Random Crashes / BSOD - getting progressively worse.

[spam101]

Hi everyone,

Ive run outa ideas with my computer.

Ive recently done an (almost) complete upgrade, since my computer was constantly crashing.

I had a:

AthlonXP 3200
2 x 512mb Corsair DDR 3200
Asus A7v880 changed to an ASRock nForce 2 mobo
geforce 6800gt
silenx 300w psu, changed to an Antec Phantom 500w
WD Raptor 74gb
sound blaster audigy

I was convinced that it was the graphics card which was at fault, and (being an AGP card) upgraded most of the system with it. my new build is:

Intel E6600 Core2Duo 2.40GHz
Corsair DDR2 TWINX 2GB PC6400
512MB XFX 7950GT 610M XXX
ASUS P5N32 SLI PREMIUM WIFI
Antec Phantom 500W
WD Raptor 74gb
Onboard sound.

The old system used to crash after about an hour of gameplay, and would sometime randomly BSOD (usually with nv4_disp being mentioned).
It would also stop crashing for a short time after ANY hardware change eg. i removed the audigy card, and it started working properly for about a month.

The new system, clean install of windows xp, worked as stable as you like, no crashes, nothing....for about a month. It has now started crashing during games and BSOD (mainly while idle) and its getting more and more frequent.

Surely it must either be the PSU, or the hard drive? Could the hard drive be gradually corrupting drivers or something, im just tearing my hair out, as I have spent a lot of money for a stable system.

Im sorry for the long winded message, but i hope someone can give me some ideas.

Thanks a lot.

ps. BSOD are not mentioning anything specific...occasionally they will say "tried to write to read only section of the memory" or something like that.

As yet no .sys files mentioned in the BSOD, although a few mentions of possible graphics card problems in the windows error reports.

 

[sprite]

Swap out the RAM, try running a test on the HDD (I think you can get some diagnostic stuff off of WD website) and look at stability of the PSUs rails using PC Wizard or something.

Might be a dodgy driver aswell ?

 

[agentsmith957]

Unlikely, but also possible that the crashing in your first system is completely unrelated to the crashing in the second system. I would first try running memtest86 to make sure your NEW ram is running properly before you blame the hard drive or power supply purely because they were in both systems. If you find your ram to be good, then i would suggest swapping out the hard drive if you have one, or running hd diagnostics like sprite says.

 

[spam101]

Hi,

Thanks for the replies. I stopped looking at the forum because, strangely, everything started working as normal once I posted here (possibly due to driver updates tho, lol).

Problem now, is that the computer wont even turn on. The fans turn on, and so does the PSU, and it stays on, but I dont get the POST or any errors.

Problem started when i left it on overnight and the screen light was flashing (which it has never done before) and I couldnt get it to come out of standby, so I restarted the computer and now its doing this.

Any ideas?

Thanks

(im thinkin im gonna have to take it into PC world, but i dont really want to because theyre expensive, and quite often useless)

 

[Guest]

Do you get any beeps when you first turn it on? If so how many?

Definitely could be a vid card problem if there is beeps.

If not it sounds like maybe the PSU could be toast.

 

[evongugg]

Clear the CMOS. Short the jumpers and remove the battery for 30 seconds.