Constant Crashes

[Aequitas]

I have found another thread with things similar to this but I had already posted this. Still if anyone has and ideas it would be appreciated.


I have this right now.

AMD Athlon 1000
M810LMR Mobo from systemboard (www.pcchips.com)
HP 9100 series CD-Writer
512 MB PC-133 SDRAM
50x E-IDE CD-Rom
Windows 98Se
Generic 49GB Hard Drive.

MY sound and graphics are integrated in the mobo and I have the most up to date drivers for everything. The problem is that I keep having it crash and there is no pattern. I will start up a game and 5 minutes in it will crash. I will try run a movie and it will crash. I will be typing in word and it will crash. I will turn it on and it will crash before the icons are up on the desktop. THe big problem is that I can't seem to find a pattern, nothing happens twice in a row and the time it takes to crash varies. Some games don't crash (JK2) and others won't run for more than 10 minutes. The games that crash are old and new. I've had MOHAA crash as well as Starcraft and Tribes 2. The only reliable game I have right now is JK2 and the other day it crashed twice (for the first times).

I have tried reinstalling the games. Formatting my hard drive. Uninstalling Norton Virus Scan and Firewall. Shutting down everything on my comp except Explorer and systray. But no matter what I do things still crash. Any ideas on what could be causing it are apprecitated.

"One day men will look back and say that I gave birth to the twentieth century"
<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Aequitas on 06/29/02 03:02 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[10GHZ]

is your computer overheating? or it could be faulty ram

 

[Scout]

You just need to systematically eliminate things. First, check the temp on your CPU. I don't know your motherboard, but try downloading Motherboard Monitor and see if your board has the sensors. If not, open the case and carefully feel the CPU heatsink. It should be fairly warm but not "burning" hot to the touch. If it is, get a better heatsink/fan and mount it carefully with a good thermal paste.

Second think I'd try is pulling some of your RAM. If you have two sticks, pull each one and see if it helps.

Do you have a good power supply? If you're starving your Athlon, it will be unstable. You may want to go into the BIOS and see if you can add a tenth of a volt to the CPU voltage, but watch the CPU temp... it will run even hotter on higher voltage. Is the board within spec for a 1 GHz. Athlon? The on board voltage regulator may be overstressed as well. Again, Motherboard Monitor will show you the voltages.

Has the computer always run poorly? Usually if something like this starts up, you should suspect the last thing you did to the computer... the last software installed or the last piece of hardware you changed. Remove whatever that is and see if it helps.

Good luck!

Scout
700 Mflops in SETI!

 

[Aequitas]

Thanx for the replies.

I have already eliminated ram, I ran memtest86, pulled them, bought new ram and installed it.

I downloaded Motherboard Monitor and ran it to see what kind of temps I was getting and it told me it was running at 119 Celcius. I doubted the reading but I still wanted to check to make sure so I went to enter BIOS and the computer wouldn't let me enter it.

As for the last paragraph, yes it has always run bad. The moment I booted it up for the first time basically.

"One day men will look back and say that I gave birth to the twentieth century"

 

[Aequitas]

OK, I got into BIOS finally, my comp is running at 55-60 Celcius. This is too hot, I will pick up a few more fans and see what that does.

"One day men will look back and say that I gave birth to the twentieth century"

 

[Crashman]

Good luck, it's a PC Chips board, PC Chips probably hasn't applied all of the BIOS patches that other companies have that are needed to stabilize VIA chipset boards.

<font color=blue>At least half of all problems are caused by an insufficient power supply!</font color=blue>

 

[Guest]

weird config...

i don't think that pc chips mb are reliable. they have too many integrated chips for a too cheaper price. (IMO)

you can try some games with a muted sound. (in the case your issue is your onboard sound) not useful in fact, you crashe with word...
you can try to test your memory sticks one by one. (in the case you have 2 256MB RAM sticks)

everything is integrated. i have no clue here.

can you disable a part of your onboard features?


<i>if you know you don't know, the way could be more easy ...</i>

 

[Scout]

What kind of heatsink do you have? Are you using thermal paste or that awful little pad they put on many heatsinks?

Scout
700 Mflops in SETI!

 

[ksoth]

So you're running Medal of Honor and Jedi Knight 2 with integrated graphics??? But, I also say it's that PCchips board. Being that the video and sound are integrated, and your other parts are fairly standard and probably wouldn't have such an impact on everyday usage, the odds that it is the motherboard are fairly high. I'd recommend upgrading to a new board, like an nForce (like the Asus A7N266E). That way you'll get a board with great integrated sound and *decent* integrated graphics for about $150, which includes new DDR RAM. Plus, the nForce platform is just about as rock solid as you can get.

"Trying is the first step towards failure."

 

[Aequitas]

Thx for the replies.

I have decided to scrap the whole motherboard. Next time I won't go in for the cheap stuff. I picked up the CD drive, motherboard, processor and case for 200$.

"One day men will look back and say that I gave birth to the twentieth century"