[kingtaz]

hi ruthandtroy. thanks for adding your insight to this thread.

as you say i need a new PSU, what kind do you suggest? what are the good ones out there?

Also, what i dont understand is that when i got my PC (over 4 years ago now) i never had these problems and the power supply was still the same power supply. So whats changed? I have the same monitor, same speakers, same keyboard and mouse, same cable modem. All i ve changed is adding another 512Mb of ram, bought a new printer to replace my old one (this one is a laser USB one, whereas the older one was connected via a printer cable and was inkjet) and replace my CD RW with a DVD RW. Surely those additions cant now render the power supply incapable of powering my PC?

With regard to the motherboard, again what kind do you suggest? what are good suitable ones out there?

With regard to Radeon 9550, mine is not sapphire whatever that is. it is Connect 3d. i have the 7.7 update. When you say its 'an old card that also isn't particularly great at all' are you refferring to my 9550 or yours?

The only reason i got this 9550 was so i could get my pc displayed on my TV as well to watch videos etc on my larger TV screen. My old graphics card ( a GeForce one ) was not causing any problems at all and ive still kept it safe. Do you suggest taking out the ATI 9550 one and putting the GeForce one back in? its only a 64Mb card tho compared to the 256mb of the 9550. is it worth my while?

I wouldnt buy parts off ebay unless they were new and sealed and from reputable buyers. im fairly experienced on aebay anyway so know what to avoid and what not to. I only mentioned it to sell the 9550, if its was indeed this that was causing me problems.

Thanks for your insight. Please respond to my questions if you have the time as it would be greatyl appreciated.




many thanks

kingtaz

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Good brand names include Thermaltake, Silverstone, and a few others. If you have a look at the link in james8990's signature, he is the one to talk to about PSU's.

Over time, things get old and degrade. The additions/replacements you have made probably wouldn't make a difference to your PSU, but if it's just a generic one to begin with... (and now it's 4 years old...) Your motherboard most probably didn't have leaking capacitors when you bought it new, but they're leaking now, so that's an example of one thing that has changed...

ASUS and Gigabyte make good motherboards, as do EVGA, MSI, ABIT, and a few other brands like such.

The Radeon 9550 in general is a pretty average card, it's not that great for gaming. Sapphire is just a different company from the Connect 3D one you have. It would be fine for connecting to your TV, that is one of the card's better points. If you have an NVIDIA card that is good lying around, I would swap it just to test out the whole drivers issue.

In the instance of eBay, fair enough then, but I often find a local shop will give me a similar deal, so then I don't have to worry about postage issues in the event of warranty failure etc...

Cheers

[Troy]

Good brand names include Thermaltake, Silverstone, and a few others. If you have a look at the link in james8990's signature, he is the one to talk to about PSU's.

Over time, things get old and degrade. The additions/replacements you have made probably wouldn't make a difference to your PSU, but if it's just a generic one to begin with... (and now it's 4 years old...) Your motherboard most probably didn't have leaking capacitors when you bought it new, but they're leaking now, so that's an example of one thing that has changed...

ASUS and Gigabyte make good motherboards, as do EVGA, MSI, ABIT, and a few other brands like such.

The Radeon 9550 in general is a pretty average card, it's not that great for gaming. Sapphire is just a different company from the Connect 3D one you have. It would be fine for connecting to your TV, that is one of the card's better points. If you have an NVIDIA card that is good lying around, I would swap it just to test out the whole drivers issue.

In the instance of eBay, fair enough then, but I often find a local shop will give me a similar deal, so then I don't have to worry about postage issues in the event of warranty failure etc...

Cheers

[kingtaz]

thanks

i no longer use the tv connection to my pc anyway so i think i may try and replace the 9550 with the geforce one and see how things go. i only play one game (football manager 2007) and that worked with the geforce one so shouldnt be a problem.

how much in general would a good PSU and a good motherboard (one that gives me good optiond for upgrading in the future) be?

i have Pc2100 RAM memory and that seems to be one of the dearest to buy. is this due to my motherboard and if i got a new one would i be able to get one that allowed for a different type of RAM memory (and preferably chaper) to be installed?

thanks

kingtaz

[Troy]

Yes, if you were to buy another motherboard now (a new one) you would get one that supports DDR2, so your PC2100 (DDR) is not even compatible on this board. The good news is DDR2 is much faster...

I can't really give you a price range because I'm in Australia, you would have to get someone from your local country who would know about this to comment on prices. Maybe you could give me a link to an online computer parts store in your country? Samm, you still watching this thread?

[Samm]

Hi guys

Apologies for the delay in replying but I've been having problems with my own system randomly crashing now & am having to use my laptop instead

I think changing back to the Nvidia card is good idea as at least it should allow you to determine for sure if the video card is the problem.
I have to say, I am inclined to agree with ruthandtroy here - components do degrade over time, including power supplies, motherboards, drives etc. One thing I would point out though in regards to a replacement motherboard & the type of memory it uses - you need to consider if you want to upgrade your cpu at the same time. If you don't then you are restricted to buying a socket A board and no socket A boards will use DDR2. They will use the same memory that you have now although it's worth mentioning that on the whole, you should be able to use PC2100, PC2700 or PC3200 in the board.

