What's wrong with my rig.

[Robert]

Well, this is going to be a long post. Anyway...here goes!

Basically for a while, my X800XT would randomly give me screwed up textures etc. If I used only drivers say Catalyst 5.9, it would be fine. Another unrelated problem would be when I inserted a cd into my cdrom. It would lock my computer for around 3-4 seconds, then everything would be fine.

Eventually I RMA'ed my graphics card...and it was found faulty. A month later I got a new X850XT. I installed it...played wow for an 30-1hour fine...then I alt tabbed (had done a few times previous with no problem) and I came back in to be greeted with a messaed up screen. I thought it may have been due to me alt-tabbing, but no. I restarted the game and it was fine. Then I got loads of weird triangular style textures pointing out from everywhere...then a green chequer board affect on the game screen + windows. I re-installed the 6.3 drivers twice to no avail. I RMA'ed the card and was found to be fine. What else could have caused this? My PSU is at around 11.5/6 and temperatures are fine.

One other thing which is weird is around 1.5 years ago I bought a pioneer 108 and installed...which promptly killed my PC. Nothing would power up. I left it for about 3-4 hours and it booted fine? Could this have caused my PC to lockup when ever a cd was placed in the drive? Anyway...what could be causing these issues? My system is as follows:


Asus K8VSE Deluxe
Antec NeoPower 480
A64 3700+ 754
80gb IDE
160gb SATA
Nebula tv card
Audigy 2
Pioneer 108
Plextor cd drive (which I think has died..and is unplugged)
X850XT


Could it be my motherboard? As I'm sure I should be getting over 11.5/6 on my 12 rail. I also had the same reading from my previous Antec 430 psu.

Edit: All software is up-to-date.
Edit Again: What motherboard/cpu/psu would you guys recommend (geared for PCI-E), for a 350-400 budget?

[Clunk]

unplug the pioneer and play some games....if it still goes bad, then at least thats one component out of the loop.

to be honest, i would be inclined to think that its the psu, but try taking everything out of the pc that you dont need wjile you test....like the tv card, audigy 2, second hard drive and then see if it still does the same thing.

i know you say temps are fine, but try taking the side panel off and blowing a desk fan into the case and see if this helps.

[Robert]

I shall do. Hopefully can resolve this without using money...ah!

[[DW]Cougho]

the neopower was infamous for unvolting the 12v rail but should be fine.

My guess would be the audigy, if ur mobo is assigning it a certain IRQ (dont ask me which) it can conflict with ATi cards and cause all sorts of crap.

Also my X800 hated AGP sideband addressing and fast writes so turn them off too. Lastly if all else fails try knocking your AGP rate to 4x (wont lose much performance if any) and it may stabilise your rig.

Good luck.