Crunch time.

[cnjmorris]

This is long winded but I don't know where else to turn for info... I keep getting different input.

I havent touched my PC in a LONG time because I have been using my laptop almost exclusively. Now I am getting back into some programming and my laptop just can't keep up when running a few dozen windows.

I have:

AMD XP 1900 CPU.
Abit KR7a-133 Motherboard.
512MB PC2100 DDR (had 1gb but turned out my 2 sticks of 512 were bad).
Gainward 128MB ti4800SE GS 8x grapics card.
350W Antech Power Supply
I have the latest MB bios update, I have the lates 4-in-1 drivers, there is no card bios update.

I have been trying to save cash for a while and upgrade the MB/CPU/RAM but I am now considering upgrading the graphics card and HD too just to get it all done. Problem is I don't have a lot of cash.

I was considering a ASUS KNE-Deluxe board with AMD 64 3400 chip. Of course, there are cheaper combos, I just liked everything I saw about this and what I read about it.

I don't have a clue where my system stacks in bench tests so it is hard to guage how much performance increase I will see, and whether I should just save some cash and get a AMD 64 3000.

My system is crashing, giving me a blue screen talking about graphics driver being caught in an infinite loop. I changed out the bad ram, and system ran great for a few days. Then all of a sudden it was doing slideshow mode, everything was super slow. I have NO clue about voltage but I messed around and raised the DDR and AGP voltage and all of a sudden the PC went fast again. Then today POOF it froze up, I rebooted and it won't even log into windows, does the no signal or the blue screen.

I could assume it is the card, but the problem is the card works just fine in another machine. It could be the card not being compatible with Dx9.0c or the fact that the card is 8x and board is 4x... dunno.

I don't play games like Doom 3, and even if I did I play at pretty low settings on most games.. and never higher than 1024x768 so this card seems great for now. If I upgrade it I'll have to spend about 200-250 to get a card I'm happy with... if I buy a new card it will have to be a nice upgrade. If I do that I severely limit my MB/CPU budget.

Can anyone tell me what else I might try here? I can't seem to find much information on where my voltage should be etc... any input would help. I'm pretty lost.

 

[dszd0g]

First of all, I assume you have uninstalled and reinstalled your video drivers?

If you are going to debug your existing system, hopefully you have access to another Athlon XP system to swap parts with. I would not raise your voltages until you determine which part is causing the problem and then in a very controlled manner.

If you have access to a fresh hard drive or if you can reinstall Windows that is a good way to eliminate software as the problem. So often one can spend a lot of time debugging an issue thinking it is a hardware problem when it turns out a driver file was corrupted.

 

[cnjmorris]

I have done lots with the video drivers. I have installed latest drivers from nVidia, installed latest drivers from Gainward, installed default drivers, and installed microsoft default drivers. All of them had the same effect except for the microsoft drivers that left me in a slide show default 1mhz refresh rate.

I have access to other machines, but they don't do much good. The card works find in other machines. So did the DDR memory till I moved it over.

I did a reinstall over my current XP install, I did not format the drive. The install was pretty clean though, only had about 4 programs on that hard drive.

I really appreciate the input though. I sometimes overlook the obvious. Also I have a question. I previously partitioned a drive on another system. Now it is in this system but it will only recognize the first partition. When I click on the second partition it tells me access is denied. How can I access the second partition. It is the slave drive, not the master, so it isn't effecting the hardware/reboot issues.