[jittery]

This has been an ongoing problem for me for several months now, and I have had very little luck in diagnosing it.

First, I'm running Windows XP (SP2) on this machine:

Gigabyte GA-K8NF-9 Motherboard
Gigabyte GeForce 6600GT
AMD Athlon64 3200+
2x1gig mushkin DDR RAM
Western Digital 250gig SATA hard drive
Antec 380W PSU

I will have had this computer two years this spring. I put it together myself, and did not have any troubles with it until late October of this year. When my problems first started, my computer would freeze up randomly, anywhere. If I was playing any sort of 3d game, it would first freeze up (the sound would continue) and then I would get a long sound loop, which would then cut into a very short sound loop, and then it would restart.

I have not locked up anywhere out of a game in over a month, so I think I may have fixed that through one of the myriad things I have tried to figure out just what is wrong with my computer. One of the first (and probably most foolish) things I did was to reformat my hard drive. It didn't fix the problem. I have run Memtest86 and through seven passes it found nothing wrong with my RAM. After this I installed my second stick, and have tested the second, newer stick standalone with no improvement.

I know the problem is not heat - one of the things I feared at first when I opened the case and looked at it was that the layout of my motherboard was heating up my graphics card. The NForce chip on my particular motherboard sits right under the lip of the GPU. The heatsink off the chip heats up that corner of the graphics card quite a bit, but even with a floor-stand fan blowing straight into the case I still experience the crash.

It is not a graphics driver conflict - I have gone in with Drivercleaner and completely uninstalled my old drivers and installed the freshest ones available, to no effect.

No error messages or BSODs accompany this crash, even though I have disabled Windows automatic restarting. Nothing shows up in the event viewer, either.

The most irritating aspect of this problem is that, even though it is completely random (sometimes I can go for days without a crash), if it happens to me once, it will happen over and over again.

Example: I am playing Battlefield 2. Two hours in, my computer crashes. From that point forward, (maybe six hours or so time) I know it will be useless to try to play any more because it will crash within fifteen to twenty minutes of starting the game again.

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Hi there!

Since you said you reboot. maybe we can try to figure out what is causing this

In safe mode:

Right click MY COMPUTER, choose PROPERTIES, choose ADVANCED, choose the SETTINGS button in the Startup And RECOVERY section, and uncheck AUTOMATICALLY RESTART

Now reboot. This will result in the BSOD error...report the STOP ERROR and any parameters.

[ultimateslacker2]

Hi there!

Since you said you reboot. maybe we can try to figure out what is causing this

In safe mode:

Right click MY COMPUTER, choose PROPERTIES, choose ADVANCED, choose the SETTINGS button in the Startup And RECOVERY section, and uncheck AUTOMATICALLY RESTART

Now reboot. This will result in the BSOD error...report the STOP ERROR and any parameters.

[jittery]

Unfortunately, (as I stated) I have already turned automatic restarting off, and it still just reboots. No error messages. Nothing in the event viewer. Is there anywhere else I could look for information about any kind of device failure? Thanks.



Also, some additional information I forgot to add: I have run this computer both with and without a sound card to the same effect. I highly doubt it is a sound-related issue.

[ultimateslacker2]

I am sorry for not reading through the whole post. That is my fault.

What kind of PSU do you have?

[jittery]

It's the PSU that came in my case (Antec Sonata; one of the earlier models). It's a "True 380s" 380w PSU.

Here is a review article with additional specs:

http://www.silentpcr...le61-page1.html

This problem first erupted when I installed a new Logitech G5 mouse on my system. At first I thought it had something to do with this (maybe the mouse was using more juice than my old wireless and pushing it over the edge), but even with an older trackball and all unneccesary components stripped out it continued. It even happens when games are idle or paused.

[ultimateslacker2]

With the mouse pluuged in, try removing the drivers and reboot.

[jittery]

As I feared, that solved nothing. I really suspect the problem to be my PSU, but I don't have access to anything to test it against right now.

[ultimateslacker2]

Thats what Im suspecting too, but I didnt wanna say it yet as because Antec are really good PSU's, but at the sametime, psu's that come with cases are horrible.

You could buy a Power Supply tester. there very inexpensive.

[jittery]

Well, with a tester everything is fine with the PSU.

[ultimateslacker2]

What games do you play when this happens? Or does it happen when you do not play games as well.

[jittery]

Well, when it first happened it could lock up at any time regardless of what I was doing - even idling on the desktop would sometimes cause this. But it hasn't happened in the last couple of months so I don't think that's an issue any more. What has continued, though, is that it crashes when I'm playing games. Not just intensive ones like Battlefield 2 or Oblivion, either. Warcraft III locks up just as much as they do, as does Silent Storm. Neither of these games are particularly demanding, and my computer locks up at the same rate with them as with newer, more intensive games.

[ultimateslacker2]

Most of these games have a minimum of at least 128mb on their graphics card.

What is your graphics card and how many MB's is on the video card

[jittery]

It's a GeForce 6600GT, made by Gigabyte. It's a 128 meg card. Never had trouble with it, and I've had BF2 since release.

[ultimateslacker2]

Ok heres something we can look at.

Open up your tower case, and look for any bulging or burning capicators. Here is a picture
http://www.tnpcnewsl...close-up-sm.jpg

Also, look for burned out spots on your MOBO.

[jittery]

After checking it over pretty thoroughly, I didn't find anything any bulging capacitors or any other signs of physical damage to my motherboard. My graphics card looks much the same.