What's wrong with my computer?

Factual Questions
1

OK, here’s the deal thus far:

A couple of weeks ago, I was playing Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas when suddenly my system locked up. Not just the game, the whole system. The display froze mid-game, the sound was looping the same ~1 seconds of material, and alt-tab, esc, and ctrl-alt-del did nothing, I had to do a hard restart by holding the power button. When I tried to reboot, I couldn’t get into Windows. I would get the Windows XP loading screen (it has hte XP logo and that black bar with the blue dots going from left to right) but then the screen would go black after about ten seconds and nothing. Normally, I should go to the login screen.

When I restarted, it noticed Windows did not boot properly and gave me the option to go into safe mode. I did that, and while in safe mode, decided to use a system restore to the day before. It did the first half of the restore, rebooted, and again, could not get into XP. When I restarted into safe mode for the second time, it then finished the system restore. I restarted and that time it actually DID boot into XP. I logged in, did a spyware and virus scan and there was nothing. Then I made the mistake of running GTA:SA again. It got about 1 second into ther first intro screen and I had the same lockup. I tried the same thing as before (system restore in safe mode, reboot into safe mode to finish it, then boot into normal) but it didn’t work. So I tried to do a repair installation of XP.

It finished the first half of the install (the hald with white text on blue background) and went to the part that is sort of “in” Windows. It got to the “installnig drivers” part then locked up. I tried at least five times and it kept lokcing up at the same part. I was forced to do a complete reinstall, which is so god damn annoying, since I had to reinstall everything.

Well, Saturday I shut down my computer and left for my parent’s for Easter. I came back today, turned on the ol’ machine and…will not go into normal XP. I can only get to safe mode, and the system restore trick that worked once before didn’t work at all. Once again, no viruses or spyware (aside from a few cookies.)

Since this is the second time this has happened, something serious is wrong. I also had some blue screens before the reinstall, and even a few times after, makiung me think it is a hardware issue. The problem is…what hardware? Motherbaord? Memory? Video card?

2

Oh, and I thought all if you should know that 640x480 resolution is just as bad as we all remember it. Worse, actually. Any way to get Safe Mode to operate at a higher res?

3

It sounds like a video card problem although it could be the RAM too. I am pretty sure it is home fixable. The first step would be to open the case and make sure that both the video card and RAM are seated properly. I would take them out of the slot and then re-seat them. Clean out any dust with a vacuum (carefully) while you are in there. Heat could cause something like that too. Also make sure the fans are working.

It is more likely that it is a driver problem so, after you verified the hardware, uninstall all of the video drivers and reinstall them with the newest available for your video card and motherboard.

One or a combination of those things will probably fix the problem. Do them one at a time and be thorough.

4

I already reinstalled the video drivers (in fact, I reinstalled after I reinstalled Windows, too.) And if I restall a driver in Safe Mode, will it affect my PC in normal mode?

5

I already reinstalled the video drivers from the video card’s website (in this case, nvidia.) (in fact, I reinstalled after I reinstalled Windows when it happened before, and that didn’t seem to help.)

And if I restall a driver in Safe Mode, will it affect my PC in normal mode?

6

It should yeah. Check the hardware stuff I mentioned above, both seating and dust.

7

Well I’ll be damned. I reinserted both the vid card and the memory, cleaned out the dust a little, and here we are, in normal mode.

Thanks a lot, Shag. For some reason I never thought to reseat the cards. I guess I assumed if it was that kind of a problem, then I wouldn’t have any display, not just random errors. So the whole “being able to boot into safe mode” thing really threw me for a loop.

8

I had a problem similar to this, and it was a bloody disaster to troubleshoot. It could be a heat or power problem with any of the following components: RAM, video card (and its RAM), or CPU. Assuming your machine was stable to begin with, it’s unlikely that it would just become unstable. Perhaps GTA is stressing it past its previous limits, or perhaps a part is going bad. Here are some steps you can take to isolate the problem:

Remove your video card and RAM, clear the case of dust, and re-seat each of them. Ensure that all connections are firm.

Run Memtest86 overnight and see if any of your RAM has gone bad.

If your RAM is okay, it may not be getting enough power. Boost your RAM voltage (sometimes called Vdimm) to 2.75V or thereabouts, using your BIOS menu options. If you’re at 2.5 right now, you might be able to get away only going up to 2.65; this will draw more power and generate more heat, but your RAM will run more stable. You can also boost the voltage to your AGP slot, but not all cards react well to this.

Try underclocking your front-side bus; this lowers power consumption slightly and gives other components a broader timing tolerance to work in. You can drop one or two megahertz and see if you’re right on the edge of a stability point, or you can drop 33 and see if you notice a major boost in stability. You shouldn’t have to run your system below its specifications to have a stable system.

Swap in a compatible video card with lighter power requirements (less RAM or a slower GPU). Craigslist usually has hardware hobbyist listings, and if someone’s ditching an old card, you might be able to get it pretty cheaply. I keep a 5-year-old 64MB AGP card sitting around just in case, but I know that’s not an option for everyone.

If boosting power to your RAM didn’t increase your stability, but lightening the load of the video card or underclocking did, consider a new power supply. Many house brand power supplies stink. This stress test proved that “300V” on the box means nothing. Get a power supply from Fortron or Seasonic. Calculate your power load and consider future upgrades – choose a power supply with a little bit of margin. If you order from Newegg, you can send it back if it doesn’t solve the problem, and then you’re only out the cost of the shipping.

If a new power supply, different video card, and over-volted RAM don’t fix your problem, consider the possibility that your motherboard has gone bad. Motherboards are so difficult to troubleshoot that it’s often not worth it unless you know that a particular capacitor has gone bad, and you’re comfortable buying and soldering in a replacement.

The fact that you had a “stuttering freeze” combined with hard drive glitchiness makes me think your power supply couldn’t keep up with the demands of your CPU, GPU, and RAM together. Good luck troubleshooting this one.