Hardware Failures - not sure which one - please help

[gellin]

OK I went all out a few months ago and built my compuer from scratch.

Here's what I got:
AMD 64 X2 4400+
GeForce 7800 GT
2 Gigs Corsair TwinX Pro Series
A8N-SLI Deluxe
74 gig Western Digital Raptor Harddrive
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS

The first week I've had it occasionaly the computer would start up and the ASUS startup screen would look all blocky and miscolored. If I still let the entire thing boot up Windows would say there was an error with the graphics card. That happened about once every 10 start ups.

It has recently become worse. Some times it would freeze on the ASUS startup screen. Sometimes it would pass that and then try to load up Windows and that blue progress bar screen would come up and it would just go on forever without ever actually loading up anything. Sometimes it would get past that part and then load up windows but everything would be black and I couldn't do anything but move my mouse around.

The last few days I've been in the middle of doing something and it would blue screen and say there was a hardware failure. Other times when I boot up it would not recoginze that I had my SATA raptor harddrive installed. Then I would restart and it would recognize it.

Now today it's been doing the same things loading up Windows and giving me the black screen where I can't do anything (both normal boot and safe mode). I tried to repair my windows installation but when I get to the part where it asks me which installation to repair, I enter the appropriate one and it freezes.

In the past I've already reformatted my computer hoping that would fix some of the problems but things have only gotten worse over time.

Does this sound like a motherboard issue or maybe a harddrive issue or something? Any help you can offer would be greatly appreciated. I've got warranties on everything but I just need to figure out which one is causing all of the problems. Thanks!

 

[turtile]

Either the graphics card or the MB.

You should swap the graphics card first if you can find one to swap it with.

If it still has a problem, it is the MB.

 

[X2Xtreme360]

When I put my PC together and booted for the first time, when I would go and install windows it would freeze up right in the middle of installation. Turns out I had a dead RAM stick. Just an idea but for kicks, remove one RAM stick, leaving the other one in. In my case, the first time I left the bad one in and I got NO screen. I tried the other one and everything worked great. If that doesn't work, just try switching components, removing all PCI devices, etc.

 

[gellin]

Thanks for the responses guys. Just a couple of questions for you.

How would swapping the graphics card have anything to do with the hard drive not being recognized?

As for the RAM, I have LED lights on the side that light up showing their usage and both of them seem to be functioning fine. I guess I could try switching in components to test it out. But the problem is that could take a while. These problems don't occur all the time which makes it even more difficult to figure out. I was just hoping someone already ran across something like this so I didn't have to do that.

 

[turtile]

It could be the GFX card since it is not displaying right. It might have a couple issues that conflict with the other devices (first BIOS to load up).

Its most likely the MB. But you should check the GFX card first just in case. Its a lot easier to do than taking apart the whole pc to take the MB out.

Since the video is messed up in the BIOS screen, it must be the card, MB, or the PSU and not the HD. The HD is only detected in that part. It would not effect the BIOS screen at all.

It could be the PSU. Which one do you have?

 

[Eddie Haskell]

Read where somebody had a similar problem and it turned out to be his sound card, but he had an old soundblaster "live" took it out and all was well...just a thought