Freezing PC and Flickering Screen

[gamemore]

Hello everyone,

My name is Jake and I am a well experienced with computers and fixing them. Saddly I have run into some problems beyond my skill level. I would like to thank everyone who offers help to me.

Now to the specs.

Home Made PC:
AMD Phenom II x4 3.2ghz CPU
MSI NF750-G55 MB
4x4gb dd3 1600 vengeance ram
Rocketfish 900w psu
200gb hard drive w/ OS
750gb hardd rive w/ Old OS
(currently only motherboard 750n for video card)

I do have two main video cards i currently do not have inserted.
Galaxy Nvidia Geforce GTS 250 1gb ddr3
PNY Nvidia Geforce 9800 GTX+ 512mb ddr3

Problems:
Originally about 2 weeks ago my computer was refusing to boot at all. I finally figured out it was a bad ram stick so i preceded to upgrade my self to 16gb of ram from my previous 4gb. This did it allowing me to boot my computer into windows 7. Although shortly after my sucess my computer started freezing while i was using it. This problem had been around in the past although it rarely happened. It continued freezing until faster and faster after boot. So i decided to look into fixing this new development.

Thats were I start having trouble. I have done a cmd chkdsk r/ and on the 4th phase it froze. After a second try it again stopped at 34% on phase 4. So i then tried several different live cds to look into the problem. In the end i decided i would reinstall windows 7 on my 200gb hard drive instead of my 750gb hard drive. The problem was not fixed so I figured its not my hard drive. (Am I right?)

After my test i was led to think it was my video card. At the time I had my Geforce GTS 250 inserted. So i took it out and put in my old Geforce 9800GTX. Saddly for some reason I could not get a picture from my Geforce 9800GTX. So I reverted to internal video card built into my msi Motherboard.

Once i did this the freezing has seemed to stop. Although now i have a new problem. The screen flickers at any resolution higher that 720p roughly. In the past before i had either of my video cards that never happened.

My questions:
What part of my computer is most likly broke? (motherboard or video card)
What programs can i use to test my video cards, motherboard or hard drive?
What your advice as a next step?
Anything i didn't cover or you want to know?

 

[gamemore]

hmm just looked at a chart of top processors for gaming and mine is number one for price and performance value. So would it be a good idea to keep my amd and nvidia combo. I keep hearing that its no good.

Plus I priced a new processor and thats a bit more that i was wanting to pay.

 

[hpdeskjet]

I didn't think your Phenom was that bad earlier. Thought you were going to ebay it or something. If anything, you will probably have a better gaming experience if you upgrade your graphics card.

 

[gamemore]

Yeah after some research i came up with an ultimate answer. The motherboard below is what i had in mind getting. What are your thoughts?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157266

Yeah i figured the money would be better spent on a new video card. Compared to mine 200 bucks could by a Graphics card that is 3 times better than the one i have. Anyway let me know your thought and if you think its good i'll order it tonight.

 

[hpdeskjet]

That looks like a good board with a lot of solid features. Should be a nice investment

 

[gamemore]

Okay ordered and should be here tomorrow or the next day. Thanks for your help. I'll post on here once tomorrow and then will post when ever i get the motherboard.

Of course i'll post the results.

 

[hpdeskjet]

My pleasure. Looking forward to the results.

 

[gamemore]

Look like i'll be getting my board more around 1/26/2012 so i'll post again after everything is up and running.

 

[xtcx]

Too late, but for a clarity in your issues, a dumb question....
Were all your Ram sticks had same FSB?. I once experienced such problems with two different FSB speeds incompatible with mobo FSB.

All of your symptoms tell much like a bad RAM but you proved it wasn't.

Another possible guess is, like some of the mobo component after warming up looks breaking and ruining its VI characteristics.

Screen Flicker : Are you using any VGA to DVI or such convertor?. I recently had similar effect finally I end up replacing new GPU card which later I found it was the convertor issue not my old GPU issue.

Cheers

 

[gamemore]

Yeah all the ram is the same speed and the screen only flickered when i used the internal video chipset.

I got the new motherboard a day early. So i'll post again with results.

Edit:
I now have everything back into the case and after some minor drive issues my original windows 7 configuration seems to be working great. I havn't tested out everything but so far my computer has not completely frozen. After a full test of everything i'll post on here one last time to confirm everything has been fixed.

 

[gamemore]

Okay i think i've more less tested everything possible and to my delight my computer is now run at 100% again. Thank you hpdeskjet for your help.

So problem solved.

 

[hpdeskjet]

Glad you got it working

 

[Scott Rice]

Okay just froze again. So its not my video card at least.
Maybe my motherboard or cpu? over heating?

Whats a good program to test CPU temp?

for checking
all of your computer specs (including CPU/GPU temps) try speccy http://www.piriform.com/speccy/download also it may not be an overheating issue, it may also be a power supply issue, just not enough juice for the card.