Custom Computer Crashing Often

[The Crying Mexican]

Hey guys!
I actually have two questions but I'm too lazy to put them in two differnt posts.

I just built my first computer over Christmas Break and up until now I haven't really had any problems. However, Lately my computer has been freezing an awful lot. Sometimes it just freezes like you think it would, you with the sound playing over and over, but other times its weirder than that. Sometimes it freezes but larges amounts of red are scattered around my screen. I don't think its overheating because it only happens when I'm on the internet, never when I'm Playing games.

My second question:

what's the best graphics card for $150-175. I'm also worried because on my motherboard the north bridge(i think i could be wrong) is awfully close to the pci express 2.0 slot . I don't know if a graphics card can fit in there. Is there anywhere I can go to find out what graphics cards my motherboard can hold?


If anyone could help me I'd greatly appreciate it.

Thanks!

-Ian

Here are my specs if you need them:

AMD Athlon II x3 450 @ 3.2Ghz
Biostar TA880GB+ With Ati radeon 4250 IGP.
Muskin 4GB Memory
Windows XP 32-bit
500 GB HDD
Asus DVD Drive

 

[T_T]

Welcome to the forums, Newcomer. The freezing you're experiencing is likely related to the integrated VGA. The artifacts you mentioned seeing are typical signs of graphics failure. If the problem is infact in the VGA, the only way to fix the problem is to RMA the mobo and get a new one. However, to work around the problem, you could install a video card.

You should also check your RAM. Make sure that you've manually configured the timing, frequency, and voltage to what is shown on your RAM sticks. Download and burn the disc image of MemTest86+ to a cd. Test one RAM stick at a time.

For the budget you posted, the best cards would be either the GTX 260 or the HD5850. From the looks of it, you'll have to sacrifice the top PCI slot if installing a good GPU.

 

[The Crying Mexican]

Thanks For your reply! I'm going to check the RAM and if that doesn't work I'll have to talk to Newegg as I have no idea how the RMA Process works

Wish me luck!

-Ian

 

[boiler1990]

I agree with T_T. Usually you see those red spots and the video freezing with regular GPUs when they're overclocked and unstable. Also, the red spots usually occur with an unstable video RAM overclock, which leads me to agree with his recommendation to check the RAM.