Oh Noes... GFX issue? what do you think?

[Risensun]

Iv build this rig a few weeks ago, just ran into a problem.

BIOSTAR TPower I45 LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard
ASUS EAH4850/HTDI/512M Radeon HD 4850 512MB
Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Wolfdale 3.16GHz
CORSAIR DOMINATOR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500)

First, I get a message saying that the Catalyst control center has experience an error and closes. I then reopened it, everything was fine. While playing oblivion it starts acting buggy and I loose all audio, so I exit the game, still no audio. Speakers are fine, just will not make a sound.

At this point I shut down and then try to turn it on. Up comes the T-power Logo with the options "Press Tab to show text screen, Del to enter Bios setup"

Doing either takes me to the same screen which displays:

~~~~~~~
motherboard model
cpu info
ram info

Press F9 for BBS POPUP
press F12 for BIOS POST FLASH
~~~~~~~

Pressing F9 and F12 does nothing

The Display on the Motherboard shows C3 with means - "Mid POST initialization of chipset registers"

I have tried resetting the CMOS and it did not help, also tried swapping out the ram with no effect.

Now I suspect that the problem is the Graphics card because it seems extremely hot to the touch, but it may have always been like that. the big problem is that I do not have another GPU to troubleshoot with.

So what do you think, Graphics problem or Motherboard problem?

 

[KurrentEweser]

Another video card is worth a try even if it's an old PCI card.

 

[Risensun]

Yes I agree, I finally got my hands on another card and gave it a try, same thing happens.

So I can rule out the card, that leaves the RAM (unlikely, iv tried putting just one stick in then the other, no effect) the Motherboard and the CPU, right?

I can only hope the problem is the mobo, as I can still RMA it back to newegg.

Any other thoughts or opinions, I would love to hear what you think.