Computer trouble, need advice

I'm having trouble with my PC. It seems that when ever I run any high end applications (mainly games) the applications crash.

3dsmax wont compile, Hammer crashs every ten minutes or so (pretty good compared to other apps). Photoshop CS runs perfectly fine 90% of the time, also Painter 8 seems to work fine, even under a heavy load.

All of my games crash with in 5 minutes of firing up. In most cases they don't even run that long.

Actions taken:

I've downloaded the latest updates for most of the applications, still the crashs presist.

ASUS probe doesn't detect any heat related or voltage problems.

I've updated Windows (nightmare over a 56K connection)

I ran "BurninTest_PRO" and find no hardware errors.

Altered Bios settings in hope of finding the problem.

Pretty frustrating, I have a nvidia fx 5900 ultra and can't do jack sh*t with it.

<SPAN class=postbody><SPAN class=postbody><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Hardware</SPAN>:_________________________________________

300watt power supply
2 512 333fsb cl2.5 elixir DDR (in mem slots 2 and 3)
A7NX8X DELUXE 266/333/400 fsb mother board -can't tell what REV
AMD Barton 3000+ 333FSB (2166mhz) .13v
PNY nvidia FX 5900 Ultra 256 meg
Sony 48x/24x/48x/16x DVD drive
56k PCI card

WACOM Intuos 2
Microsoft laser mouse
San disc Flash memory dock adapter

<SPAN style="TEXT-DECORATION: underline">Apps that crash</SPAN>:____________________________________

Quake Arena - not updated (crash in/5min)
Delta force - updated (crash in/5min)
Max Payne - updated (Crash in 5/min)
Warcraft III - before rebuild 25 days ago (not tried with current build)
ALICE - wont even run for more than 5 seconds
Hammer - (latest beta) crashs every ten minutes ( I save every time I make an alteration)
Photoshop CS - havn't noticed any save issues, crashed a couple times in the last month
3DstudioMAX 5.1 - wont compile/crashs (worked before I upgraded my CPU/Graphics card and rebuilt my PC)</SPAN></SPAN>

<SPAN class=postbody>Even the Demo stuff that came with the new card crashs the system.</SPAN>

is it locking up on you, as in "frozen"?...or is it going to a blue screen, or what....? on first glance, im thinking vid card problem of some sort, maybe drivers or something....hard to say without seeing it in action tho bud....i know thats not what you wanted to hear, but what can i say?.... :sad:

Doc Brass... :dodgy:

have you updated your gfx card drivers?
I would also check your heat aswell, Is your card getting too hot?

Keep your pc away from the wall & radiators tbh, Unless you want to like me pay for new motherboards etc.

You should check to see if your video card is overclocked, sometimes it does it automatically.

Secondly, you might have something infecting your computer.A Scan is never a bad idea, especially when things are not working properly. What errors do you get when things crash? Or do you get none?

Usually updating windows is NOT a good idea,The "Security Updates" don't really do anything, they mostly make changes to Internet Explorer's (Which is also windows' interface) security (Mozilla rules all).

Unless I actually see what it does I can't really help you, maybe you could take screen shots or something, oh, and you're a bastard for having an intuos 2 . . . all i could afford was a graphire3. lol.

Also, Changing bios wouldn't affect 3d stuff ,so, bios doesn't really come into play.

If it's the video card, it might be, as i said before, overclocked (really bad idea). Also, could you list the OS you're using? That would be helpful. Obviously it's some sort of windows, but which one? If you're running XP, hopfully its Pro or Corperate, nVidia has some real issues with it and you need massive drivers to make it work properly, I currently have 3 seperate drivers running my GeForce4 for windows, it shouldn't need more then one, but Microsoft like to change the standard, being the bastards that they are. Anyway, if you gave a little more info on software you're running and not all your hardware specs we could help more.

Crono said:
You should check to see if you overclocked your video card, sometimes it does it automatically.

err, are you saying they sell you an overclocked card? rofl . Cards dont just overclock themselves. :razz:

Yes, I would check the actual card itself. It could be faulty somehow. Check the fan is working, etc.

in the nVidia set up for their cards, they have an option to test your card and 'maximize' performance, that overclocks it. Every nVidia card I've installed on all computers since GeForce3 has had that 'option'.

Obviously the card doesn't automatically overclock it's self, the set-up does. Just stating it the way I did makes it easier, because I wouldn't need this paragraph . . .

Update your graphics card drivers, check the hardware acceleration level in your display properties, and finally run Start ? Run ? dxdiag and do some tests to see if it's a software problem.

If it's hardware... er... could be BIOS ('fiddling' around with settings isn't really a good idea unless you know what you're doing), could be a faulty card, could be wacky AGP problems, god knows what! Sounds like a memory or temperature problem though rather than software!

