Trouble with computer locking up

[Capero]

Hey all, I had a question and I hope that you guys can help me. I have had a lot of trouble recently with my computer locking up for no reason at all. I have an 850 Athlon wtih a geforce 2 mx 400 and 320 megs of sdram I have Two big 80mms case fans and a cpu fan rated for a 1.5ghz machine. Recently my computer will just freeze up for no reason at all. Sometime when I just log into XP, other times when im d/ling something, or when I just let my computer sit there for a while. Ive tried a lot of things but Im sure that I havent tried everything. Ive run msconfig on it, reformatted my hd's, left the case panel off (which I usually do), I run scandisk and defrag frequently, tried changing file systems to ntfs and fat32, and ive tried replacing my cpu fan. Ive run out of ideas. I have an FIC mobo which doesnt seem to have temp gauges on board for the cpu. Any ideas or suggestions would be extremely helpful. Thank-you

 

[DAPUNISHER]

have you tried using 1 stick of ram at a time to eliminate it being a bad stick? Have you tried fail-safe default bios settings to see if it's just a bios setting problem? are you using the best drivers for all your hardware? These are good places to start since lock ups can be so many different things. All it takes is a flakey driver, ram, bios config, ect... and you get lock ups. It sounds like you've tried to eliminate the heat as a culprit so I won't go there Anyways, if all of those things check out O.K. post back. EDIT: I nalmost forgot, always list your hardware specs as this facilitates better assistance

 

[Capero]

Thanks, D. Well here are my specs I have an 850Athlon with 320mb ram, a 40gb hd and an 8gig hd, geforce 2mx 400, on an fic board (1st mainboard) and a 300 watt antec p-supply. Thanks for the tip im going to try the ram now. Also this will probably sound dumb but i dont know, fail-safe defaulted my bios? How do I do that and what does that do. Thanks again

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Your question isn't dumb, especially since I'm not refering to it correctly for the K7S5A's AMI bios. The bios will have an option called" load optimal settings", it's the fail-safe defaults which means the settings that will put the least stress on components like the memory to help stabilize the system.

 

[Capero]

Alright Im trying the ram now and then Ill try loading the defaults. Thanks a lot for your help.