Stable machine starts crashing

L

Lordy

My baby has started playing up. Current hardware has been stable for months
but now it has started crashing after less than 10 minutes use. All crashes
observed seem video related.

I did recently upgrade Windows XP Nvidia Nforce+GeForce drivers but same
problems also occur when booting into previously stable Mandrake 10.1. So
I suspect hardware related?

1st started when my daughter put in a DVD and it rebooted.
Since then most crashes are preceeded by corrupt video or in one case
Screen1 is locked up but screen2 is working?

One crash occured early on whilst booting into Mandrake.

I've reseated the Video card to no avail.
Also ran memtest (via Knoppix CD), completed 1 pass with no errors.
(took over 30minutes)

Im guessing in order of likely hood the fault is
1. Video Card (about 8 months old)
2. PSU (about 1 month old)
3. Mobo (about 4 months)

I'm gonna try my old Matrox G400 for a while. Any other ideas?

Cheers,
Lord

Spec
PNY GeForce 5700 FX with dual screens
Athlon XP 3000
Dual Boot: Win XP Pro + Mandrake 10.1
1G Crucial DDR 3200
AN7 Nforce2 mobo
Jeantech 450W PSU
2*Seagate 80G HD
Liteon CDR/DVD Combo
Nec 2510 DVDR
Pinnacle WinTV Card
 
L

Lordy

One crash occured early on whilst booting into Mandrake.

I've reseated the Video card to no avail.
Also ran memtest (via Knoppix CD), completed 1 pass with no errors.
(took over 30minutes)

I had it sitting in Lilo boot screen for 10 minutes and it crashed, so I'm
guessing its PSU rather than GPU! Swapped it out for an older PSU and still
going strong after 2 hours. No pretty blue lights on this one though :(

Lordy
 
L

Lee

Lordy said:
I had it sitting in Lilo boot screen for 10 minutes and it crashed, so I'm
guessing its PSU rather than GPU! Swapped it out for an older PSU and still
going strong after 2 hours. No pretty blue lights on this one though :(

Lordy

I've heard nasty things said about the Jeantec PSus, as well as having
seen two of them blow up*
So you may well be right :)

*Blow up is a bit of an exaggeration, bit of a bang and some smoke
really, plus they were loaded to about 75% of their quoted rating so
they were probably overloaded anyway ;)

Lee
 
B

Bob Davis

| 130.133.1.4:
|
| > One crash occured early on whilst booting into Mandrake.
| >
| > I've reseated the Video card to no avail.
| > Also ran memtest (via Knoppix CD), completed 1 pass with no errors.
| > (took over 30minutes)
|
| I had it sitting in Lilo boot screen for 10 minutes and it crashed, so I'm
| guessing its PSU rather than GPU! Swapped it out for an older PSU and
still
| going strong after 2 hours. No pretty blue lights on this one though :(

I hate to sound like a scolding parent, but I think it best to bite the
bullet and buy the best PSU you can afford. I have an Antec Truepower 480w
which gives me peace of mind, and only cost ~$90. Sure, you can buy a
cheapie for $35, but is it worth it?
 
L

Lordy

Bob Davis said:
I hate to sound like a scolding parent, but I think it best to bite
the bullet and buy the best PSU you can afford. I have an Antec
Truepower 480w which gives me peace of mind, and only cost ~$90.
Sure, you can buy a cheapie for $35, but is it worth it?

Jeantech cost a few bob here in the UK! This one was 45UPK (PC World prices
though Could have probably got it for And it was pretty heavy (maybe they
just put some lead weights inside!). I home it was a one off fault because
PC is now running happily on my older 400 Jeantech PSU :)

I'll probably get a Hiper one next.
 
W

w_tom

Both power supplies (if really what they claim to be) are
about twice the size required. And if they cost less, then
what essential functions did they forget to install? Notice
how others acquaint size (wattage) with quality.

The one function that causes strange (intermittent) problems
is power supply. Gets the ubiquitous 3.5 digit multimeter to
confirm power supply integrity. Either PSU will pass or will
fail. Once power supply integrity is established, only then
do we move on to other 'usual' suspects. This is by far the
fastest and most reliable method of confirming power supply
integrity short of using an oscilloscope:
"Computer doesnt start at all" in alt.comp.hardware on 10
Jan 2004 at
http://tinyurl.com/2t69q or
"I think my power supply is dead" in alt.comp.hardware on 5
Feb 2004 at
http://www.tinyurl.com/2musa

Next get the computer manufacturer's comprehensive
diagnostics - that any responsible manufacturer provides for
free. Testing is performed at normal room temperature AND
when heated by a hair dryer on high. High hair dryer
temperature is well below any computer component's max
temperature but can make intermittents detectable. (Too many
naive computer experts solve defective hardware problems with
more fans - because heat tends to make defective hardware more
obvious and fans therefore cure the symptoms.) Your list of
likely suspects (to heat liberally and test) should include
video card, sound card, and memory.

How to detect a minimally acceptable power supply? Provided
with a long list of technical (numerical) specs. Specs so
complex that less than 1% of customers understand them. But
when written claims are provided, then the manufacturer must
be honest so the 1% does not 'blow a whistle'. To sell power
supplies missing essential functions (and to sell a 275 watt
supply claiming to be 400 watts), the manufacturer must avoid
numerical specs. Too many clone power supplies - especially
those hyped by 'more watts' - are missing essential functions.
 
¤

¤jº~¥Á±Ú

After reading all the posts, I have a feeling that it is simply your video
card in question.

A cheap PSU may cause you problem like this, but 95% of PCs in the world are
using cheap PSUs, and most of them do not have this problem, a cheap PSU may
cause problem in long run, but not immediately, except if it is obviously
overloaded, and I don't think you are overloading your PSU.

I had a similar issue a few years ago, finally I bought another brand of
video card and problem stopped, not only a bad video card, but also some
brands/models of video cards and mother boards just don't fit to each other.
I moved the replaced video card to another PC and it worked fine.

ps: I also experience some brand/model of CR-ROMs will not fit into some CD
create/copy software too, just for example.
 

Ask a Question

Want to reply to this thread or ask your own question?

You'll need to choose a username for the site, which only take a couple of moments. After that, you can post your question and our members will help you out.

Ask a Question

Top