If nothing else works, backup all your important stuff and reinstall windows. Time consuming and tedious, but sometimes it's worth it. Good luck.

This probably isn't the problem, because if it was, the computer would turn off, not have a app crash, but your power supply is a bit low. I'd see about getting at the minimun a 350 watt power supply, 400 would be the best without paying too much.

When did these problems start? If you can, use System Restore to go back to before this started happening, that tends to be pretty effective.

Also what kind of crash is it? Are you getting a Window's crash box, or a blue screen of death with text that appears for a split second before the computer restarts?

Here are some more details and software specs:

Xp Pro (5.1, Build 2600)

Asustek A7N8X (bios Phoenix - AwardBIOS v6.00PG)

DirectX 9.0B (4.09.000.0902)

The Bios settings I altered where AGP related, lowered the 8x to 4x and also tried disabled. Tried lowering my CPU multiplier. Also a few other alterations I read up on.

I am going to post my error log, its going to be long

A few other answers to questions:

-Some Apps just stop and give no error,

-Some Apps give error messages, asks to send a report to microsoft, microsoft gives some lame BS for feed back (it once told me I needed to update a software package that I don't even have installed, lol)

-On occasion (maybe 10%) will cause my PC to restart or stop responding.

<TABLE class="sys-font-body sys-color-body" id=evtlog cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%">
<TBODY>
<TR class=sys-table-cell-bgcolor2 id=tr_evtlog ondblclick=ShowLogEntry(this)>
<TD class="table-rightborder sys-table-color-border" id=datetime style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.5em; PADDING-LEFT: 0.5em; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.5em; PADDING-TOP: 0.5em" vAlign=top align=left width="25%">Friday, December 12, 2003</TD>
<TD class="table-rightborder sys-table-color-border" id=source style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.5em; PADDING-LEFT: 0.5em; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.5em; PADDING-TOP: 0.5em" vAlign=top align=left width="20%">NetBT</TD>
<TD id=desc style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.5em; PADDING-LEFT: 0.5em; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.5em; PADDING-TOP: 0.5em" vAlign=top align=left width="55%">Initialization failed because the driver device could not be created. </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<TABLE class="sys-font-body sys-color-body" id=evtlog cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%">
<TBODY>
<TR class=sys-table-cell-bgcolor1 id=tr_evtlog ondblclick=ShowLogEntry(this)>
<TD class="table-rightborder sys-table-color-border" id=datetime style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.5em; PADDING-LEFT: 0.5em; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.5em; PADDING-TOP: 0.5em" vAlign=top align=left width="25%">Friday, December 12, 2003</TD>
<TD class="table-rightborder sys-table-color-border" id=source style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.5em; PADDING-LEFT: 0.5em; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.5em; PADDING-TOP: 0.5em" vAlign=top align=left width="20%">NetBT</TD>
<TD id=desc style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.5em; PADDING-LEFT: 0.5em; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.5em; PADDING-TOP: 0.5em" vAlign=top align=left width="55%">Initialization failed because the driver device could not be created. </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<TABLE class="sys-font-body sys-color-body" id=evtlog cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%">
<TBODY>
<TR class=sys-table-cell-bgcolor2 id=tr_evtlog ondblclick=ShowLogEntry(this)>
<TD class="table-rightborder sys-table-color-border" id=datetime style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.5em; PADDING-LEFT: 0.5em; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.5em; PADDING-TOP: 0.5em" vAlign=top align=left width="25%">Friday, December 12, 2003</TD>
<TD class="table-rightborder sys-table-color-border" id=source style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.5em; PADDING-LEFT: 0.5em; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.5em; PADDING-TOP: 0.5em" vAlign=top align=left width="20%">W32Time</TD>
<TD id=desc style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.5em; PADDING-LEFT: 0.5em; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.5em; PADDING-TOP: 0.5em" vAlign=top align=left width="55%">Time Provider NtpClient: An error occurred during DNS lookup of the manually configured peer 'time.windows.com,0x1'. NtpClient will try the DNS lookup again in 15 minutes. The error was: A socket operation was attempted to an unreachable host. (0x80072751) </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<TABLE class="sys-font-body sys-color-body" id=evtlog cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%">
<TBODY>
<TR class=sys-table-cell-bgcolor1 id=tr_evtlog ondblclick=ShowLogEntry(this)>
<TD class="table-rightborder sys-table-color-border" id=datetime style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.5em; PADDING-LEFT: 0.5em; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.5em; PADDING-TOP: 0.5em" vAlign=top align=left width="25%">Friday, December 12, 2003</TD>
<TD class="table-rightborder sys-table-color-border" id=source style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.5em; PADDING-LEFT: 0.5em; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.5em; PADDING-TOP: 0.5em" vAlign=top align=left width="20%">W32Time</TD>
<TD id=desc style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.5em; PADDING-LEFT: 0.5em; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.5em; PADDING-TOP: 0.5em" vAlign=top align=left width="55%">The time provider NtpClient is configured to acquire time from one or more time sources, however none of the sources are currently accessible. No attempt to contact a source will be made for 14 minutes. NtpClient has no source of accurate time. </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<TABLE class="sys-font-body sys-color-body" id=evtlog cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%">
<TBODY>
<TR class=sys-table-cell-bgcolor2 id=tr_evtlog ondblclick=ShowLogEntry(this)>
<TD class="table-rightborder sys-table-color-border" id=datetime style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.5em; PADDING-LEFT: 0.5em; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.5em; PADDING-TOP: 0.5em" vAlign=top align=left width="25%">Friday, December 12, 2003</TD>
<TD class="table-rightborder sys-table-color-border" id=source style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.5em; PADDING-LEFT: 0.5em; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.5em; PADDING-TOP: 0.5em" vAlign=top align=left width="20%">W32Time</TD>
