ARG! HELP! This problem wont go away...

[Scorpion]

I turn to this place as a last resort because I know at least one of you smart bastards can help me. This board never lets me down.

System:
Athlon 650 Slot
Epox 7KXA
Elsa GeForce DDR (Using 6.34)
Xitel (Aureal Vortex2)
3Com 905B
Pioneer 6x DVD-ROM
Windows ME
256MB RAM

Here's the deal, My system now locks up frequently in several different program.

#1 Locks up when playing DVDs. I've tried PowerDVD full, latest version, and WinDVD latest full version. Both lockup during DVD playbak. Unrecoverable. Requires power-off reboot. Never a set duration. Sometimes it will play for 45 minutes before locking up. Others it takes only 5 or so. Notice sound keeps playing for a bit, then loops.

#2 Diablo 2. Only locks up when playing on Realms Battle.Net. Freezes game. Sound keeps playing. Nothing responds. Same type of lockup as DVD playback. Requires power-off Reboot. Never a noticeable duration before it hangs.

#3 MechWarrior 4. Locks up when in the MechLab. Same type of lockup as before. Sound keeps playing. Requires power-off Reboot.

Is this a Windows ME problem? I can't figure out what the heck the deal is. I've looked for ME updates, but there aren't any. It's really annoying Rebooting my machine all the time doing the things I enjoy doing the most.

Runs Q3 and Half-Life fine though.

Please Help. Thanks.

 

[Jabberwocky]

In the past I have read a few articles regarding the "finicky" nature of the Athlon motherboards. PC Gamer tested quite a few different combinations. The most glaring conflicts were between Geforce cards and Athlons. They had a lot of trouble making that combo stable on various mobos. I have also heard about problems with mis-matched ram sticks, power supply, and vortex based sound cards! I guess what I am saying is that you could have a conflict with any of your components. You can try things like removing some of your ram, changing the slots the ram is in, disabling sound to see if it still crashes, and moving your components to different pci slots.

Of course before you do stuff like that, make sure that your cpu isn't just overheating! are all your fans running? what temp is your system running at? Try running it with the case open, does it still crash?

 

[Wingznut]

Is it safe to say that it's not an overclocking issue?

Are you running the latest Aureal reference drivers (v2048)?

 

[Scorpion]

Yeah, I have the 2048 reference drivers. I'm sure its not an overheating issue. I have MBM installed and it says my CPU temp is ~40C.

Yikes, that sounds like anything in my system could be causing it. I have mismatched RAM, though both were Athlon tested. I'm pretty sure my Power Supply is Athlon approved. But I've got the GeForce and Vortex2 which could be causing the problem. This really sucks...

Thanks for the help guys.

 

[Mem]

I think this is going to be trial & error,if it was my PC,I would try one stick of ram to see if that improves stability & borrow a SBlive soundcard & take out the the vortex2,last resort would be a clean Install of another OS like WIN98.PSU may be the problem since Geforce DDR are power hungry but I don`t think it is that ,I would only change that as a last resort.Also go into Bios & disable fastwrites,all video shadowing.

 

[John P]

I'd try running without the sound card and see if it still locks up. If that does it try moving sound card to a different slot.