Topic: locking up...

[agua-moose]

sorry, that was a typing error! thanks for pointing it out, it should be 8 x 100. d'oh!

last night i commenced the arduous task of playing quake3 for ages (don't you just hate it when you're forced to play quake?!) with the modem out of the pc. it still locked up after about 10-15 minutes. i checked the ram and found it was 133mhz but the bus speed is only 100. i also found it was in slot3 not slot1 so i put it in slot1 but it still locked up. so it looks like i just need to change the ram for some the right speed and see what happens. but that still doesn't explain the toasting of the modems.... or does it?

[Dack]

PC133 should still run with no problems at 100MHz. Might be a memory problem though - try www.memtest86.com.

At a rough guess you have most likely got a problem with overheating. Either the memory, processor or graphics card. A simple memory/processor error would cause it to lock up/error - resetting would then clear the memory and you be waiting for the next memory/processor error to freeze it again.

I'd suggest (once again) reseating the heatsink on the processor - possibly using some thermal paste as a conductor - and the next time it locks up got into the bios and have a look at what the temperature is - usually in hardware monitoring.

The 10-15 minutes thing would be because a lot of processor activity (and Heat) will be generated by using a software modem, displaying web pages etc. The same would be true of playing Quake.

The reason I think it's more likely to be the processor/memory/motherboard chips overheating is that you don't mention any graphics glitches which would point to a Graphics card problem.

Might be worth you:
a. Checking to make sure the fan on the heatsink is spinning (had that happen once)
b. Chuck one of those exhaust blower fans into the case.

As to the modem - does just sound like an unfortunate coincidence.

[agua-moose]

thanks for the link, i'll give that a try tonight.

i definately know the cpu temp doesn't go up past 46 because it shows it in the POST. and it shows the fan rpm too which is around 4000 odd. i've had no problems with the graphics card, everything looked perfect in quake. this is why i think it's probably some faulty memory. i can try some other 133mhz stuff from my own pc and see if that works. i just don't want to fry that because my pc at the moment is rock-solid, for a change!

[agua-moose]

ok i ran that memtest thing and it locked up halfway through with no error messages. so i swapped the ram for some stuff in my good pc. it did the same thing.

so then i took your advice and took the cpu heatsink and fan off. i unscrewed the fan from the heatsink and got all the dust out, screwed it back on. there was some of that thermal paste stuff already on the cpu but it was all round the edges, not on top so i spread it evenly on the cpu and put the heatsink back on. then i unscrewed the graphics card fan and got rid of all the dust from that too. but it's still locking up i don't know what to do now, do you reckon it could be the graphics card? I have another i can try.

just had a thought, the hard disk is an old 33mhz 4gig drive. that wouldn't have anything to do with it would it?