At the End of my Rope

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coahubbe

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Need HELP !!! I don't even know how to explain this well.

I have a two year old computer that has always worked awesome for me. I have run loads of games on this system and very rarely had any issues. A periodic spontaneous re-boot now and then, but nothing major. Lately I have started to play World of Warcraft and a Lord of the Rings - Battle for Middle Earth. These are VERY 3D graphically initense.

This is happening now very frequently during game play (4-5 times per hour). This is VERY unpredicatably. Sometimes it happens right after I start the game....other times it will happen after 20 - 30 minutes of play. Basics are that my computer just up and re-boots on me, for NO apparent reason. When it comes back up again, I get the standard Microsoft Online Crash Analysis, but here is the weird part.....sometimes it will say processor failure, sometime videocard and sometime memory. I have updated the driver and BIOS on all my systems (multiple times) and NOTHING seems to change ANYTHING.

As I mentioned it is around 2 years old and I have an ASUS A7N266C Motherboard, 2 X 256 DDRAM chips and an AMD Athlon 1800 processor. I am running a AGP Graphics board MSI G4TI4600-VTD (Nvidia) with 512K on board ( I thought this was an awesome board). I have tried over 9 different Nvidia graphics drivers now and it dosen't really seem to change things or be a driver problem at all.

I realize this is VERY difficult to read and troubleshoot...but ANY advice would be greatly appreciated.

Don't know we
 
coahubbe,

First, the drill. Is your machine clean? As in ad/spyware, viruses? Make sure. AdAware and Spybot are free, as are many others. There are free online virus scans (www.housecall.trendmicro.com) to double-check your anti-virus.

Are you running a firewall? Playing Russian roulette if you're not.

How is your registry? Again, there are several good free registry cleaners, and many not-free ones will give you a free trial. Check out Download.com for a look-see.

What apps are running in the background? Go to Start->Run->"msconfig"->Enter->Startup tab->uncheck anything that you can do without, but leave anything to do with your firewall, anti-virus, graphics driver (not graphics driver display), and broadband (if you have it). Hit Apply->OK->Reboot.

Go through these steps, see if they help, and then post again.
 
Thanks for your response "Trotter".

Funny you should ask about things loaded....Just to be on the safe side...three days ago in an effort to diagnose (and thinking the same thing you are). I TOTALLY formatted my computer and started over (XP Pro). I run McAfee's Internet suite and I use Housecall ALL the time. This machine is virtually clean of anyting beside McAfee and the OS.

I run DSL. I removed some stuff from the startup, thought you were on to something, lasted about 40 minutes this time....and the rebooted....right in the middle of killilng a Giant Ogre. Dang.

I know I just need to breakdown and buy new stuff but this is still nice hardware (dated). On that topic can anyone recommend to me a decent (cheap around $800.00) setup for a new Motherboard, Processor. I hope the AGP video card and possibly the memory that I already have will work in a new board .

I HATE knowing enough to make me stupid when it comes to this stuff.
 
Go to the World Of Warcraft Forums and ask them, i dont play the game because of the many server and forum based issues's that they have been haveing, but that kind of error is similar to the Diablo 2 errors people used to get.
 
charles_scott,
Thanks again for your response. It is much appreciated. I will go check out the WoW forums. However, it also happens with the Lord of the Rings game (which is EA games). Like I mentioned in my first post, it has happened once or twice over the last year or so...but never this often.

I am wondering if I may have some jumpers set wrong or something incorrect in the BIOS setup of the motherboard. I didn't orignally install them, and I am wondering if "putting them back to default" will hurt anything.

Will my existing memory and video card work if I buy an AMD Athlon 64 fx-53 chip on a GA-K8NXP-SLI board....or will I have to buy all new memory and a new video card. I want the new 6800 Ultra...but can't pay this much.

This is one of those issues that you can't just go to your local computer hardward specialist for......They want to charge you a ton to tell you that it is a driver problem....and it is older.

Thanks again.
 
If i remember correctly one of the suggestions Blizzard and Battle.net gave to people with the crash's a year or two ago was to keep there computer's cooler and it did work for some.
 
coahubbe,

Just a thought, but have you tried updating your BIOS? How about your AGP drivers? Shoot, you might want to look into firmware upgrades for everything.

I know when I bought my graphics card, I had to update my BIOS as well as the drivers for my AGP.

I'd stick with the drivers MSI has on their site, or NVidia's current ones otherwise.

Something about the varied causes you've listed bothers me. Have you checked your PSU? For some reason, all of this reminds me of a failing PSU. I wouldn't run out and buy one, but you might want to borrow one and try it to see.
 
Now THAT could be....It is a oversized case with 4 different colling fans (I added 2 extras)...but I keep it in the cabinet in my computer desk and it doesn't get a ton of air flow.

The BIOS has a temp monitor built in...but I disabled it yesterday to test...No good.....still bounced on me after about 20 minutes. I even took it outside and blew it out with my air compressor to clear all the dust.

I'll try to move this out of the cabinet and get more air on it. I'll let you know. Thanks
 
but I keep it in the cabinet in my computer desk and it doesn't get a ton of air flow.

Ach! Tell me it ain't so! Geez, that's like keeping it in an oven!

Cleaning the case, heatsink, and fans will help with the cooling, as will getting your comp out of that cabinet.

The whole scenario changed with that revelation. You could have been rebooting due to temperature. Playing game puts the CPU and GPU under heavy loads, which increases heat generation. With your system inside of a cabinet, and held in by the dust, the heat had nowhere to go but to circulate inside your case.

Transplanting your rig outside of that cabinet may clear the whole problem up. If not, yo've got planty of advice to review.
 
Trotter,
I have suspected a bad PSU myself.

I verified that the ASUS board is running the most current BIOS. Obviously, a board this old will not get much support from ASUS. I did find the manual and I do have some jumpers that are set NOT default. Is there anything physically on the motherboard or maybe in the BIOS that transfers all video functions to the AGP video card?

I have tried to install the old MSI drivers (that came with the video card)...No Good. So I went to a set of Nvidia drivers that MSI suggested on their web site (a version that was about a year old)....No Good. I then download the MOST current Nvidia drivers...Still no good.

I know I keep putting this back to you guys...but it does make me feel good that you are all thinking the same things I am.
 
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