FX5500 / VIA rt8237r / RAM

[FlyingWizard]

Hey guys,

Like 2-3 weeks ago a lightning hit my PC (through my cable) and i took it back to the pc shop where i bought it and they replaced the motherboard, vga, power supply... However, they did not really "replace" my intel 865GBF motherboard because they said it is not available anymore and they decided to put some junk **** MERCURY with a VIA rt8237r chipset...

I am experiencing a lot of problems with this new system. I am getting a lot of sudden lockups & reboots or BSOD that i cant even have the time to read what it says since the pc reboots so fast.
Some people told me that my memory (which wasnt replaced but seems to work fine imo) might be damaged too while some others tell me it is just software...
I formated my PC and installed a fresh Windows XP SP2 but the problem is still there. I sometimes get booted out of my games with "fatal error" and i had the IRDQL_thing_thing_thing show up on BSOD on the first 2 lines quiet a few times.

my pc specs are:
intel p4 CPU 3.02Ghz
MERCURY Via rt8237r motherboard
2x PQI 512MB DDr-ram
StLabs GeForce FX 5500 256MB 8xAGP
WD HD 80gb

I am thinking that the problem might be an incompatibility between the VIA and the memory sticks but i am not sure.

I really do not have the money to upgrade to a 915intel board series and all the PCI and LGA stuff that has to follow so i am planning on buying a new or used and WORKING intel 865 or 845 series or just wait til someone tells me how to solve my problem.

I appreciate your help

 

[Blueman]

Well first off you can test your memory as longh as you have web capabilities. Just google search for memtest and create a bootdisk using thier images. This will test the memory bus and memory operation of your system.

Next the restart is a "normal" operation for windows thanks to Microsoft, but you can change that if you can get into safemore (f8 key at boot) Just right click on "mycomputer" icon goto Advanced/startup and recovery/settings tab and then look for the restart on error checkbox at the middle of the screen.

However your BSOD's are probably due to a chipset change of your system, if not memory. Have you or the other techs performed a repair install of windows? Probably gonna need to since you went from an Intel chipset to VIA.
Best of luck!

 

[FlyingWizard]

the board's name is P4VM800

I downloaded the mem test and tried it, it gave error on both my RAm sticks.. so i went to the pc shop and told him that i needed new RAM but i want to test them before i buy.

they put inside the pc a new PQI 512MB ram and it gave a line of error aswell... we tried with another PQI ram and it gave an error too (sadly, they do not sell but PQI rams )

so is it anything related to compatibility ?

btw, i did format all my hard disk and installed a fresh copy of windows..