Pc Question

[Gatecrasher2]

i need your guys help, i have been having a problem with my PC

about 50% of the time that i am using any program and about 100% of the time that i am playing a game, after a few minuets the windows xp thing pops up and says this program has an problem and the program will now close, and the program crashes

i formatted my PC but that did not fix the problem

i think it may have something to do with my chipset drivers, i would update my drivers but i dont know what ones to download and install <<<i dont know much about chipset's

my cpu is a amd xp 2000, and my MB is a asus A7S333, with SIS 745, and its built for DDR 333 RAM, but i have 266 and 333 sets of DDR ram

i also thought it may have something to do with my video card (ATI 8500), so i updated the drivers but that did not fix the problem

i really dont know what do, or what the problem is
so any ideas would be very helpful
thx

[JimmyJones]

Did you check the CPU temp?

[thetieger]

1. run windows update...

2. when those error reports came up did it have a alink? those usually have a broad anwer for what's causing the problem.

Jimmy, when it's CPU temp I think it just reboots.

your vid card may just be bad...

[Gatecrasher2]

my MB has cpu over heat protection, plus i have a volcano 7 so i dont think it would over heat to much

and when the error reports came up, it does give a very broad answer
it says something like it may have something to do with your windows, or with your drivers

thanks for the help windows....

but next time that it happens i will write down work for word what it says

[FlynMonkeez]

hmmm hard drive errrors? run chkdsk or sumtin

[Gatecrasher2]

it maybe something to do with my HD

[Gatecrasher2]

thx for the help

[EnTiTy]

sound's like driver corruption reinstall you graphics driver for a start.
EnTiTy

[JimmyJones]

Actually, not all systems with CPU heat protection will shut down right away. I had a system I was working on that had an Asus board with the thermal monitoring on the motherboard. The person that owned it had the temperature thresh-hold too high for the CPU, and the fan died. The CPU didn't fry, but once it reached a certain temperature (and it reached it FAST when doing anything major) it would crash, then work like normal for a bit after doing nothing. Turning down the thresh-hold a bit made it shut down, instead of crash. Of course, I replaced the fan and all, but that's not what I'm getting at here. <edit> Oh...and Volcano only idles the parts of the CPU that aren't in use. Turn it off for a short while, start a game, and take a look...a LOT of your CPU is in use, so Volcano wouldn't be doing much while you're playing games. <edit 2> Ok, yeah, I'm an idiot. Your Heatsink/Fan is the Volcano 7....for some reason, I was thinking of that old Program "Waterfall" or whatever it was. The software cooling thing, because I just went to someone's house who had it and it brought back memories...

Another temperature concern is the Video Card CPU/GPU. Take a look at the fan on that, does it still work? Does it have one? Are there any heat spreaders that may be placed on there poorly and fallen off?


Now, failing all of that, my next question is this: Did you recently ADD a stick of ram to the system? That could also be the cause?

I know everyone else is saying drivers, software, and what not.....but I'm going out on a limb here because I think I'm right.....
Oh, and I REALLY don't think it's the hard drive, since you formatted and re-installed.

[EnTiTy]

he he mem never popped into my head nice one jones
it could be a stick gone bad also after using so many apps it freeze's and craps out explains it's reaching a certain addy high up in mem that mem bank on the stick could have gone bad.
EnTiTy