Totally Screwed. Need any help I can get.

[OmnipotentKiwi]

Alright guys, normally I don't ask for help but this problem has me totally confused w/o anymore ideas, so:

Symptoms:
Random Program crashes: Various programs will become non-responsive and close for no apparent reason.
High Load Tolerance: When any kind of high load occurs, the computer restarts itself.
Shut Down/Restart: Whenever shutting down or restarting, the computer will often hang indefinitely, even though not being fully "crashed" (num/caps lock still works, so the keyboard is still responsive).

Things I have tried:
Full format. My initial diagnostic was that a Planetside crash totally screwed Windows since a lot of the clues pointed in that direction. restore did no good either. The full format did improve the condition, but I doubt it was connected in anyway.

Full Virus Scan: Updated Norton, nothing found.

Individual removal, cleaning, and reinstallation of all hardware: I cleaned my vid card/ram/PCI slots, etc w/ contact cleaner w/ the power off after waiting a while to prevent damage. Reinstalled all the parts, and still nothing.

Recent changes to my computer:
The only serious change in the apst three months was a very recent RAM upgrade. Even after removing the new stick of RAM, the problems still occur.

Comp Specs:
Gigabyte Intel 845G Mobo
P4 2.20Ghz
Mushkin Black PC2700 DDR CAS222. 2 sticks of 512MB
Western Digital "J" HD. 120GB w/ 7200RM
Audigy Platinum
OS: XP Pro

So, please help if you can.

[NoSurrender]

kiwi im totally stumped

[Hunter83]

Hmm, sounds like a Power Supply or mobo problem.
Do you have an extra mobo that you can try out to see if it still happens?

I need sleep, but I'll chekc this post again in the morning and try to think some more.

[OmnipotentKiwi]

Power supply was something I replaced after I got this problem (we think the same here). Unfortunately, I have no mobo I can just grab and pop in top of the line parts to without pulling a few strings. I'll try that if no other ideas surface.

[Cyanide]

Sounds like there's something wrong with your processor to me. Check your CPU core temps. Bad processor would explain the randomly freezing programs as well as the occaional restart.

On a side note. DirectX also causes those symptoms. Does it only crash with programs that use Direct3D? When you formated and re-installed what did you re-install from? Was it a drive image or did you re-install windows manually and go from there?

I would suggest that you re-download and update all your major drivers including DirectX, your video drivers, and your sound drivers. If that does not fix it get a new processor.

[OmnipotentKiwi]

Definitely not a DX problem as it occurs outside of those situations. I will check on my processor. Tempature currently runs around 36-40C for the processor.

[SpaceDrake]

Originally posted by OmnipotentKiwi
Tempature currently runs around 36-40C for the processor.

Are you absolutely sure about that?

Aside from heat, I can't think of anything that could damage a processor enough to impair functionality like this. It's not the sound card, as the freezes and reboots are random (and I doubt something as simple as an IRQ conflict could bring XP Pro to it's knees like this.) I know it's redundant, but it has to be a motherboard problem. See what you can do about finding a comparison board.

[OneManArmy]

sounds like the mobo to me 2. considering it still acts up after you have gone through that whole routine.

[OmnipotentKiwi]

Absolutely positive it isn't a heat issue. I'm not any computer newb or anything, which is why I am totally baffled. Upon one of the suggestions given, I borrowed a P4 that was around and stuck it in. So far, so good, but that isn't saying much since I don't currently have anything to stress test with. I'm going to go to bed and will try to update you guys tomorrow.

Spacedrake: I am absolutely positive on the temperture. Generally it caps out around 43-45C after running for extremely extended periods of time (8+ hours).

[SpaceDrake]

Well, when you wake up and have some free time tomorrow, use 3DMark or something to flog the hell out of the processor and see what happens. I still can't think of how you could've damaged the processor outside of heat, though...

[Sentrosi]

kiwi, may I suggest you download SiSoftSandra and put it through the stress tests it has? It may not be much, but if you start it then go to work, come home and look at the logs, that my be able to tell you what is up.

Just a suggestion.

[OmnipotentKiwi]

I'm totally baffled myself. Heat has always been highly monitored on my computer, if has NEVER broken 50C. I'm curious if I actually got a poor processor as odd as that sounds. Glad I don't buy OEM processors right now. Downloading something to stress test now.

[OmnipotentKiwi]

Another Internet Explorer freezeup. Processor says 100% usage for the entire hang. Can't ctr-alt-delete the program, had to restart the computer.

Best bets are now down to mobo and HD.

[Sentrosi]

Is the HD making noise?

If not, perhaps the board.

[OmnipotentKiwi]

Probably be a day or two until the next update. Next part (finding a replacement mobo to test) is going to take a bit of coordination. :-P