Hi everyone,
I'm having an awful time figuring out which component has gone bad with my system. (At least, I hope it's just one.) I'd appreciate any suggestions on how to diagnose the problem, though perhaps it'd be better to take it in to a shop.
A few days ago, it stuttered to a start suspiciously. Then, garbage characters appeared in the blank screen area during the BIOS screen. The VGA mode start-up displays of XP and Ubuntu were fine, but the system spontaneously turned off when ramping up to 1920x1200.
I figured the power supply had gone and could no longer dish it for my video card.
Got a new 450W PSU, and the problem continues. Components connected at the moment:
* Asus P4C800-E Deluxe MB
* 2 DIMMs of 512MB Corsair XMS Pro DDR400
* eVGA Nvidia GeForce 6800 Ultra (AGP)
* Sony DRU-510a CD/DVD
* Intel Pentium 4 3.0 GHz
Monitor: Apple Cinema Display 23" (tested with a laptop and works fine)
memtest86 gets 78% through a pass, but then on Test #8 (Modulo 20, ones & zeros), the system freezes. It doesn't report an error or shutdown, memtest86 stops and the keyboard doesn't respond. Also, as before, lots of garbage characters cover the blank parts of the screen. LEDs on the DIMMs suggest low activity (two green LEDs at the bottom of the scale). I've tried different DIMM slot configurations, but got the same result.
Any suggestions on how to figure out which component is unhappy? I'm a little uneasy spending more on DDR400 RAM that I wouldn't use in a new system unless I'm sure it's the RAM and not the CPU or MB that's the problem.
Thanks!
I'm having an awful time figuring out which component has gone bad with my system. (At least, I hope it's just one.) I'd appreciate any suggestions on how to diagnose the problem, though perhaps it'd be better to take it in to a shop.
A few days ago, it stuttered to a start suspiciously. Then, garbage characters appeared in the blank screen area during the BIOS screen. The VGA mode start-up displays of XP and Ubuntu were fine, but the system spontaneously turned off when ramping up to 1920x1200.
I figured the power supply had gone and could no longer dish it for my video card.
Got a new 450W PSU, and the problem continues. Components connected at the moment:
* Asus P4C800-E Deluxe MB
* 2 DIMMs of 512MB Corsair XMS Pro DDR400
* eVGA Nvidia GeForce 6800 Ultra (AGP)
* Sony DRU-510a CD/DVD
* Intel Pentium 4 3.0 GHz
Monitor: Apple Cinema Display 23" (tested with a laptop and works fine)
memtest86 gets 78% through a pass, but then on Test #8 (Modulo 20, ones & zeros), the system freezes. It doesn't report an error or shutdown, memtest86 stops and the keyboard doesn't respond. Also, as before, lots of garbage characters cover the blank parts of the screen. LEDs on the DIMMs suggest low activity (two green LEDs at the bottom of the scale). I've tried different DIMM slot configurations, but got the same result.
Any suggestions on how to figure out which component is unhappy? I'm a little uneasy spending more on DDR400 RAM that I wouldn't use in a new system unless I'm sure it's the RAM and not the CPU or MB that's the problem.
Thanks!
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