Need Help

[Arctic]

OK, I tryed to do some upgrades on my computer to fix the problem i am having with my computer freezing up, and its not Freezing during any one thing could be while gaming surfin the net what ever and it a hard lock up where i need to restart my comp. At first I thought it was a VC issue or a RAM issue. I added new Ram Up to 4 g from 2, yes i used the same speed and matched stick with it being DDR2. This last weekend one of said stick of ram Melted in my Motherboard so i now have a new one of them but i still freeze up. I looked at heat, but i installed one of the free core temp programes and i never ran above 45c. When i installed the motherboard i did a full wipe of my hard drive to start from scrach. still happens.  heres my machine


AMD 4600 Duel Core AM2
MSI K9N SLI MB
Evga 9800 GTX 512 VC
2GB Ram 667
Samsung 400bg 16mg

I have XP profesional  SP3

With the heat Issue, I have the standard Heat sink, plus 2 120mm and 2 80mm fans

The only things I havent replace is the HD and the CPU.

Any suggestions

[Redbear8]

What kind of Power supply do you have? You could be pulling way more power than the supply can handle, which will cause all sorts of crazy issues.

With all that gear you've got, I'd recommend at least a 500 watt.

[Arctic]

sry 600 w

[Redbear8]

So you've replaced the mother board recently? There sounds like there are some serious issues if it melted a stick of RAM. How is it locking up? Is it freezing on whatever screen you happened to be on, or is it BSODing (Blue Screen of Death)? It could be that your CPU is getting old and worn out. It happens after a while, and will also cause lock ups. It could be a memory leak that builds up and then just locks up the machine after a while. It could also be a bad HDD, but I doubt that right now.

My guess is either the mobo or the CPU.

[gr0n]

CPUs are not like Juggz's mom, Rando.  They don't just wear out.

If he has completely reformatted and experiences the same problem, I would suspect it's an actual hardware problem of some sort.  Arctic, do you have a spare video card lying around that you could swap in?  Also, does your vid card have any extra power connectors?  Are they plugged in securely?  Beyond vid card, I'd suspect the RAM and then if all else fails a mobo swap would be in order, but that's about a very last resort.  PSU is also a possibility (although it sounds like you should have plenty of horsepower...question is has it gone bad...).

I think in order I'd test/swap components like this:

Video Card
RAM
PSU
Motherboard
CPU ( <3 Rando )

Other kings of desktop support please weigh in, but I think this plan of attack could work.

Good luck Arctic.

-gr0n

[Redbear8]

If he's an overclocker then CPUs wear out.

[Arctic]

I dont over clock  not even sure how to do that. anyone know of a free diagnostic program that will check my CPU and the PSU.  The motherboards less then 4 days old. VC is 4 days also, the ram i have left is also on the 4 day mark. I ran a Diag. check on the Harddrive.( from WD site, I was wrong about the samsung ) the smart test said it was fine. The only Odd thing i can add is When i went wireless, when i moved and when i installed my wireless card, and this is when this all started 6 months ago. ( my card is a N network and the router is a G but i was told that doesnt matter) but my wifes computer does not have any of the same issues i do.

[Redbear8]

So you can't readily replicate the problem, and it's been happening exactly the same way for 6 months, and the only "old" things in the comp are the CPU and the HDD?

[Arctic]

yep and its total random, Its just getting worse that why befor i though it was ram or VC

[gr0n]

If he's an overclocker then CPUs wear out.

You make me giggle.  Nobody overclocks CPUs anymore.  If anyone here tells me otherwise they are a silly, silly person.  Also, a CPU along with any other solid state device will theoretically never "wear out."  You can't have "wear" on a component that has no moving parts (at least not in the traditional sense of the word).  CPUs can fail due to things like overheating, corrosion, over-voltage, or other types of physical damage.  That being said, in the 15 years of IT support that I have seen and been involved with, the only CPU failures I've seen or heard of were almost all caused by other problems (motherboard, PSU, fan problems, etc).  I might have heard of a couple of occasions where just the CPU was replaced and the machine was better (and we didn't see it return).  Usually a CPU popping is indicative of some other problem.

Arctic, the mention of the wireless card is notable.  Is this an internal wireless adapter?  PCI Express or some such?  Perhaps you could try removing that device and replacing it with a USB wireless adapter?  Might be worth a try, especially if you noticed a correlation between that being installed and your symptoms.

[Reddawn]

Arctic is better off without a pc. I have spoken

[Snackcakes]

.

[Arctic]

Arctic is better off without a PC. I have spoken

But where would i meet such unique people like you Red

[Reddawn]

start here http://www.outinboise.com/

[Arctic]

Red I knew you were thinking of moving out here in a few years, Nice to see your doing your homework already about your dating scene.