:( computer not happy :(

[Paddy]

My mate has just thrown together a computer and it is giving him loads of problems.

spec:
Asus A7V333, on board audio
XP1800
Radeon 8500 LE
40GB maxtor
all hardware is new
and that's about it really...
running XP

His computer kept rebooting, so I flashed the mobo BIOS with the latest version, installed the latest drivers from the asus website.
Used the 6166 catalyst drivers for the radeon

I have installed SP1 and completed all of the updates.

I have painstakingly rebuilt this a number of times. The computer reboots after playing a game for a random period of time ~15mins. I threw the heaviest game i had with me on, serious sam 2, set everything to the max and it ran fine... I didn't really play it for long though.

Outside of a gaming environment, it seems stable. It will reboot if the USB cable for the cable modem is removed... but other than that , it's fine.

I have no error messages, event log is fine. No BSODs, just 'blank screen, clunk of the drive, bios'

Any ideas???

[Paddy]

I have noticed that the 12V line is running at ~12.8v...

[Dogbert]

Why don't you try running it with W2k sp2 to see if there's any difference ?

[Paddy]

Because he's bought XP!

[Dogbert]

What ?!?!?!?! He actually paid for it !?
Sheesh...!!!

[Sasq]

Hmm just out of interest, maybe run prime95 or something in the heavy numbercrunching area for a while and see if it reboots.

Sounds more like the CPU or Vid card is getting to hot and causeing a hard reset. (so check the HSF is really on corectly etc)
That and bad memory have been the cause of any problems I've had like that.

Dan

[THE_Editor]

Have you put enough thermal grease underneath the cpu Heatsink ?

... dont trust the sticker thingy.

[Dogbert]

Nice avater... The human torch !

[High_Jumbllama]

I had a similar problem with my Asus K7-M motherboard when I first got it. Try disabling something called super bypass in the BIOS and make sure that your AGP drivers are correct and up to date.

[lecter]

It might also be a PSU problem, your hardware sucks quite a bit of power, try running it with a different PSU and see what happens.

[K6-III]

Originally posted by High_Jumbllama
I had a similar problem with my Asus K7-M motherboard when I first got it. Try disabling something called super bypass in the BIOS and make sure that your AGP drivers are correct and up to date.

SuperBypass is only found on AMD-chipset boards. It is a feature AMD introduced for lower latency and higher bandwidth. On earlier revisions of the AMD751 it caused crashing. Was fixed in later revisions. Superbypass works perfect on my old AMD761-powered Epox 8K7A (now my parents' board)....

[luni]

Are you sure the heatsink is mounted properly? Also try running different OS, maybe even WXP without SP1. Try replacing memory stick with some other, also look at PSU.

Problem is there are so many potential causes for this problem its not even funy

[K6-III]

Turn off the audio and run at a bare minimum: PSU, stick of ram, vidcard, HD, CPU/cooling....

Run memtest86 to test for defective memory.....

Try running outside the case to check for grounding...

I'm personally thinking its the PSU or a defective board....

Oh yeah, make sure the vidcard is inserted all the way....

[DirtFarmer]

Sounds like hardware to me. It could be Thermal (as suggested by Sasq) . It may be time to start swapping some pieces (if you got) starting with PSU (as lector suggested), then RAM, Video.

Sometimes it's hard to nail down without swapping out the pieces. I've seen many computer pass extensive diagnostic testing and still have issues in Windows 2K/XP. It often comes down to a weak component.

[Paddy]

Thanks, its pretty much what i thought.

I just wanted to make sure i wasn't missing something obvious before i start demolishing my rig.