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Freeze ups! Windows XP or Hardware?

A

Azog

Junior Member
Hello all, having some problems with the following computer:
Refurbished Dell 8200 Series
Intel P4 2.0 GHz
1024 MB Samsung ECC RDRAM (4x256)
Motherboard Dell 82850
Western Digital 100 GB HD (76%Free space, NTFS)
Samsung CDRW/DVD
Nvidia GeForce 3 (NV20) - 64MB DDR
Creative Labs CT4780 SBLive! Value
GVC Corporation SoftK56 Speakerphone Winmodem
3COM 3C905C-TX Fast Etherlink NIC
Windows XP Home
Got it from Dell and the system would randomly freeze (Ctr-Alt-Del, Alt-Tab don't function - have to power off to reboot) in a variety of applications (MS Word 2000, WMP 8), sometimes I could work for hours, sometimes for less than a minute. A few times it also froze with just windows explorer windows open. Both Microsoft games I have (Mechwarrior 4 and StarLancer) will play for about 5 minutes and then crash everytime, but Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Q3 can be played forever without any problems. Also Adobe Page Maker 7.0 usually crashes within a min of loading up. So this is what I did to try and fix:
1) Reinstall Windows XP from scratch - no change in behavior
2) Reinstall Windows XP with deletion of all HD partitions - no change in behavior
3) Reinstall Windows XP with deletion of all HD partitions and NIC, SB Live and Modem card removed - no change in behavior
4) Install Windows 2000 Pro with deletion of all HD partitions - no change in behavior
So after a few calls and several hours of Dell Tech support I got a new MB. Put in the new motherboard and some things are working better - no random crashing in MS Word, WMP, or just with normal use. Pagemaker will work flawlessly sometimes, other times it will crash the system during loading or while using the program. And the Microsoft games still crash the system within about 5 mins.
I can't see any hardware conflicts (Sandra and Dell Diagnostics come up with zilch). I tried installing the newest SB Live drivers mentioned elsewhere in the AT forums, but the installer crashes while loading (even after removing all programs (firewall, virus checker...) from start up with msconfig), so for right now I'm stuck with the Microsoft Windows XP drivers.
So I'm out of ideas as what to do next. Could it be the RAM or proc? If so what is the best way to test?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.
 
Just to follow up, I uninstalled the SB Live hardware from the device manager and was able to install the new drivers from Creative. Tested them out in Mechwarrior 4 and got to play longer ~10min, but the game eventually crashed.
 
Whatever the problem is, it sounds pretty serious. I have no idea how to fix it, but if I were in your position I'd just try to return it and get a replacement (if they'd let you do that).
 
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