Mise
isle of lucy
I recently upgraded my motherboard, CPU, RAM and gfx card, and bought a new power supply to match the upgrade:
ECS L7VTA2 VIA KT400
AMD Sempron 3000+ (@12x166=1992Mhz)
1 x 512 Mb DDR333
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
500w PSU
All the other components (CD, DVD, 2xHDD, floppy) were the same in my old computer (actually I used the gfx card in the old one with no problems).
But I've had problems -- it crashes a lot:
1) Mostly it's just in World of Warcraft (and in places where there is a heavy load on the components, i.e. loading lots of other players and scenery)
2) But it also happened once in another game (i.e. not just world of warcraft)...
3) ...and when browsing the internet (i.e. not just playing games).
What happens in the crash:
1) all the time, the computer doesn't respond to the keyboard, the HDD LED stays off, and the keybord LEDs don't respond.
2) most often, the screen goes blank
3) less often, the monitor goes blank and gives an error: "out of range" and then gives V: and H: refresh rates which are apparently random
4) a few times, the screen doesn't go blank and is just frozen showing whatever it was doing at the crash
5) three or four times, crazy sounds came out of the speakers, like a 56k modem dialing up
Since the keyboard is unresponsive, I have to press the reset button to restart the computer.
Sometimes the crash takes about 5 minutes to manifest, sometimes up to an hour.
I used the same motherboard (with my old CPU and RAM) inside my friend's computer (which I broke) and his works fine.
Things I've tried:
1) Updated drivers (gfx, sound, motherboard), updated windows - no effect
2) reinstalled World of Warcraft - no effect
3) Scandisk, defrag - no effect
4) Flashed bios - no effect
5) With CD, DVD, 2nd hard drive, USB mouse all connected, it takes about 5 minutes to crash in world of warcraft
6) Unplugged CD, DVD, 2nd hard drive, floppy, disabled onboard sound, USB, parallel port - took around 2 hours to crash in world of warcraft
7) Opened up case to let more air in/out (but temp of CPU has never exceeded 45 C)
Things I haven't tried:
1) Different gfx card (can try this with my old gfx card, but it won't tell me if it's a power problem or a gfx problem)
2) Different RAM stick (don't have any others, can't borrow any others, shops won't take them back)
3) different processor (don't have any others)
4) different fan (don't have any others)
5) reinstall windows (don't want to - last resort)
6) different PSU (don't have one)
7) different motherbord (don't have one)
I think it's a power problem. I read on another forum some guy said that he read on another forum that his system (GF6600 GT + Athlon 64 3200, which is obviously more demanding than mine though) needed a better power supply, specifically, his +12v line was only 15A but it needed 25A or something like that. Mine is 17A.
What say ye?
EDIT:
Have now also tried:
8) different graphics card -- no effect.
ECS L7VTA2 VIA KT400
AMD Sempron 3000+ (@12x166=1992Mhz)
1 x 512 Mb DDR333
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
500w PSU
All the other components (CD, DVD, 2xHDD, floppy) were the same in my old computer (actually I used the gfx card in the old one with no problems).
But I've had problems -- it crashes a lot:
1) Mostly it's just in World of Warcraft (and in places where there is a heavy load on the components, i.e. loading lots of other players and scenery)
2) But it also happened once in another game (i.e. not just world of warcraft)...
3) ...and when browsing the internet (i.e. not just playing games).
What happens in the crash:
1) all the time, the computer doesn't respond to the keyboard, the HDD LED stays off, and the keybord LEDs don't respond.
2) most often, the screen goes blank
3) less often, the monitor goes blank and gives an error: "out of range" and then gives V: and H: refresh rates which are apparently random
4) a few times, the screen doesn't go blank and is just frozen showing whatever it was doing at the crash
5) three or four times, crazy sounds came out of the speakers, like a 56k modem dialing up
Since the keyboard is unresponsive, I have to press the reset button to restart the computer.
Sometimes the crash takes about 5 minutes to manifest, sometimes up to an hour.
I used the same motherboard (with my old CPU and RAM) inside my friend's computer (which I broke) and his works fine.
Things I've tried:
1) Updated drivers (gfx, sound, motherboard), updated windows - no effect
2) reinstalled World of Warcraft - no effect
3) Scandisk, defrag - no effect
4) Flashed bios - no effect
5) With CD, DVD, 2nd hard drive, USB mouse all connected, it takes about 5 minutes to crash in world of warcraft
6) Unplugged CD, DVD, 2nd hard drive, floppy, disabled onboard sound, USB, parallel port - took around 2 hours to crash in world of warcraft
7) Opened up case to let more air in/out (but temp of CPU has never exceeded 45 C)
Things I haven't tried:
1) Different gfx card (can try this with my old gfx card, but it won't tell me if it's a power problem or a gfx problem)
2) Different RAM stick (don't have any others, can't borrow any others, shops won't take them back)
3) different processor (don't have any others)
4) different fan (don't have any others)
5) reinstall windows (don't want to - last resort)
6) different PSU (don't have one)
7) different motherbord (don't have one)
I think it's a power problem. I read on another forum some guy said that he read on another forum that his system (GF6600 GT + Athlon 64 3200, which is obviously more demanding than mine though) needed a better power supply, specifically, his +12v line was only 15A but it needed 25A or something like that. Mine is 17A.
What say ye?
EDIT:
Have now also tried:
8) different graphics card -- no effect.
