possible agp/video card problem?

[noct3rn4l]

about a month ago i got a BFG 6800 Ultra OC , upgraded from my old Geforce3, anyway since then ive had serious problems (mind u my computer is not as old as the G3). Everytime my computer is left off and i turn it on the next day windows xp pro will start up and then immediatly blue screen and restart and then the same will happen about 6-7 more times sometimes it bluescreens for a second, others it just immediatly reboots... Finally when i get into windows if i do as much as open AIM i sometimes reboot. its rediculous and very annoying. I used to be able to play CS 1.6 for a good amount of time before the game would randomly close.. now i cant play for more than 20 seconds before the game simply doesnt close... my computer restarts...

My computer specs are as follows: AMD XP 2600+ @ 2.24ghz been running that for the past year so i dont see how that would be the problem, a new WD 80gb 8mb cache, Leadtek K7NCR18D motherboard, 512 samsung pc3200 ram. and of course a Tornado on the cpu (noticed recently though that cpu has been around 47c a bit high for this much air i think) and 6 other case fans. My system was being powered by a 430w enermax but i bought a 600w 3 weeks ago hoping to fix my problem thinking that maybe i was just underpowering the card, but it Didnt fix a thing. I ran Memtest and within 5 minutes i had 2 errors on test 5, then it froze with a total of 4 errors after 4 hours. So i bought a brand new stick of Corsair XMS 512 which got here today and of course, problem still exists. I called BFG and after about 45 mins of troubleshooting they just gave me an RMA number and told me to send it in which i was going to do today but when i thru in the spare radeon 7000... i was still having the same problems (rebooting, etc , freezing in cs1.6) .. im actually quite broke right now or else id be running a fx system but help me out if possible would i be able to take this processor out and put it on a dif mobo? If the problem is indeed the mobo set me up with a good one for OCing? Also, could it be IRQs ? Both the video card and my NIC are on IRQ19.. what do you guys think/suggest?

 

[legcramp]

disable fastwrites and see if anything is overheating

 

[Scali]

First thing you should do is run your system at stock speeds, ofcourse.
If it's still unstable then, the motherboard is probably broken (could also be the CPU, but afaik CPUs generally die completely or just work, this sounds more like broken capacitors or something like that). If you're getting errors in memtest (also with the new memory?), then the problem is most probably not related to the videocard, since it has no effect on memtest.
You could also remove or disable the nic, to make sure that won't influence anything either.
But my guess is the motherboard... Finding a replacement Socket A motherboard shouldn't be that much of a problem though. My brand of choice has been MSI for the past few years. I'd suggest something with an NVIDIA chipset, seems to be better quality than VIA/SiS.

 

[UncleMacro]

I ran Memtest and within 5 minutes i had 2 errors on test 5, then it froze with a total of 4 errors after 4 hours. So i bought a brand new stick of Corsair XMS 512 which got here today and of course, problem still exists.

So you're saying that it passes MemTest86 with the new Corsair? There's no point in messing with video boards until you can get the machine to pass MemTest86 and the Prime95 blend test overnight. By the way, did you try slowing your AGP from 8X down to 4X and disable fast writes (instructions here)?

Edit:

and of course a Tornado on the cpu (noticed recently though that cpu has been around 47c a bit high for this much air i think) and 6 other case fans

Jeez! That thing come with earplugs?

 

[noct3rn4l]

what MSI do you recommend if i stick with socket a? What if i were to want an A64 =)

 

[noct3rn4l]

Well after Going back to normal clock speeds and disabling AGP Fast Writes in BIOS the radeon 7000 was running without crashing which is very good. Going to try for a bit longer and then im going to try the 6800 ultra again. What exactly does Fast Writes Do? By disabling it am i losing significant performance?

 

[Scali]

Well after Going back to normal clock speeds and disabling AGP Fast Writes in BIOS the radeon 7000 was running without crashing which is very good. Going to try for a bit longer and then im going to try the 6800 ultra again. What exactly does Fast Writes Do? By disabling it am i losing significant performance?

Fast writes accelerate writing to the videomemory with the CPU (via the AGP port).
See also here: http://www.nvidia.com/object/Technical_Brief_AGP_4X.html

In theory this makes quite a difference, but in practice there is not a whole lot of AGP traffic going on (Doom3 being an exception), so the overall impact of fast writes on performance is barely noticeable. So if fast writes are causing a problem, just turn them off and don't worry about performance, it will only matter a few % at most, nothing significant.