Hi there. I'd like to say thank you in advance for any time spent trying to help my problem. Anyway, guess I better begin.
System Specs:
3000xp Athlon
1gb ddr400 (2x512mb)
Gigabyte nforce2 motherboard of some kind
Radeon 9800 pro gfx
7200, 120gb HD (seagate i think)
Let me know if more specs are needed.
The problem:
A few weeks ago my computer started to turn itself off during 3d games, mainly the more intense ones, Half-life 1/2, Quake, Unreal etc. . . My first impressions were that this was an overheating issue... as it normally is. I'm unable to check the temperature of my graphics card, but to the touch, its normally very hot. I cleaned all the dust from my case, cleaned the fans and heatsinks, applied some fresh thermal to the gpu and it didn't help. Anyway, so I can't play 3d games... oh well, I can live with that
The green LED on the front still lights up even when the computer turns itself off.
Then a little after that, after stopping to play the intense games, the small games start crashing. Again, not so much of a problem, but I still couldn't resolve the problem.
A little while after ^that. My computer starts randomly powering off, or restarting, while in just windows, or watching a movie or something along those lines. It started to restart just as it booted up into Windows and would take 2/3 tries to actually get in. It is still doing this along with the problems above.
It seems to have gotten even worse though. Nearly every software i open, come's up with that windows error message (basically saying its crashed and has to close). It takes about 15 attempts to open up firefox to browse, and everything is crashing at random times. I'm supprised I've even been able to type out this post at the moment.
I've scanned for viruses with an updated AVG.
Used spybot S&D and Adaware.
I've unplugged various bits of hardware (but I don't have replacements to check the major ones).
The memory seems fine, unless they are both broken.
Run a scandisk, found a few errors, but fixed them.
CPU runs at around 50C, it doesn't seem to be too hot as I've known athlons to always run quite hot.
I've reinstalled many different gfx card drivers.
I've tried unplugging the reset switch on the mobo (never know, maybe dust was triggering it off). Didn't work either.
My ideas are that its most probably the PSU or Graphics card thats the problem. But i'm not sure which, or if any. Could it also be the motherboard? Processor, Hard Drive... ?
I've had the whole system for a long time now, and I'm almost expecting some hardware failiour at some point. The problem is I can't identify what has failed. Any ideas? or an idea to help solve the current problems.
I'll post more information if needed!
Thanks, Keith.
System Specs:
3000xp Athlon
1gb ddr400 (2x512mb)
Gigabyte nforce2 motherboard of some kind
Radeon 9800 pro gfx
7200, 120gb HD (seagate i think)
Let me know if more specs are needed.
The problem:
A few weeks ago my computer started to turn itself off during 3d games, mainly the more intense ones, Half-life 1/2, Quake, Unreal etc. . . My first impressions were that this was an overheating issue... as it normally is. I'm unable to check the temperature of my graphics card, but to the touch, its normally very hot. I cleaned all the dust from my case, cleaned the fans and heatsinks, applied some fresh thermal to the gpu and it didn't help. Anyway, so I can't play 3d games... oh well, I can live with that
The green LED on the front still lights up even when the computer turns itself off.
Then a little after that, after stopping to play the intense games, the small games start crashing. Again, not so much of a problem, but I still couldn't resolve the problem.
A little while after ^that. My computer starts randomly powering off, or restarting, while in just windows, or watching a movie or something along those lines. It started to restart just as it booted up into Windows and would take 2/3 tries to actually get in. It is still doing this along with the problems above.
It seems to have gotten even worse though. Nearly every software i open, come's up with that windows error message (basically saying its crashed and has to close). It takes about 15 attempts to open up firefox to browse, and everything is crashing at random times. I'm supprised I've even been able to type out this post at the moment.
I've scanned for viruses with an updated AVG.
Used spybot S&D and Adaware.
I've unplugged various bits of hardware (but I don't have replacements to check the major ones).
The memory seems fine, unless they are both broken.
Run a scandisk, found a few errors, but fixed them.
CPU runs at around 50C, it doesn't seem to be too hot as I've known athlons to always run quite hot.
I've reinstalled many different gfx card drivers.
I've tried unplugging the reset switch on the mobo (never know, maybe dust was triggering it off). Didn't work either.
My ideas are that its most probably the PSU or Graphics card thats the problem. But i'm not sure which, or if any. Could it also be the motherboard? Processor, Hard Drive... ?
I've had the whole system for a long time now, and I'm almost expecting some hardware failiour at some point. The problem is I can't identify what has failed. Any ideas? or an idea to help solve the current problems.
I'll post more information if needed!
Thanks, Keith.
