Hey guys,
My new box has been randomly freezing since I put it together on monday night but I think I finally tracked down the problem. Here are the specs:
AthlonXP 1800+
MSI K7T266 Pro
256 PC2100 Micron DDR Ram
Maxtor 20GB 7200rpm/ATA100
Creative GeForce2 GTS 32mb
Sound Blaster Live! 5.1
At first I blamed the Sound Blaster Live! so I pulled that tna dit worked fine for about an hour before it started freezing again. I am positive now that the video card is the culprit. Here is my theory:
THis used to be my friend's card. For the longest time his machine would randomly reboot. He tried replacing everything till finally he gave up and boutgh a cheapo MX and his rebooting problems stoped. He let me have the faulty card so I could test it in my P3 500 box where it worked fine. I blamed his Abit Mobo on having a faulty AGP slot or something but now that I switchted to a VIA mobo it looks as if I've inherited his problem.Upon closer inspection I can tell that when the my machine hangs the video card is very hot to the touch. Not just the chipset on it (wich has a fan) but the whole card itself is quite hot. The annoying thing about this is that if I turn the PC off for 10 mins it cools down enough so it wont hang for an hour or so. That means that if I think its a BIOS setting wrong or something I'll change it but I have to wait a few hours before I can be sure. This is driving me nuts! At first I thought it was the PoS fan on the card drawing too much power so i disconected that and used a spare CoolerMaster CPU fan (5000rpm)I had on the back of the card. Now the card doesn't get quite as hot but the chipset still gets hot. I'm thinking of slapping a blue orb on it or something but I'm not really sure that will work. HELP!
My new box has been randomly freezing since I put it together on monday night but I think I finally tracked down the problem. Here are the specs:
AthlonXP 1800+
MSI K7T266 Pro
256 PC2100 Micron DDR Ram
Maxtor 20GB 7200rpm/ATA100
Creative GeForce2 GTS 32mb
Sound Blaster Live! 5.1
At first I blamed the Sound Blaster Live! so I pulled that tna dit worked fine for about an hour before it started freezing again. I am positive now that the video card is the culprit. Here is my theory:
THis used to be my friend's card. For the longest time his machine would randomly reboot. He tried replacing everything till finally he gave up and boutgh a cheapo MX and his rebooting problems stoped. He let me have the faulty card so I could test it in my P3 500 box where it worked fine. I blamed his Abit Mobo on having a faulty AGP slot or something but now that I switchted to a VIA mobo it looks as if I've inherited his problem.Upon closer inspection I can tell that when the my machine hangs the video card is very hot to the touch. Not just the chipset on it (wich has a fan) but the whole card itself is quite hot. The annoying thing about this is that if I turn the PC off for 10 mins it cools down enough so it wont hang for an hour or so. That means that if I think its a BIOS setting wrong or something I'll change it but I have to wait a few hours before I can be sure. This is driving me nuts! At first I thought it was the PoS fan on the card drawing too much power so i disconected that and used a spare CoolerMaster CPU fan (5000rpm)I had on the back of the card. Now the card doesn't get quite as hot but the chipset still gets hot. I'm thinking of slapping a blue orb on it or something but I'm not really sure that will work. HELP!
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