If you do wish to upgrade the cpu then that's a different matter altogether...

Your best bet for cheap components in the UK is an online supplier such as Ebuyer, Eclipse Computers, MicroDirect, Novatech, to name but a few.
As for brands of motherboard, I would recommend Asrock, Abit, MSI, Asus, DFI. I would also recommend you stay away from brands such as Elite (ECS), pc chips, Biostar.
I strongly advise you buy a full size ATX rather than a micro ATX (mATX) board, unless you have a tiny computer case that will only take a mATX board (highly unlikely).

The other important thing to consider when buying a motherboard, apart from upgradability etc, is the chipset but we can discuss this nearer the time.

[kingtaz]

hi. i changed the graphics card back to the nvidia one. things looked fine yesterday but the system has crashed twice today already (ironically when reading this thread!!)

However, looking at the event logs, it is not a CRT error which is the cause. the only error in todays log is a 'dhcp' one with the message ' the ip address lease for network card **** with network address **** has been denied by the DHCP server 0.0.0.0. The DHCP server sent a DHCPNACK message.

the only other 2 pieces of information were 'warnings', both cdrom with the message 'an error was detected on device \device\Cdrom1 during a paging operation

as they were not CRT errors of ati2mag what can you conclude from that? and the fact that the system crashed twice without the ati card does that mean its 100% not the video card?

thanks

kingtaz

[Samm]

I agree, looks like it's probably not the video card then!
Did you try running it in safe mode like I suggested earlier?

[kingtaz]

havent run it in safe mode yet. ill do that for tommorrow and monday and see how it goes.

just out of curiosity, if i were to buy a good new motherboard, new ram memory (at least 1GB), new good cpu and new good power supply, all of a pretty good standard for now and for the future, how much would i be talking about? i figure it would be a fair amount but i want to know if it is worthwhile doing so or just buying a new pc.

cheers

[Samm]

If you use an online supplier then you're looking at approx :

motherboard £40 -50

1GB DDR2 £30

cpu - this will vary but you can buy, for example, an Athlon 64bit (AM2 socket) for around £50. This won't be the fastest on the market but it's better than a AMD Sempron & faster then the one you have at the moment. If you went for an Intel chip, then avoid Celerons. Pentium 4's (LGA775 socket) start at around £50. If you buy an OEM cpu (as opposed to a retail one) then you'll need a heatsink & fan as well (approx £7-£10).

PSU - I would normally say around £50 upwards for a decent one but at the moment Ebuyer have an Antec 500W modular PSU for £30 inc VAT which is a bargain!

Bare in mind also, that the latest video card standard is PCI-E. You may be able to find a motherboard that still supports AGP but it's unlikely. Apart from which, if you want a board which is going to be upgradeable then you really need PCI-E. This means buying a PCI-E video card as well. These start at around £20 - £25 for 128MB card.

[The Skeptic]

If I may: I didn't read the entire thread but my impression, from the beginning, is that the problem is related to corrupted windows files as a result of the malware infection. This is a common problem: the bugs are gone but the damage is already done.

Before spending any money on hardware I would perform at least a windows repair (a link in my signature) or re-reformat and clean install of the operating system.

[Essexboy]

The malware was very minor, not enough in my opinion to cause this. From the onset I was thinking hardware problems. The files I removed were dormant, just two I think, I would need to check to be sure

[The Skeptic]

I can't see how the problem with the active desktop can be related to hardware.

[Troy]

Even still, The Skeptic's point still remains - not that there's malware on the system, but that the XP installation could be in need of repair. kingtaz: Have you tried a complete, fresh install of windows to try and fix this problem? If not, I would do that first before trying anything else. If you have, then let us know when.

[kingtaz]

Samm, so it looks like i would prob be paying at least £200-250 on just upgrading everything? not sure if its really worth the cost. how much would a new pc of similar spec to the hardware you mentioned there cost roughly?

ruthandtroy, when i had the active desktop problems last year i completely formatted my hard drive and performed a fresh install of windows and it still remained ( or came back, not too sure if it was as evident as it was before the re-installation though). The crashing wasnt a problem then as far as i can remember but i assumed that by reinstalling windows would fix the problem but clearly it didnt so the problem could well be hardware wear and tear (im guessing)

The Skeptic, thanks for adding to the thread, ill give the repair thing a try and see how that goes.

thanks

kingtaz

[kingtaz]

hi there. i did the xp repair and the problem still remains. seems to actually have got slightly worse. when i tried to start the computer, nothing happened and all i could hear was the pc making repated beeping noises of about 3 seconds long each and it would not start up.

furthermore, when i recently tried to start it up, the message 'cpu settings have changed. please change the CMOS settings' (or words to that effect) came up on screen and i have to enter the bios menu and i just cliked the cmos settings to 'restore to defaults' why do you think this has happened?

Samm, i ran the computer earlier in safe mode for a while and things were fine. no crashes when it was on. i couldnt use the internet though so was pretty restricted in using safe mode as i couldnt really do too much. is there any way of using the internet in safe mode? seeing as it never crashed in safe mode, what can you conclude from this?

anyone elses help will be greatly appreciated also.

many thanks

kingtaz