<TD id=desc style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.5em; PADDING-LEFT: 0.5em; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.5em; PADDING-TOP: 0.5em" vAlign=top align=left width="55%">Time Provider NtpClient: An error occurred during DNS lookup of the manually configured peer 'time.windows.com,0x1'. NtpClient will try the DNS lookup again in 30 minutes. The error was: A socket operation was attempted to an unreachable host. (0x80072751) </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<TABLE class="sys-font-body sys-color-body" id=evtlog cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%">
<TBODY>
<TR class=sys-table-cell-bgcolor1 id=tr_evtlog ondblclick=ShowLogEntry(this)>
<TD class="table-rightborder sys-table-color-border" id=datetime style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.5em; PADDING-LEFT: 0.5em; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.5em; PADDING-TOP: 0.5em" vAlign=top align=left width="25%">Friday, December 12, 2003</TD>
<TD class="table-rightborder sys-table-color-border" id=source style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.5em; PADDING-LEFT: 0.5em; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.5em; PADDING-TOP: 0.5em" vAlign=top align=left width="20%">W32Time</TD>
<TD id=desc style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.5em; PADDING-LEFT: 0.5em; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.5em; PADDING-TOP: 0.5em" vAlign=top align=left width="55%">The time provider NtpClient is configured to acquire time from one or more time sources, however none of the sources are currently accessible. No attempt to contact a source will be made for 30 minutes. NtpClient has no source of accurate time. </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<TABLE class="sys-font-body sys-color-body" id=evtlog cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%">
<TBODY>
<TR class=sys-table-cell-bgcolor2 id=tr_evtlog ondblclick=ShowLogEntry(this)>
<TD class="table-rightborder sys-table-color-border" id=datetime style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.5em; PADDING-LEFT: 0.5em; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.5em; PADDING-TOP: 0.5em" vAlign=top align=left width="25%">Friday, December 12, 2003</TD>
<TD class="table-rightborder sys-table-color-border" id=source style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.5em; PADDING-LEFT: 0.5em; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.5em; PADDING-TOP: 0.5em" vAlign=top align=left width="20%">W32Time</TD>
<TD id=desc style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.5em; PADDING-LEFT: 0.5em; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.5em; PADDING-TOP: 0.5em" vAlign=top align=left width="55%">Time Provider NtpClient: An error occurred during DNS lookup of the manually configured peer 'time.windows.com,0x1'. NtpClient will try the DNS lookup again in 60 minutes. The error was: A socket operation was attempted to an unreachable host. (0x80072751) </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<TABLE class="sys-font-body sys-color-body" id=evtlog cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%">
<TBODY>
<TR class=sys-table-cell-bgcolor1 id=tr_evtlog ondblclick=ShowLogEntry(this)>
<TD class="table-rightborder sys-table-color-border" id=datetime style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.5em; PADDING-LEFT: 0.5em; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.5em; PADDING-TOP: 0.5em" vAlign=top align=left width="25%">Friday, December 12, 2003</TD>
<TD class="table-rightborder sys-table-color-border" id=source style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.5em; PADDING-LEFT: 0.5em; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.5em; PADDING-TOP: 0.5em" vAlign=top align=left width="20%">W32Time</TD>
<TD id=desc style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.5em; PADDING-LEFT: 0.5em; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.5em; PADDING-TOP: 0.5em" vAlign=top align=left width="55%">The time provider NtpClient is configured to acquire time from one or more time sources, however none of the sources are currently accessible. No attempt to contact a source will be made for 60 minutes. NtpClient has no source of accurate time. </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<TABLE class="sys-font-body sys-color-body" id=evtlog cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%">
<TBODY>
<TR class=sys-table-cell-bgcolor2 id=tr_evtlog ondblclick=ShowLogEntry(this)>
<TD class="table-rightborder sys-table-color-border" id=datetime style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.5em; PADDING-LEFT: 0.5em; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.5em; PADDING-TOP: 0.5em" vAlign=top align=left width="25%">Friday, December 12, 2003</TD>
<TD class="table-rightborder sys-table-color-border" id=source style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.5em; PADDING-LEFT: 0.5em; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.5em; PADDING-TOP: 0.5em" vAlign=top align=left width="20%">Service Control Manager</TD>
<TD id=desc style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.5em; PADDING-LEFT: 0.5em; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.5em; PADDING-TOP: 0.5em" vAlign=top align=left width="55%">The ATI WDM TV Tuner service failed to start due to the following error: The service cannot be started, either because it is disabled or because it has no enabled devices associated with it. </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<TABLE class="sys-font-body sys-color-body" id=evtlog cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%">
<TBODY>
<TR class=sys-table-cell-bgcolor1 id=tr_evtlog ondblclick=ShowLogEntry(this)>
<TD class="table-rightborder sys-table-color-border" id=datetime style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.5em; PADDING-LEFT: 0.5em; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.5em; PADDING-TOP: 0.5em" vAlign=top align=left width="25%">Friday, December 12, 2003</TD>
<TD class="table-rightborder sys-table-color-border" id=source style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.5em; PADDING-LEFT: 0.5em; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.5em; PADDING-TOP: 0.5em" vAlign=top align=left width="20%">Service Control Manager</TD>
<TD id=desc style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.5em; PADDING-LEFT: 0.5em; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.5em; PADDING-TOP: 0.5em" vAlign=top align=left width="55%">The ATI WDM TV Audio Crossbar service failed to start due to the following error: The service cannot be started, either because it is disabled or because it has no enabled devices associated with it. </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<TABLE class="sys-font-body sys-color-body" id=evtlog cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%">
<TBODY>
<TR class=sys-table-cell-bgcolor2 id=tr_evtlog ondblclick=ShowLogEntry(this)>
<TD class="ta

