HELP: Totalt Crash => To what should I upgrade

sso

Distinguished
Sep 12, 2004
4
0
18,510
guys, I really need help for this one. Anything you can contribute with is greatly appreciated.
I am currently in Korea and have had a total crash of my PC.

Through the last year my otherwise stable machine has had problems and now the end has come. Yesterday I saw it alive for the last time.

Current (dead) configuration:
AMD XP 1800+
MSI MSI-6380-RU VIA K7 266-RU-Pro (On board Promise Fasttrack 100-lite RAID controller)
2x256 Crucial PC2100U DDR 266MHz CL2.5 ECC RAM (have one extra identical block in spare)
Crucial ATI Radeon 9700
Creative Audigy player
LiteOn CD burner.
LG-4040 CD/DVD burner.
Win XP SP1.
Seagate 200GB + 2xSeagate 30GB Harddisk running with SMART check via BIOS.

History
Last year the first signs of weaknesses came. My win XP setup on the onboard RAID-0 array was messed up. I bought a new 200 GB HD and installed XP directly on this via a main IDE controller.
A couple of months ago the entire RAID-0 setup was lost without prior warning through the SMART check or the Promise RAID array surveilance. One disk moved to IDE and used now as "simple" 30 GB HD.
Registry cleaned for incorrect references to the old RAID array. Reinstallation of programs previously on the RAID, amongst others MS Flight Simulator 2004.
The PC has been unstable during execution of MS FS2004 (CPU 100% over longer periods. Lockup or reboot after ½-1 hour. CPU temperature max 65%. Win XP indicates problem with device as cause (not a great help).
During various trials to find the source i have moved around on the RAM blocks, tried to downgrade the Creative Audigy drivers, since this previously have been the source of other problems.
Since yesterday I have not been able to boot the PC.
It will neither boot via HD in safe mode, nor from the XP installation CD. (From HD it blockses during reading of drivers, and from the XP installation CD it ends with blue screen with varying error messages.) I have removed the sound card, reduced BIOS settings to minimum performance, and canged between the RAM blocks without any effect.

Need
Besides the typial home applications regarding digital photo work, wordprocessing etc. I use the machine extensively for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004, which is very demanding on CPU and RAM.
It is also used for video editing.

Questions
1 - Any ideas on were the fault is from the above scenario? CPU/Motherboard/RAM?
2 - What should I purchase to get the machine running again Taking the use of most of the above items. I have been looking into an Intel P4 3.06GHz which seem to be a good vakue. What motherboard would be good for this? preferably an ASUS model. Anything I cannot reuse if I purchase this?

I really hope you can assist here, since one is totally lost in Korea if you dont know exactly what to purcahse. Communication here is in very basic english.

Thanks in advance.

Stephen Odgaard
 

Cybercraig

Distinguished
Dec 31, 2007
2,058
0
19,780
Grab yourself another power supply and try it. Sounds like a dying supply.

Abit IS7 - 3.0C @ 3.6ghz - Mushkin PC4000 (2 X 512) - Sapphire 9800Pro - TT 420 watt Pure Power
Samsung 120gb ATA-100 - Maxtor 40gb ATA - 100
Sony DRU-510A - Yellowtail Merlot