I am wondering if anyone else might have some suggestions/experiences for me in regards to some problems I am having with my PC.
First off, the original specs of my PC:
AMD BARTON 2500+ (oc'd to 3000+ for reasons stated soon)
KRETON PC3200 RAM (2X256; always ran in dual channel)
GEFORCE 5200 (BLEH)
LITE ON CD-RW/DVD COMBO
MAXTOR 120GB SATA HD
SOUNDBLASTER LIVE 5.1 (5 YEARS OLD)
ASUS A7N8X DELUXE REV.2 MB (VER1007 BIOS)
The above system was put together late last year, and was running well for the most part. There were a few things that were bugging me, such as the fact that I wasn't able to OC the processor to 3200+ stably. The pc would heat up to nearly 57C, and some games and applications would simply stop, hang, or the pc would randomly reboot. This was, I thought, due to the low quality ram and stock heatsink and thermal paste. Also, the video performance simply wasn't up to par, so I decided to upgrade some of the items as listed below:
RADEON 9800 PRO (128 MB RAM)
CORSAIR PC3200 RAM
VANTECH 80MM PC FAN
ARCTIC SILVER THERMAL PASTE
The Radeon I ordered and installed a couple of months ago, and with no problems.
The other items I ordered and installed a few weeks ago, and this is where it gets interesting.
With the RAM, I was no longer able to run my PC at anything over 180 MHZ FSB. The PC wouldn't get past the POST screen at over 180MHZ before it would hang, or more often reboot.
With the new fan and thermal paste, my CPU temps actually went up, and this is while running the system at slower speeds than when I started prior ro installing the "upgraded" equipment.
So, as it stands now, my system is not even able to run at stock speeds, and the idle temp is normally 47C, and 54-56C under load. Higher if I play a graphics intensive game. And my system still acts up from time to time (programs stop running and/or random reboots).
Other information:
CPU Voltage: 1.7~1.725
DDR Voltage: 2.7~2.8
CPU Freq: 180 MHZ
CPU Multiplier: 10~10.5
RAM TIMINGS: 7-3-3-2.5T
I am hoping that their are some people who can give me an idea of what I should do or try in order to get my system running stably, preferrablt at or around 3200+ speeds.
Oh, in addition to the above, I had to send in my SATA hard drive since it crapped out on me. It seems that using Norton Speed Disk on a SATA hard drive with XP PRO equals hard drive destruction. Advice on what to use to defragment a sata drive without ruining the drive would be appreciated as well.
First off, the original specs of my PC:
AMD BARTON 2500+ (oc'd to 3000+ for reasons stated soon)
KRETON PC3200 RAM (2X256; always ran in dual channel)
GEFORCE 5200 (BLEH)
LITE ON CD-RW/DVD COMBO
MAXTOR 120GB SATA HD
SOUNDBLASTER LIVE 5.1 (5 YEARS OLD)
ASUS A7N8X DELUXE REV.2 MB (VER1007 BIOS)
The above system was put together late last year, and was running well for the most part. There were a few things that were bugging me, such as the fact that I wasn't able to OC the processor to 3200+ stably. The pc would heat up to nearly 57C, and some games and applications would simply stop, hang, or the pc would randomly reboot. This was, I thought, due to the low quality ram and stock heatsink and thermal paste. Also, the video performance simply wasn't up to par, so I decided to upgrade some of the items as listed below:
RADEON 9800 PRO (128 MB RAM)
CORSAIR PC3200 RAM
VANTECH 80MM PC FAN
ARCTIC SILVER THERMAL PASTE
The Radeon I ordered and installed a couple of months ago, and with no problems.
The other items I ordered and installed a few weeks ago, and this is where it gets interesting.
With the RAM, I was no longer able to run my PC at anything over 180 MHZ FSB. The PC wouldn't get past the POST screen at over 180MHZ before it would hang, or more often reboot.
With the new fan and thermal paste, my CPU temps actually went up, and this is while running the system at slower speeds than when I started prior ro installing the "upgraded" equipment.
So, as it stands now, my system is not even able to run at stock speeds, and the idle temp is normally 47C, and 54-56C under load. Higher if I play a graphics intensive game. And my system still acts up from time to time (programs stop running and/or random reboots).
Other information:
CPU Voltage: 1.7~1.725
DDR Voltage: 2.7~2.8
CPU Freq: 180 MHZ
CPU Multiplier: 10~10.5
RAM TIMINGS: 7-3-3-2.5T
I am hoping that their are some people who can give me an idea of what I should do or try in order to get my system running stably, preferrablt at or around 3200+ speeds.
Oh, in addition to the above, I had to send in my SATA hard drive since it crapped out on me. It seems that using Norton Speed Disk on a SATA hard drive with XP PRO equals hard drive destruction. Advice on what to use to defragment a sata drive without ruining the drive would be appreciated as well.