[thantos31]

ok, i'm going bald pulling my hair on this one. ok my computer is crashing randomly that is it shuts down like the power went off, and then restarts, 1/3 of the time no message, 1/3 of the time its an irq fault, and 1/3 its a video fault. so i thought it was a driver fault, but there disabled still crashing, i disconected the new dvd burner, still crashing, tested and diagnosed hard drive and ram, have installed a new power supply, ran two spywear programs and a virus program, nothing. the cpu is no hotter than 61 deg C. the video card and mother board is two years old, and this is the first prob i've had. the dvd burner and 17"lcd monitor is new as well as creative web cam. here are the computer specs

MSI mother board
athlon 2500
cpu 1.8 ghz
1G ram ddr 3200
nvidia geforce FX 5200 128 mb video card
sony dru-810a dvd burner
a 400w power supply
windows xp sp2

if you have any ideas please help, thank you.

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At 61 C the temperature monitor may be kicking in

Click start then run, type prefetch then press enter, click edit then select all, right click any file then click delete, confirm delete

Click start, all programmes, accessories, system tools to run disc clean up, then from system tools, run disc defragmenter.

Click start then run, type sfc /scannow then press enter, you need the XP CD and Windows File Protection will show a blue onscreen progress bar, when the bar goes, reboot

Click start then run, type chkdsk /f /r then press enter, type Y to confirm for next boot, press enter then reboot.

Windows will appear to load normally then either the monitor will show progress or the screen will go blank, do not disturb this. This will take an hour or so before it gets to the desktop.

Download and install Tune Up 2006 Trial

Run Tune Up Disc Clean Up

Run Tune Up Registry Clean Up

Click Optimize and Improve to run Reg Defrag, which will take a few minutes and need a reboot. You should disable the antivirus programme to run this and check it is running after the reboot

After the reboot, click optimize then system optimizer to optimize the computer, select computer with an internet connection from the drop down menu, this also requires a reboot

After the reboot, click optimize then system optimizer to accelerate downloads, select the speed just above your actual connection speed, this requires a reboot

After the reboot, click optimize then system optimizer to run system advisor

Look at updating the video adapter drivers

[Retired Tech]

At 61 C the temperature monitor may be kicking in

Click start then run, type prefetch then press enter, click edit then select all, right click any file then click delete, confirm delete

Click start, all programmes, accessories, system tools to run disc clean up, then from system tools, run disc defragmenter.

Click start then run, type sfc /scannow then press enter, you need the XP CD and Windows File Protection will show a blue onscreen progress bar, when the bar goes, reboot

Click start then run, type chkdsk /f /r then press enter, type Y to confirm for next boot, press enter then reboot.

Windows will appear to load normally then either the monitor will show progress or the screen will go blank, do not disturb this. This will take an hour or so before it gets to the desktop.

Download and install Tune Up 2006 Trial

Run Tune Up Disc Clean Up

Run Tune Up Registry Clean Up

Click Optimize and Improve to run Reg Defrag, which will take a few minutes and need a reboot. You should disable the antivirus programme to run this and check it is running after the reboot

After the reboot, click optimize then system optimizer to optimize the computer, select computer with an internet connection from the drop down menu, this also requires a reboot

After the reboot, click optimize then system optimizer to accelerate downloads, select the speed just above your actual connection speed, this requires a reboot

After the reboot, click optimize then system optimizer to run system advisor

Look at updating the video adapter drivers

[thantos31]

thanks for the indepth reply, the only thing i couldn't do was sfc /scannow, cause i don't have the xp disk.
i updated the drivers again, well wait and see what happens i'll keep you informed, thanks again.

[thantos31]

well i reinstalled the drivers, and updated, it ran for 2 hours, then down she went. full stop blue screen of death. but it didnt say why. i was running a flash game and IE at the time. my processor has been running at between 55 and 61 latly, but i'm not sure what it was before. my pc alert program is set for 75. i ran a video card test, and it worked fine at around 131 fps. there are so many variables, i've tried a lot. what is there left other than a can of gas and a good BBQ?

[Retired Tech]

Temperatures and video cards usually produce reboots

Did the blue screen say anything

A can of compressed air possibly to remove any cobwebs inside the case

[thantos31]

well i've been watching the temp, i've even remove one side of the case, i got the cpu down to 54-55 while idle, and 57-60 while running. i've tried to install the newest driver from the nvidia web site, tried to let windows update it, it crashed with the dirvers disabled again. i got irq less or equal warnning again this morning. but i've gotten blank ones that just say the computer stopped, and ones that say video hardware failure. it is never the same one.

[Retired Tech]

Use device manager to uninstall the video adapter then reboot and if you have the software CD for the video adapter, install the drivers from there