There must be something limiting the length of the post

I bought an ATI card which also experienced the same errors, including my previous Grforce4 4200 TI card.

I took the ATI "all in one" card back and bought the PNY card.

Maybe my Motherboard is defective.

How can you tell if the motherboard or CPU are defective? The test app that I have didn't seem to find any problems. I kind of doubt that the graphics card is bad since I experienced errors over 3 cards in total.

Is that error list from when you had the GeForce installed or the ATI? If it was the Geforce then it's looking for the ATI, all the driver and startup information might not have been removed.

Most of your errors are Timing issues. W32Time can be configured differently . . . however that dll configures the time on your computer so it will co-inside with servers online.

Well, here's what I would suggest: Uninstall your video card completley, Find an old hunk of junk video card lying around, hopefully you have one, it's fine if it doesn't have 3d acceleration. Boot windows and see which errors you get.

If you get errors that it can't load something for an ATI card or something you need to go through your device manager and registry and remove left over driver information (In your registry , regedit, you search for something like ATI, and delete some of the values that come up, in case you didn't know).

Now, the W32Time errors are from w32time not being able to connect to the DNS servers for the time, I'm assuming, since you're using a 56K, when your computer boots up you're not connected to the internet, I'm pretty sure that's what it's whining about, try to find the control for it and turn it off, just so it doesn't think you're online constantly, try using the Windows Help (gasp). I know it's evil, but it actually helps sometimes. Go here for some configuration help: lodogg.

Try those things and if you get to the point where you have no more errors put the Geforce back in. Also go here: nVidia XP drivers

I know the card came with drivers, but this is a compatibility driver for XP. nVidia has some issues with DirectX, they are mostly OpenGL cards (non-Windows Standard video stuff).

I also doubt there's much wrong with your Motherboard, usually you can tell. If there is heating issues with your CPU or you have memory frequency issues then something is usually wrong with it.

I looked up that board, and some things you might want to check is: The jumper settings, there is a jumper setting on the board to limit the frequency of the ram, check out your book for that and see if it's set to default or not. Secondly, if your board has RAID make sure you're not hooked to that IDE port, unless you specifically set up RAID when you installed windows (you'd need 2 hard drives to do that).

Other then that . . . If you can't fix it, you can try deleting your Windows Partition (in DOS using fdisk before windows boots) and re-installing windows. Oh, one more thing you should check is your format, fat or ntfs. if its fat, you might want to go ahead and back up what you can and re-install it all after re-installing windows.

That's about all I can give without seeing the actual computer.

I'm sure there's a way to fix the problems without re-installing Windows, it would just take way too much time to do, and probably wouldn't be worth it.

I hope that all helps. try looking on some forums like this one here: computing.net

Have you actually tried a better PSU? Sorry if we already covered this.