Here's my PC:
Albatron PX845PEV Pro motherboard
Pentium 4 2.4 GHz Northwood
1.0 GB of DDR 333 RAM
200 GB Seagate hard drive
PNY GeForce 6600 GT Display adapter (new - replaced last week)
420 W Enermax power supply (also new - replaced two days ago)
SB Live audio
DVD +/- RW drive
No overclocking
I originally built this pc about three years ago. At first I was using an old ATX case and had serious problems with heat - crashing whenever I did anything the least bit taxing (and sometimes even when I didn't) - there simply weren't enough fans in that old thing. So I replaced the case with a fancy new one with a total of six fans and my heat-related crashing went away.
The computer has worked fine until relatively recently - about 4-6 months ago. I started to experience the same sort of crashing that came with the heat problems: video display freezes; sound card also locks up, usually screeching as it loops the last sound played; and, as I noticed fairly recently, USB powering off (mouse & keyboard lights go out). These crashes occur after a short time playing some of the more intensive games (primarily Civ 4, which I haven't mastered because I can't play it for more than 10-20 minutes before it crashes). At first I thought it might be because this was my first summer in a new apartment and it was kind of warm.
I examined the condition of the system after crashing by going into the bios & checking the stats. Temperatures were a little high (42-44 deg. C as opposed to an average of around 38C while using windows for non-gaming tasks), but from what I understand not high enough to kill the computer. I also installed speedfan & have been using that to log temperatures/voltage/etc. right up to the moment of crashing. This confirms the temperature readings I was seeing in the bios.
So, thinking that the problem is NOT with any of the monitored temperature, I suspected that the problem might be the video card overheating. Since this gave me a good excuse to upgrade, I went ahead & purchased the GeForce 6600 - I figured that a new card with new heatsink/fan/etc. would probably work a little more efficiently. I also went ahead and reapplied thermal compound to the CPU & heatsink (after cleaning it very carefully). All of this actually did improve my temperatures slightly - I'm now running at a few degrees lower that previously, but Civ 4 still crashes - although (and this may be my imagination) it waits a little longer now.
Examining the logs from speed fan, I noticed that some of the voltages were a little out of spec. Specifically, the +3.3V line fluctuated between 3.01 and 3.14 V (I understand it should be no more that 5% off, i.e., around 3.14 to 3.45 V), the -5 V line fluctuated between -5% and -9% off, and the +5VSB line was between 8% & 9% off. So, concluding that perhaps the cheapo power supply I purchased from CompUSA several years ago was about to pack it in, I purchased the new one from newegg this week.
Unfortunately, all this has come to nothing - it's still crashing.
I know it's probably time to upgrade, but a) this pc does everything I need it to do, b) I don't have a lot of time to spend researching & comparison shopping for parts, and c) I don't have a whole lot of $ to spend right now.
Any suggestions what to try next?
Albatron PX845PEV Pro motherboard
Pentium 4 2.4 GHz Northwood
1.0 GB of DDR 333 RAM
200 GB Seagate hard drive
PNY GeForce 6600 GT Display adapter (new - replaced last week)
420 W Enermax power supply (also new - replaced two days ago)
SB Live audio
DVD +/- RW drive
No overclocking
I originally built this pc about three years ago. At first I was using an old ATX case and had serious problems with heat - crashing whenever I did anything the least bit taxing (and sometimes even when I didn't) - there simply weren't enough fans in that old thing. So I replaced the case with a fancy new one with a total of six fans and my heat-related crashing went away.
The computer has worked fine until relatively recently - about 4-6 months ago. I started to experience the same sort of crashing that came with the heat problems: video display freezes; sound card also locks up, usually screeching as it loops the last sound played; and, as I noticed fairly recently, USB powering off (mouse & keyboard lights go out). These crashes occur after a short time playing some of the more intensive games (primarily Civ 4, which I haven't mastered because I can't play it for more than 10-20 minutes before it crashes). At first I thought it might be because this was my first summer in a new apartment and it was kind of warm.
I examined the condition of the system after crashing by going into the bios & checking the stats. Temperatures were a little high (42-44 deg. C as opposed to an average of around 38C while using windows for non-gaming tasks), but from what I understand not high enough to kill the computer. I also installed speedfan & have been using that to log temperatures/voltage/etc. right up to the moment of crashing. This confirms the temperature readings I was seeing in the bios.
So, thinking that the problem is NOT with any of the monitored temperature, I suspected that the problem might be the video card overheating. Since this gave me a good excuse to upgrade, I went ahead & purchased the GeForce 6600 - I figured that a new card with new heatsink/fan/etc. would probably work a little more efficiently. I also went ahead and reapplied thermal compound to the CPU & heatsink (after cleaning it very carefully). All of this actually did improve my temperatures slightly - I'm now running at a few degrees lower that previously, but Civ 4 still crashes - although (and this may be my imagination) it waits a little longer now.
Examining the logs from speed fan, I noticed that some of the voltages were a little out of spec. Specifically, the +3.3V line fluctuated between 3.01 and 3.14 V (I understand it should be no more that 5% off, i.e., around 3.14 to 3.45 V), the -5 V line fluctuated between -5% and -9% off, and the +5VSB line was between 8% & 9% off. So, concluding that perhaps the cheapo power supply I purchased from CompUSA several years ago was about to pack it in, I purchased the new one from newegg this week.
Unfortunately, all this has come to nothing - it's still crashing.
I know it's probably time to upgrade, but a) this pc does everything I need it to do, b) I don't have a lot of time to spend researching & comparison shopping for parts, and c) I don't have a whole lot of $ to spend right now.
Any suggestions what to try next?
