[Tony0783]

My pc locks up after 1-3 minutes. The screen will freeze and i have to reboot but if i reboot too soon i will have a blank display on my monitor and something inside the tower wont kick in (i can tell by the noise) so i have to wait a few minutes. I've had this problem before and it stopped for no apparent reason but always starts acting up again. Sometimes instead of locking up my monitor will tell me there is no signal even though the pc is still running. Sounds like a hardware problem to me but being the noob I am can't pinpoint what. Plz someone help me. Amd athlon 64 dual core 2.6 ghz? - 2g ram - nvidia geforce 7950gt My pc is at least 5 years old. Some of my IDE plugs on motherboard don't work anymore and nforce Ethernet on mb also went out so installed standalone a while back for that. Sorry if this post looks pathetic as I am posting this from an iPhone. Any help would be much appreciated.

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It might be due to a faulty Graphic card, an overheating card, bad drivers or corrupted drivers.

Did you look inside to see if your card fan is turning properly, is it dusty or dirty, does it seem to be turning freely.

Also you can try resetting your 7950gt in its place and if your motherboard has the option of SLI try the other PCI-Express slot.

Could also be your motherboard that is tired since as you stated you already have components on it (ide connectors, ethernet) not working.

[Alzeimer]

It might be due to a faulty Graphic card, an overheating card, bad drivers or corrupted drivers.

Did you look inside to see if your card fan is turning properly, is it dusty or dirty, does it seem to be turning freely.

Also you can try resetting your 7950gt in its place and if your motherboard has the option of SLI try the other PCI-Express slot.

Could also be your motherboard that is tired since as you stated you already have components on it (ide connectors, ethernet) not working.

[phillpower2]

Hi Tony0783
If I can just add to what Alzeimer has suggested, I suspect this could also be a Ram or Ram slot issue, see the text I prepared earlier
If the computer needs cleaning out, first remove the power cord from the wall and open up the case, take anti static precautions before touching anything inside, you can do this by touching a bare metal part of the case, remove the video card, blow out the slot and re-seat the card securely, do the same with the memory sticks, clean all internal fans, if you use canned compressed air do not let any fan spin freely this can damage them, use something like a clean lollipop stick to hold the fan.
Make sure all internal connections are secure and that there are no loose components, write down the psu details (make and model-post the info with your next reply) re-assemble the computer, boot up and see how it goes.

[Tony0783]

Ok guys thank you both for your replies. I am now posting this from my PC. I was short on time so I took the graphics card out and cleaned it off as well as the pci slot, psu fan, and 2 pc cooling fans. I do have SLI but was having trouble getting it to fit in the other slot since fan speed control knob wires are sort of in the way. Sorry I am lazy. I forgot to mention earlier that I also have a liquid cooling system and my PSU is an NZXT PP500 which can be found here apparently no longer sold. I used a qtip to help clean the fans and hold them which were almost too dusty for compressed air to clean off.

One more question. I want to update my graphics card soon and was wondering if this psu will be able to handle the extra load? I have 2 dvd burners, a dvd player(can do without the dvd player obviously), multi-card reader, and flourescent lights? lining tower as well as everything else you already know about.

Thanks again and any other feedback would be much appreciated still. So far so good. I will post here if any related problems arise.

[phillpower2]

Happy to hear you seem to have made some progress lets hope it remains positive.
Not sure about the psu it has mixed reviews (mainly regarding the mail in rebate to be fair).
Before upgrading your video card I would suggest taking a look at your MB namely the IDE
connections, you may upgrade your gfx card and the MB packs in on you.
Post your MB details, manufacturer name and model number including the rev number if it has
one, we may be able to resolve the IDE issues for you.

[Tony0783]

Awesome. Well I ran Belarc Advisor and here is what it says:

Board: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. GA-M55SLI-S4
Bus Clock: 200 megahertz
BIOS: Award Software International, Inc. F4 07/18/2006

Rev 1 listed on bottom left corner of MB.

So I am assuming it is this one? It definately looks similar, but I am sure that mine doesn't have a fan located here.



And looks more like this.



There are slight differences. Mine says made in Taiwan where it looks like the fan version was made in China. Not sure if this is enough information for you but this has kind of confused me. I am kind of curious about the difference myself.

[phillpower2]

Found your MB manual here http://be.giga-byte....al&FileID=17329
You say "Some of my IDE plugs on motherboard don't work anymore" your MB only has 2! do you mean Sata ports?
It is possible the ports simply need enabling in the BIOS, you can find how to do this in your MB manual but if you require assistance let us know.
Your MB has 4 Sata ports so unless you had an IDE DVD/CD or HDD you wanted to use for media playing/data storage stick with the Sata option they are the faster option.
Let us know if you have a potential gfx card in mind and what applications you intend using it for and we can make some recommendations for you.

[Tony0783]

I'm sorry I meant one didn't work and I switched the DVD burner to the other which worked fine. Maybe it needs the old compressed air treatment? Everything else I am using sata with.

As far as the graphics card goes I am just going for something cheap that will be able to handle diablo 3 with decent settings when it comes out and maybe the witcher 2. I'm thinking about waiting until diablo 3 is closer to release so I can get a better card for the price so I'm not exactly sure how long that will be.

Thanks again!

[Tony0783]

When I say cheap I mean hopefully under $200. If I can find one good enough to run said games at fairly high settings.

[phillpower2]

Here are a couple of suggestions for you to look at,
If you decide to upgrade your psu http://www.newegg.co...st=Combo.492782
Card only http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814125341 I picked this card because of the HDMI socket,the review ratings and it is Sli ready, worth the slight drop in speed, I think so anyhow pair it with this psu http://www.newegg.co...N82E16817139004 and you are still under $200!
Again I picked the psu because of its reviews and the fact that it is a Corsair, the next best for the price was a 600W OCZ which had 4 eggs and as the Corsair will fit your requirements for now I went with that.
I hope you find this info helpful and that it gives you some ideas when you are ready to upgrade and as ever if you require any assistance in the future someone at GTG will be happy to help.