Mystery hardware problem....

the system is a A7V333...AthlonXP 1700+....ATI 9600XT...Promise SATA controller card...Seagate SATA 120g HD. A problem has developed recently where intense graphics applications cause the computer to crash..sometimes a BLUE SCREEN... and sometimes a message saying the program has crashed.
We confirmed the video card in another machine and it is ok.
We used the ATI removal tool to get rid of all drivers and then installed the latest drivers.
When cold it will not boot on first try but 2nd or 3rd try will result in a boot up. We ran a memtest program and the ram seems good. I dont know what to try next. Could it be the motherboard?

 

We discovered during the weekend that by reducing the cpu speed from its nominal of 1477Mhz to 1100Mhz that the computer runs stabily.The Futuremark benchmarking program now runs to completion whereas before it could not. The funny part is we have not changed any of the hardware for at least the last 6 months and hthis is only a recent problem. We think it is the motherboard but we don't understand how it might fail in a manner that will allow it to run stabily with the processor speed backed off.

 

Chuck

I had this problem in 1995 when I upgraded to win95. All sorts of problems were stopped when I set the hardware acceleration to 2nd notch or below. A new video adapter fixed the acceleration problem.

 

Hi Chuck_W,

If the machine's been around for a while, it can still be the power supply as Steve R Jones suggests; you've got lots of hardware on it! Try disconnecting some of the things (extra drives) and see if it will be more stable. Consider a larger psu.

 

Agreed, the higher FSB setting will draw more power.

Other things you may want to check:
There may have been incorrect settings made in the BIOS, try resetting the BIOS to "defaults ". Check the temperatures while you are there.
Even though the memtest reports OK, try swapping with another set if you come across some that are compatible or even changing the location of the sticks in the slots.
Clean the connectors of the video card and RAM sticks with a soft pencil eraser, if someone has touched them they could have grease on them.

Does it go OK now in intense graphics? Blue screens always make me concerned about drivers. Could there be any drivers around from the previous video card (I take it that the 9600XT is an upgrade)? Try reinstalling the current version of DirectX.

Matt