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General discussion

Windows, crash? Impossible!

Nov 23, 2003 11:00AM PST

Hello all,

I am running win 2000 pro. on my AMD chip (running on an AMI board, GeForce video, 512 DDR SDRAM, 40 gig Seagate drive, and Nec DVD +/- RW). I have been running fine for about 3 years (although the Nec drive is only about 2 months old). Starting about 6 months ago, my machine started to automatically re-boot. Windows would simply go away. Sometimes I get the BSOD, but mostly the machine simply restarts itself. This used to happen about every week or so. Then it became more frequent and now it happens about every 10 minutes. 2 Weeks ago, I wiped the drive clean and reinstalled everything, hoping this would help...no luck. The machine still crashes regulary. What does this sound like? I suspect it's a hardware issue, but where to start? What is the most likely cause? Any info would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Joe.

Discussion is locked

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Here's what I do...
Nov 23, 2003 11:17AM PST

1. BTW, that's a good list to start with. But you didn't reveal the size of the power supply unit (PSU.) On my 1GHz Athlon I didn't see if stabilize until I bumped the PSU up to 400 Watts. Athlons take big gulps of power so the monster size PSU is so it doesn't sag. As the machine ages, the motherboard and PSU capacitors (which do age) add to this issue.

2. Heat.

To sniff out if it's heat, just pull off the case cover and point a small fan at the machine internals. What they don't tell you is that the CPU fan pushes air through the heatsink and builds up a layer of insulating material. For now, the case cover off can reveal if you want to go cleaning up the heatsinks and seeing if all fans work at top speed.

3. Pulling back on the clocks.
Often I can stabilize a machine like this one by reducing the FSB from 266 to 200 or 133 to 100MHz and setting the AGP to 1X. This may sound terrible, but sure beats a crash.

4. Eject the pests.
I note five scans in the Anti-Parasite Suite at http://reviews.cnet.com/5208-6132-0.html?forumID=32&threadID=1313&start=0 Sometimes the pests are the issue.

Bob

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Re:Here's what I do...
Nov 30, 2003 12:10PM PST

Bob,

Thanks a million. It turned out to be a blown fan on my video card. I pulled the cover off and discovered that the fan that sits on my GeForce card had stopped turning. Apparently, if the chip gets too hot, it tries to cool itself down by rebooting the machine. I was able to pick up a new fan at a local shop for about 6 bucks and it works great.

By the way, before I replaced the fan, I was able to run perfectly (although slower) by taking your suggestion to slow down the CPU.

According to the guys at the shop, my 300 watt PSU should be sufficient to run my 1.2 gig AMD chip, two cd drives, hard drive, extra cards, usb attachments, and more. However, I don't doubt what you said about motherboards and PSU capacitors aging and the potential for problems.

Thanks again, and hopefully this information will be able to help someone else out too.

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300 Watt should be enough. If it was 300 Watt.
Nov 30, 2003 8:53PM PST

I dare you to take that 300 Watt PSU and actually place a 300 Watt load on it. The five (or more) units we tried that on simply expired in many ways. Many would work for a few minutes then a puff of smoke and it was over. One set itself on fire (output went from electrical output to ...) and another did an impression of an old Star Trek control panel under Klingon attack.

If you want to go back to full speed, consider that under 20 dollar 450 Watt PSUs can help your cause.

Bob