I've been troubleshooting my girlfriends desk top for a few weeks now in my spare time as she has a laptop so time isn't of the essence but its getting annoying.

Symptoms:

Windows either loads full up for a good 20 or 30min then hard reboots, and each successive Windows load gets shorter and shorter use time out of it. Also misc applications will crash during this 20-30min of use

Or and sometimes a "then" because it will sometimes do this after it keeps rebooting will just stop with a black screen after the Windows load screen. I don't mean the monitor turns off, I mean a black screen and then it sticks there.

Sometimes... I've only seen this once or twice, the damn thing won't even start, no BIOS, no POST.

Things I've know:

This computer was working fine before like a month or so ago.

No Viruses/Spyware

No Hardware changes

No Overheating... this thing has big frikkin Zalmans on it and I've looked at the PC Health under BIOS, it seems fine even when it is rebooting.

The error message that has come up before said something about a driver, but it was working fine for months before. (Video Driver crashed a couple times)

Things I've Done:

Scanned for viruses/spyware

Reinstalled Windows

Checked Temps before and after crashes

Looked under Device Manager for conflicts - nothing

Voltages seemed normal before and after crashes

Swapped mobo - no effect, hung after POST

Tried just running it with HDD, CPU, GFX card and RAM... still crashes

Reseated everything, mobo, drives, etc...

What it has in it:


PCCHIPS mobo
3200+ AMD 64 socket: 754
2GB of Corsair DDR400
120GB Seagate IDE
160GB Seagate IDE
NEC DVD+/- Burner
500w X-connect PSU
6800GT AGP 128Mb videocard

Plenty of cooling...

HELP!!!

I know not about Laptops, but it sounds like a power issue. Could the battery cause these
symptoms. Or maybe the ac adapter?

Quote: Originally Posted by Slaymate I know not about Laptops, but it sounds like a power issue. Could the battery cause these symptoms. Or maybe the ac adapter?

It's a desktop, lol.

Sounds like a ram problem to me. Try running memtest.

I'll guess hard drive. Turn off virtual memory and see if you get more stable. chkdsk may reveal bad things ....

-MF

Alright. I misread the opening statement. I would agree with HoJo, run memtest 1st.
But it could still be a power issue though. When it cuts off how hot is your power supply?
Touch it and give us a guess.

QUIT LOOKIN' AT PORN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Try running Everest Ultimate (free trial) stress tests , it will let you run seperate tests on memory, cpu, cash , hard disk ................if its one of those everest should let you know

I'd love to run tests on it but I'm doubting the fact that it would even stay up long enough for them to work... On a side note, it may well be a windows thing cause while installing XP, for 45min no crash...

I'm thinking perhaps its a video card driver problem... will report back shortly

It's not the Videocard or the Audio Drivers...

I've got it running on another PSU, and it seems like its stable now. I'm going to let it run over night just to make sure.