Serious problem : my computer randomly resets!

[Jay56]

I have this big problem with my fairly new computer, and I hoped someone here could help out. First of all, my computer is a Duron 600, Asus A7V mainboard, 128 MB RAM, ATi Xpert 2000 Pro AGP, SB Live! Value..

Ok, the problem is that every once in a while when I run an application, the screen will blank out and the computer reboots spontaneously, or it will just freeze with a blank screen. (the screen always goes blank).
This has been happening usually when I open ICQ or get a message in ICQ, when I start Outlook Express, and Scour Exchange. (For example, almost every other time I start Outlook it reboots!!).

Does anyone have any idea what could be the problem? I'm starting to think it might be hardware, but I thought I could hopefully get some ideas before I do anything else. Thanks in advance.

 

[Lightingguy]

The SBLive can be flaky. Try disabling the SB Emulation mode in Device Manager and references in autoexec.bat and config.sys.

 

[aUt0eXebat]

could be the hardware, but try reformatting and installing the stuff you use the most... ICQ is a very screwy program, that could be causing alot of the problems

 

[Madcowz]

Most likely your computer is resetting itself either due to system instability or insufficient power. You might want to try another Power supply w/ your system and if that isn't the problem than I would try to locate any source of instability. Are you overclocking you're Duron? If you are what is your cooling? When your CPU get's too hot sometimes the system restarts itself or even shuts off. I don't know what else to say as I would have to see your system... hope this helps

 

[brijesh33]

i think your problem maybe the ATI video card as u know ati always had problems with their video drivers. I had similar problem my monitor goes blank when i'm browsing the net or playing a game, by the way i have ATI rage fury for video - solution to the problem was new drivers for for video card...hope this helps

 

[Souka]

Um....What OS are you running?

I'm guessing Win98se.....right?

If so, it's not a hardware issue....but finding the fix can be a pain.

On Dell laptops, in my experience, disable write behind cache for the drives....system properties/performance/filesystem or troubleshooting....


Good luck.

 

[jmsazul]

Ditto brijesh33, your problem might just happent to be your ATI Xpert card (assuming it is based on the 128 Rage or Rage Pro chip), this card is very picky. You need to get lattest drivers from ATI, make sure you have Direct X 7.0a or later and latest AGP driver from VIA (not IDE thoug). Disable AGP 4X and make sure it has its own IRQ. Now comes the tricky, if you're comfortable using a registry editor like MS regedit use it, find "HMDL" (without the quotes) and the key value should be all "zeroes" except one, it will be a one, change it to zero, exit and reboot. Boyla it works, no more woes. Now an easier way is to find a utility called Rage Tweeker and find the "tweeker" button that disables this option without registry editing, but I always prefer using the editor, your choice. WARNING! BACK UP YOUR REGISTRY BEFORE DOING THIS.
All I know is that this dissables some AGP memory addressing that doesn't affect performance (at least I haven't noticed any drops).
I really hope this helps.

 

[Nih]

The screen blanking seems to be caused by the ATI video card, imho. From what i understand some ati card/drivers will spontaneously lose their refresh rate info and voila blank screen with computer still running. Fix by booting into safe mode , remove ati video card from the device manager and then reboot into windows. Upon redetection , when it asks you to restart computer , say no, let windows update system settings. (or else you boot back into a black screen again and experience the ati 7th ring of hell.) after system update , reboot and presto ATI's back in the ring for another round.

 

[Nih]

OOps ,, sorry i made an error,,,, was referring to the 5th ring of hell, 7th is reserved for vsa 200

 

[Jay56]

Thanks for the tips, but I'm still getting the same problem.. btw, I am using Win98SE.
I did say that the screen goes blank, but the computer actually freezes/crashes too, because if I'm playing an MP3 or CD at the time, it will either get stuck in a repeating loop or stop playing.. Could it still be a video card problem? I've updated using Windows Update, as well as installing the latest Xpert 2000 Pro drivers.

Could it be a RAM problem? The computer will only freeze up/go blank whenever I start a big program or get a message in ICQ.
Further help would be great, but I think I'll may have to take the computer back in soon, because this is a pretty annoying and serious problem.
Thanks!

 

[Nih]

You could try upping the pci latency timer from 32 to 64 in the bios. The extra clicks may add some stability, Worked for me on a different system with an ATI card.