)
You can try flashing to latest bios & downloading latest (non-beta) 4-in-1 drivers. That MIGHT fix it. (and reinstall XP - lol again!)


get a nice Abit NF-7 and you'll be ok. (nvidia mobo = teh sh1t)

Or get yourself a nice 865 & P4 and you'll be stable as a rock.