$500 gaming machine failed--now what

[mundtanz]

I tried a first build based on the recommendations for the $500 machine in Tom's
.
We used an MB Asrock 939 Dual-SATA M1695
An Athalon 64 3200+
EVGA GF 6600LE AGP
A Rosewill case/power supply 400 W

This never worked--got a blue screen while booting. We RMA'd the video card, and meanwhile tried an ATI 700 PCIe. This booted, but crashed within minutes. We tried replacing the power supply--no difference.

When the new EVGA arrived, the same thing happened. We've tried everything, new drivers, new Window WP--starting over again and again, but no luck. Any advice?

We are considering going for an upgraded system, considering an ASUS mobo and a EVGA 7900 PCIe card.

We can't decide which mobo to go for,
ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard

or the ASUS A8N-SLI Premium Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard +$10

or the ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce SPP 100 ATX AMD Motherboard - +70

We would appreciate any advice.

Thanks!

 

[oompa]

That motherboard supports both PCI-E and AGP. MAKE SURE YOUR VIDEO CARD IS IN THE RIGHT SLOT. I think that might be the problem. If not, maybe change the motherboard to another AGP mobo.

 

[Heyyou27]

Are you joking? Do you honestly think they stuck a PCIe card into an AGP slot?

 

[mdalli]

It is unlikely that you have bad hardware; it is more likely that you put it together incorrectly.

Frankly, it sounds like you guys are doing something fundamentally wrong. For example, go into BIOS on startup and check your CPU temperature. If it's really high, you may have mated your CPU to you heat sink incorrectly. Or triple-check all the DIP switch settings on the motherboard. Or check the RAM, and make sure it's compatible, that sort of thing.

That said, I've put about 2 dozen systems together, and never had a single complaint with Asus; all of their stuff is very solid in my experience.

 

[michaelahess]

lmao, that's great, I'd LOVE to see a pic of that!

What'd the BSOD say? Probably nothing wrong, just need to tweak something unless you got generic ram?

 

[mundtanz]

I'm sure we used the correct slots for the respective videocards. I don't think the motherboard supports this videocard, or it is a bad mobo.

This configuration was recommended by Tom's online magazine, so I thought there must be others who had experience with this.

Thanks!

 

[michaelahess]

Why, every time I ask what a BSOD says, everyone ignores me? What did it say? I can try to help let you know what is/isn't broke if you tell me!