Computer Keeps Crashing

[Fishguy]

Hey Everybody,

My friend is having a problem; his computer keeps crashing.
His specs are as follows:
Athlon Thunderbird 1GHz
Tyan Motherboard/VIA KT133 Chipset
384MB SDR
Asus GeForce4 MX440
Sound Blaster Live
WD 20GB HD
HP CDRW
Win XP Pro
..you get the picture

Anyways, he has had this problem for a while now, and just recently has formatted and started fresh, assuming it was just another windows problem. It turns out that he was wrong. Even with no software installed with the exception of windows, his computer is still crashing. We also have reason to believe that it is not a heat problem either, as he runs his computer with the side panel off. I am beginning to think it may be a hardware problem and was wondering if anyone knew if there were any possible hardware conflicts or anything like that. We ran Memtest for about 2 hours and got through about 10 passes with 0 errors, so we don't think it is the RAM either. I was considering swapping out hardware; videocard, sound card, all that one at a time to see if we could discover what is causing the problem that way. Can anyone possibly help?


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Fishguy

 

[ryvitaboy]

Hi....although you have run the memtest, I would still be prone to think its a RAM problem...although there is nothing physically wrong with the RAM, I think it you may have two strips, 1 x 256 and 1 x 128?....take out one of the strips and see how you get on....sometimes RAM doesn't like being mixed, 256 and 128...worth a try though...

 

[rockerfellerz]

Has he done all the "updates" from microsoft? Also, when it crashes, what happens? Does everything just freeze up, or do somethings still work(i.e. mouse pointer moves). Running with the side panel won't fix a heat problem if his cpu fan isn't working properly, it will still overheat. You can check in the bios for how hot it is getting, just enter the bios after it crashes and you are rebooting and there should be an option in there to monitor the system.
I asked about the freeze 'cause it's more likely(imo) to be a hardware issue if it's freezing up. I would also run a surface scan on the hard drive. Some bad clusters could be to blame.

If you're going through Hell...keep going... (Winston Churchill)
RocKeRFelLerZ

 

[Fishguy]

Thanks for the help guys, I will pass this along to my friend.

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Fishguy