Help with IDing a prob

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7 Nov 2004
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I have a rather odd problem with my comp at the moment that started a few days ago. The comp seems to be freezing up and the only way to get out of it to switch off and restart. When it started I was just browsing the Internet, since then it locks up every time I try to start windows on the loading screen (at different points each time) and it has locked up a few times on the BIOS boot screen.

After a few reboots it became aparent that its only the image on screen that is freezing, as when I reboot the little screen on my G15 keyboard goes through all the normal motions as if windows were booting normally and eventually shows the time / memory status as it would once windows has fully loaded. So it has obviously loaded the small app that runs those functions.

I had read that dodgy memory was often a cause of freezes so I swapped out my memory sticks and tried them on their own and in different slots, but no difference. I have checked the CPU is seated properly and reset the BIOS but still noting. What I assume is that its either a prob with the graphics card or the monitor. Is it going to be one of these two for certain or is there something else im overlooking?

my specs are

A64 4000 SD
2gb memory
X1800XT
ECS Elite Group KN1 Motherboard
Seasonic 600w PSU
2 80gb SATA drives

And nothing is overclocked and CPU / Graphics cards temps have always been well within normal

Any insight would be greatly appreciated :)
 
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If it's locking up on the bios screen then it's not a software/driver problem. From what you've said It sounds like a graphics card problem. If you can get your hands on a spare graphics card to shove in and test with that, that would be your best bet.

You should also download and run memtest to make sure your RAM is not at fault (I know you swapped the RAM, but best to be sure). If you do run memtest I suggest you leave it running overnight as a couple of hours is not always enough to find errors in the RAM.
 
I did think about trying memtest but as the screen freezes I wouldnt have been able to actually view any of the results (Im certain its all working in the background its just the screen that freezes). Is there a way for memtest to dump the test info in a txt file on the floppy drive so I could view it on another machine?

Mr-Xoc
 
To be sure it's running windows in the background you could turn the sound on and do things that will guarantee a sound like running an mp3 file. If you can do that while the image is still frozen then i'd say it's definitely your g-card.
 
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