Okay, actually I only -think- this is a GC question. I got a ‘new’ computer, cobbled together from parts. GeForce 2 MX/MX 400. Intel Celeron 451 Mhz processor. I’m getting total system lock-ups about once a day- not even a cntrl-alt-delete will reset 'em. I end up having to hit the reset button. A friend of mine says it may be an issue with the card interacting poorly with the processor. Does this sound right? And is there any way to find out if this is indeed the problem before I go out and lay down far too much money for a new card?
If one of your buddies has an old basic VGA card, swap it out for the other one and see if you still have lockup issues.
You might want to go to Nvidia’s website and download and install the latest driver and see if that helps.
Total lockups could have a lot of different causes, but overheating can often be a factor. Make sure the inside of the computer, especially the processor’s heatsink, isn’t choked with dust.
** Q.E.D. and buckgully ** both give good advice, and try there advice before going out and buying anything new.
What operating system are you using? How much much RAM do you have? Win98 or ME can have those type of problems, I reccomend XP as it is much more stable. Of course, a new low end video card can be had for much less than the cost of XP. More RAM can help things too, especially if you have 64 megs or less. RAM is cheap, you can pick up 128 meg stick for ~$20.
Hrm. Using Win 98. 384 MB ram (does that number even make sense? I’m pretty tech-illiterate). I guess one of the things I’m asking is, is there any way to -check- which of these things are doing it? I’m amazingly poor, and would rather shell out as little as possible to get this all up and running correctly.
What else is in the system? Try taking out everything except for the drives and the video card (take out the sound card, modem, network card, whatever) and see if it’s more stable. Then add things back in, one at a time, until the problem starts happening again. When the ‘problem child’ excerts itself, try putting it into a different slot. If you can’t make the problem go away, replace the problem child with something of a different brand.
Another approach is to go into the device manager and see if any two cards are sharing an interrupt. Some cards that don’t really support this say that they do (I’m talking to YOU Soundblaster Live) and cause lockups like this. With a low-end computer, you probably can’t change the interrupt a card is using without moving the card to a different slot.
-lv
Simul-post. 384MB? Three sticks of 128MB each? One 256MB, one 128MB? Two 128 & Two 64? It is an odd number, but not impossible. It likely wouldn’t have come from a store like that, and bad memory can cause problems, too, so I’d make sure that it’s supposed to have 384MB in it.
-lv
Hrm. I’ll give it a shot. The problem is, I can’t just yell at the computer and tell it ‘Okay, freeze up now if you’re going to!’ (although that’d be a cool way to diagnose the problem…)
I’ll be able to post better tech information tommorow, as the guy that actually built the thing will be able to look at this post then. (Hi Mikey!)
!@#!@!@@#$!!! this piece of crap ass board deleted my long ass post. GRR, guess that why i dont use boards… anyway…i am not typing out that whole thing again – let me just sum it up. 'puter worked fine with my old video card before he got it…I will try with a different video card on Wednesday, we’ll see how that goes- then try to check the memory one stick at a time to check that as well… That said- everything else in the machine should be just dandy. I am open to suggestions, though.