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My computer: The crashing enigma!

C

concreteDonkey

Member
Hi.

I was wondering if anyone could solve the mystery of why my computer always crashes?

Here is the spec:

Athlon XP 1900+
MSI KT3 Ultra-ARU
256MB DDR PC2100 all on one stick.
OEM Radeon 64MB DDR
SB Live 5.1
IBM 40GB Deskstar
Hitachi DVD-ROM
Memorex CD-RW
NEC 100MB Internal Zip Drive
Generic 56k modem
Generic 10/100 Network Card

Running Windows 2000 SP3 (Although I've tried just about every OS Microsoft have released!)
I share an ADSL connection with two other PCs using a gateway to split the traffic.

It does not seem to matter what I am doing on my computer, it always comes up with those crappy memory dump screens and restarts. I got it to stop restarting before I could read it and they seem to all be mentioning OS files regarding the kernal and other important things like that. I don't know what to make of these because I'm not that technical.

I've had this PC for over a year now and the parts I have changed are:

1.2 GHz Thunderbird FSB266
ASUS A7A266

There! That's about it. Can you help me? PLEASE!
Thanks for at least reading this.

Craig
 
hi,
some things to check...
0. what are the error messages that you see in the event viewer under system and application?
1. how are the temperatures? the cpu should be idling around 40c and maybe go to 50 under load.
2. i see you have sp3, do you have all of the drivers updates as well as dx8.1, etc?
3. did you do a clean install and format the hd when you installed w2k?
4. this could be memory, check your ram using memtest or docmemory.
5. what size and manufacturer power supply do you have? brand name 300w is fine for your stuff?

this should be a good start.
good luck
 
I did a search on google for: memtest

I found memtest v1.2 by hcidesign i think.

It was so easy to use and it found the errors within ten minutes (good ram should not turn out ANY errors).

Hope it helps
 
oops forgot,

Now that I need new ram, does anyone have any brand recommendations?

I've got my eye on some corsair xms fancy stuff but it's very expensive and I was wondering if it is worth the extra?

Can anyone enlighten me on this subject?
 
I have used samsung,corsiar,mushkin, and crucial. Never had a problem with any of them.

The reason I asked about the mem checking program is becuase I have never found any errors in my memory. 🙂 And I wanted to know if I was using a program that could actually find errors. 😉
 
Originally posted by: RemyCanad
I have used samsung,corsiar,mushkin, and crucial. Never had a problem with any of them.

The reason I asked about the mem checking program is becuase I have never found any errors in my memory. 🙂 And I wanted to know if I was using a program that could actually find errors. 😉
Click to expand...

ditto...get 'em for decent prices @ googlegear.com....u'll be garanteed to get the original rams for each respective band...
 
Originally posted by: RemyCanad
I have used samsung,corsiar,mushkin, and crucial. Never had a problem with any of them.

I wanted to know if I was using a program that could actually find errors. 😉
Click to expand...

according to the documentation supplied with memtest: if you leave it running overnight, it will find 99% of errors!
 
Thats nice to know. 🙂 When ever I build a computer I run memtest for 12 hours. Then I run Prime95 for another 12. Just to make sure everything is in working order.
 
Well, Thanks for the help guys!

So now I know I need some new ram, what's everyone's opinion (judging by my spec above) on what upgrade would give me the best performance boost?

I was thinking either topping up my ram to 512MB, or buying a new graphics card.

I'm not sure which I need more because I was trying that Doom3 leaked demo, and I ran out of virtual memory!

See, I thought my graphics card was the bottleneck but running out of virtual memory has given me doubts. I know it was only an alpha version and so will be tweaked loads before the final release, but ideally I don't want to be using ANY virtual memory never mind running out. Right?

Anyway, opinions and suggestions on what to buy please!

Thanks again. 🙂
 
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