having computer troubles, help me out

[drjonas0]

alright heres the deal
my computer has basically been slowly degrading in performance, here are my specs:
RaidMax 400w PSU
Abit AN7
Barton XP 3000+
Mushkin PC2100 512mb
Geforce 3 ti200
Norcent 52x cd burner
Emprex 8x dvd burner
Maxtor 10gb hdd (c: operating system)
Maxtor 120gb hdd (d: 20gb backup partition)(e: 100gb eveything else)
XP Pro

so basically... none of my games run. ive updated to SP2 and made sure i got the most recent nvidia drivers and made sure i have the latest patches for the games. some games crash to desktop with no error (and nothing in event viewer), some games crash to desktop with errors and some just totally restart the computer. ive even tried older games that i KNEW worked on my computer but that ive uninstalled. i recently just formatted c: and re-installed everything but left the 120 intact still and even after the format, the same things are happening, so basically i dont know wtf is going on with my comp. im thinking it could be the video card and its drivers and all the compatability issues and everything, i know i need new ram but i dont think that could be the problem. My brother thinks that completly formating both hdds and totally starting from scratch, but i dont know what that will do (btw i have tried installing the games on both hdds and it crashes when im running it on either of them). but other than that my system is totally stable... so if anyone has any ideas please... gimme some help
thanks

 

[BillLeeLee]

1.) How are temps?
2.) Tried a different power supply?
3.) Memtest86 your memory. http://www.memtest86.com/
4.) Disable automatic restarts so if you get a BSOD, you get to see it.

 

[Philip]

Maxtor 10gb hdd (c: operating system)

LOL do you know how old and slow that HDD is that you have the OS installed on. I would run the mfg's diagonstic disk and see if that drive has any problems.

If it checks out good I would still replace it with something faster. Your OS should be on the fastest drive you have in the computer. Not the slowest drive.

 

[The[H]uman]

I agree with both and also you saying that you know you need new memory .. memory is one of the leading causes of OS crashing so I would also start there with memortest for atleast 6 + hours

 

[drjonas0]

alright, cool, ill give some of that shit a try when i get home, thanks for the help