Motherboard or PSU causing this problem?

[Skipper007]

First, the specs.
Athlon 1200
512 MB PC 2100
MSI K7 Master
Leadtek Geforce 2 Pro 64MB
Sound Blaster Live Value
One 40GB and one 6GB drive
Sony Cd rom and Lite on CD-R
SMC network, AOpen modem

The thing has a serious problem with crashing in some games, especially when loading or just after a load. THe same problem occurs with my Uncle's Geforce 2 in my machine, so I don't think it's video card. I've also tried many driver versions on several O/Ses.

Three main points, however:
1. The motherboard heatsink is hot. I can probably get a bigger one if this is a problem. The northbridge is an AMD 760 chip.
2. PSU voltage shows up fine on most voltages, but the 12V line shows up as 12.5 in the monitor. The game runs fine sometimes but not others, so I'm not sure if this is a problem.
2. I noticed the problems occur more with my set up than at my uncles or the computer store I got it from, so I'm wondering if my old surge protector is affecting the power a bit.

When at home, it often crashes first try (using old surge protector for home setup), but when I'm using it at other locations, it often takes many tries to get it to crash in a load.

Suggestions? I've been trying at this problem for months, any help would be appreciated.

 

[Crashman]

If the crashes seem to be related to the place you have it plugged in, try running a UPS as they do a better job of filtering line noise. If you're a little low on cache, go to a computer junk store and buy a used one with dead batteries, batteries are inexpensive as batteries.com.

<font color=blue>Watts mean squat if you don't have quality!</font color=blue>

 

[Teq]

If you are running win 2k or XP try this...

Get into regedit, path over to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management

Add or Edit the Dword value:

LargePageMinimum

Set the value to FFFFFFFF (hex)

Reboot your system.

This tweak addresses a known timing issue with AMD CPUs and 3D Rendering, like you see in games.


For more information see <A HREF="http://www.winguides.com" target="_new">http://www.winguides.com</A>



<b>(</b>It ain't better if it don't work.<b>)</b>

 

[Skipper007]

Crash: I managed to find another, newer surge protector that my dad had, so I'll try that first. WHen I think about it, my older computer (a 450MHZ K6-2) had similar freezing problems when we ran it downstairs with that surge protector, but when we moved it upstairs where we had a newer surge protector, it worked fine. Hopefully the new surge protector fixes the problem.
Teq: I'm currently running 98, but I'm planning to move to a dual boot once I get the hardware issues sorted out. Thanks for the head's up.

 

[umheint0]

Yeah, it's been my experience that most freezing and crashing is either heat-related, and your computer just freezes, or it is a power issue. Try the surge protector first, and then if that doesn't work you may want to get a new cpu heatsink and fan. If your motherboard has temperature monitoring, download a program like HMonitor, which will list the temp of your CPU and motherboard. Your CPU should be around 50-55 celsius to be in good shape, and it should not be going near 70, which could damage it. If you are in the 60s, you may want a bigger sink and fan, or put your computer in a cooler place (move it away from the radiator and put it in the basement).

Let us know what works. I'm eager to know, at the least.

 

[Skipper007]

Although I don't want to base stuff on one days usage, switching to a different surge protector seems to have helped, which is weird because only certain applications crashed. But given that my computers seemed to crash less when running in other locations (and therefor other surge protectors) it seems like I might have nailed it.

CPU temperatures are mid 40s normally, sometimes 50 right after a game. GPU is similar, mainboard, I'm not sure about. I do have pretty good ventalation through my case but my actually heatsinks are pretty stock except for some arctic silver.

Thanks for the help so far, and I'll keep you posted on whether it crashes again with the new surge protector.