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Hey all. My bro has been having problems with a computer I built about 5 years back. After telephone troubleshooting a bit, I had him type up everything he did and tried so I could post it here and ask you guys for a "what should I try next?" (I'm not sure myself, thus I'm asking).
But first things first, releveant computer specs:
AMD TBird 1.33 ghz (told you it was old)
ATI 8500LE (the catalyst drivers have never been nice to this card for me)
MSI K7-Master
2x256 Crucial PC2100 RAM
And I don't think anything else is really important... Thermright SK6 HS, Delta fan, multiple HDs, dvd burner, Antec PSU, Netgear NIC, Turtle Beach sound card, etc.
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I freshly formatted my computer for non-graphic reasons. I noticed that when I was setting up Windows XP SP2, the monitor would sometimes flicker and occassionally crash. After the installion finished, upon entering Windows for the first time, the monitor went into power-saving mode, as if the computer was sending it an off signal. The first time I formatted (I re-installed Windows about 5 times in a 3 day period), I force turned off the computer after the monitor went dark. When I loaded into windows again, the monitor would go dark sometimes. Other times, my monitor would flicker and then the graphics became all weird and the system locked up. Rarely, my computer would last for about a minute or two before it crashed.
The first time I could, I tried installing the latest Omega 2.671 video drivers. It didn't help, and my entire windows would not turn on. After the Windows loading screen, I would not even see the desktop, the monitor would go black, then to power-saving, then the whole system would reboot. I tried entering in safe-mode, but I could not get into it. It would stop with the last line displaying amdagp.sys. I tried leaving it running for a long time, but it didn't help.
I decided to reformat again, and I repeated above, just using the most recent offical ATI drivers (5.10 Catalyst). Same problems, system locks up, and I crashed. The third time, I retried the Omega drivers, and for some reason, the computer seemed stable (after a lot of random rebooting).
To quickly test graphics, I went into dxdiag, and saw AGP texture acceleration enabled. Before format, this wasn't available, so I thought it was an upgrade. Eventually, after some installing of some software, windows updates, and many reboots, my system reverted back to not being able to enter windows or safe mode (therefore unable to remove drivers since I don't know how to manually remove them). Format again.
Fourth time, before installing windows, I disconnected everything unneeded n the case (ie. 2nd cd drive, 2nd hard drive, sound card, ethernet cards). Then i installed windows. Seemed to be pretty stable. Turned off, plugged some stuff in, would crash sometimes, othertimes kept on going. However, I could detect no pattern to the crashing. I spent several hours with many different hardware configurations.
I doubt it was a hardware problem. Don't remember what, but couldn't enter windows again.
5th format: put in all my parts and I left my computer runnign after the setup of windows (usually where i crash for the first time) with my monitor off. 8 hours later, when I turn monitor on, it's in power-saving appearance, so i thought it crashed. I turn it back on, and it seems pretty stable. I do a dxdiag, then a 3dmark 2001 test (just to test video stability, not for benchmarking) and it seemed stable. Only thing is that the 3dmark seemed to run a bit slow between changing tests, but I don't think that that's important. Rebooted several times to test if it would turn on each time, and it did. So, using basic Windows drivers. Lasted for 2 days. Crashed in the afternoon while playing Guild Wars, monitor turned off, but could still hear music playing. turned back on though. 12 hours later, crashed in the middle of writing a paper, with no other progs running, and 2 more times, in the next 30 min. Now in safe mode.
Can't seem to figure out the general trend or where the problem could be... any suggetsions, please?!
But first things first, releveant computer specs:
AMD TBird 1.33 ghz (told you it was old)
ATI 8500LE (the catalyst drivers have never been nice to this card for me)
MSI K7-Master
2x256 Crucial PC2100 RAM
And I don't think anything else is really important... Thermright SK6 HS, Delta fan, multiple HDs, dvd burner, Antec PSU, Netgear NIC, Turtle Beach sound card, etc.
------
I freshly formatted my computer for non-graphic reasons. I noticed that when I was setting up Windows XP SP2, the monitor would sometimes flicker and occassionally crash. After the installion finished, upon entering Windows for the first time, the monitor went into power-saving mode, as if the computer was sending it an off signal. The first time I formatted (I re-installed Windows about 5 times in a 3 day period), I force turned off the computer after the monitor went dark. When I loaded into windows again, the monitor would go dark sometimes. Other times, my monitor would flicker and then the graphics became all weird and the system locked up. Rarely, my computer would last for about a minute or two before it crashed.
The first time I could, I tried installing the latest Omega 2.671 video drivers. It didn't help, and my entire windows would not turn on. After the Windows loading screen, I would not even see the desktop, the monitor would go black, then to power-saving, then the whole system would reboot. I tried entering in safe-mode, but I could not get into it. It would stop with the last line displaying amdagp.sys. I tried leaving it running for a long time, but it didn't help.
I decided to reformat again, and I repeated above, just using the most recent offical ATI drivers (5.10 Catalyst). Same problems, system locks up, and I crashed. The third time, I retried the Omega drivers, and for some reason, the computer seemed stable (after a lot of random rebooting).
To quickly test graphics, I went into dxdiag, and saw AGP texture acceleration enabled. Before format, this wasn't available, so I thought it was an upgrade. Eventually, after some installing of some software, windows updates, and many reboots, my system reverted back to not being able to enter windows or safe mode (therefore unable to remove drivers since I don't know how to manually remove them). Format again.
Fourth time, before installing windows, I disconnected everything unneeded n the case (ie. 2nd cd drive, 2nd hard drive, sound card, ethernet cards). Then i installed windows. Seemed to be pretty stable. Turned off, plugged some stuff in, would crash sometimes, othertimes kept on going. However, I could detect no pattern to the crashing. I spent several hours with many different hardware configurations.
I doubt it was a hardware problem. Don't remember what, but couldn't enter windows again.
5th format: put in all my parts and I left my computer runnign after the setup of windows (usually where i crash for the first time) with my monitor off. 8 hours later, when I turn monitor on, it's in power-saving appearance, so i thought it crashed. I turn it back on, and it seems pretty stable. I do a dxdiag, then a 3dmark 2001 test (just to test video stability, not for benchmarking) and it seemed stable. Only thing is that the 3dmark seemed to run a bit slow between changing tests, but I don't think that that's important. Rebooted several times to test if it would turn on each time, and it did. So, using basic Windows drivers. Lasted for 2 days. Crashed in the afternoon while playing Guild Wars, monitor turned off, but could still hear music playing. turned back on though. 12 hours later, crashed in the middle of writing a paper, with no other progs running, and 2 more times, in the next 30 min. Now in safe mode.
Can't seem to figure out the general trend or where the problem could be... any suggetsions, please?!