Wacky vid card, Quacky mobo?

[DreamThrall]

Okay so here's the story...

Started off with a Dell Precision 330 1.3 ghz P4... Added NVidia 440MX. No problem. After I one time I reinstalled windows, I started having weird problems where sometimes the computer would crash while I was playing a game or a DVD, or doing something else that required processing power from the video card. The sound card would loop the same 1/2 second segment of whatever sound was playing at the time of the crash, and the screen would completely freeze. It would stay like this until I did a hard reset.

A few months ago, I changed out the motherboard and processor for a Gigabyte 7N400 Pro with the Nvidia nForce2 ultra 400 chipset, AMD Athlon XP 2800+ and 512MB PC 2700 ram. I didn't reinstall Windows2k, as I didn't encounter any problems at all.

A few weeks ago, I added another 512 mb PC2700 ram, and as soon as I booted up, I got a BSOD error. I thought this was odd as the RAM was the same type... the only thing that was different was how the chips were set up... I don't really know too much about ram, but the new one was 64x64, and the old one was 16x8x8 or something like that... Anyways, I put the new one in the first slot and the old one in the second, and that seemed to fix it... but not until I did a reinstallation of windows....

So now, my computer is set up like this:
Gigabyte 7N400 pro/nForce2 u400 chipset
AMD Athlon XP 2800+
1GB PC2700 ram
Nvidia GeForce4 440MX 128mb
freshly installed copy of win2k pro

I don't remember if I put all the mobo utilities on before, but I've installed them now. I think they might be the reason for the "quacking" noise I get occasionally. I think it might be something to do with the heat sensor, as whenever it happens the CPU temp is over 65 C... is that too hot for when I'm gaming?

I still get the weird random crashes during gaming too. Any ideas? Thanks!

 

[dawdler]

65C sounds very hot indeed. My 2400+ even at high loads run at around 40-45, and that is also fairly hot. I am not familiar with the 2800+ heat specs, maybe someone else know.

Also you can check your bios for the warning temperature setting. I wouldnt advise taking it off though, preferably you need to lower the temp somehow.

 

[RandomPING]

A lot of motherboards have anti-burn technology that'll shut down the system when it get's too hot, maybe that's what you're dealing with. 65C is definately running pretty hot. Or maybe it's just too hot and the processor is erroring out. When a processor gets too hot it experiences stability issues.

It may be a weird mobo or video card, but usally when you run a game or something that'll heat your system up a lot, i know my system used to heat up 25C and would reach 60C before i got my new case, and whenever i'd play a last generation game, and i'd start to get some stability issues after about an hour.

Keep in mind that heat *may* be ok for your processor, but it might be heating up your system too hot for other parts of the computer. I believe the mobo has a lower tollerence for heat then the processor.

So my recomendation is try to look at your case cooling, and fixing any problems there before you start looking at the hardware or software.

 

[oD1Nz]

Try Memtest86.

I've also looked up the max temperature for a Barton cored XP 2800+. Apparently, you can go up to 85ºC before any damage results. You could always just buy a new HSF if you don't like the temperatures too high.

 

[DreamThrall]

I've got 4 80mm "stealth" fans... 2 in front by the HDDs and 2 in back... i only have RPM sensor on one, and it reads at 2200 rpm, so I'm assuming the others will be running the same. is that enough for a medium tower case, or do i need to post more info? if i choose to buy a new HSF, is there anything specific i should look for? also, how hard is it to replace it?

Thanks for the help so far folks

 

[DreamThrall]

bump? any recommendations?