Well, i used to have a 1.6gigahertz pentium 4 with a 4G4A Motherboard and geforce 4 mx440 graphics card; a budget pc basically.

That PC died spontaneously after the screen went black, i restarted, and the PC decided to make repetitive siren noise like deedawdeedaw (overheating? my CPU was only 32* Centigrade!) and then i restarted it again, and then it made a higher pitched siren noise! I removed the RAM, then placed it back... woohoo another siren noise, removed the graphics card... laaa deee daaa yes it just kept making that noise. Anyway, i eventually gave up, removed the whole motherboard and gave it a backseat in my drawers. :lol:

I then put in another motherboard from an old computer which wasn't really that good but worked nicely, a AMD Socket A with a Duron 800megahertz processor and the same graphics card and stuff.

It worked, and i reformatted the hard drive to erase all possible viruses and crap. I went into XP, activated and stuff... and hey presto - it freezes. I restart, go back, it freezes. Anyway, it seems to only freeze when i start to download something nowadays but what i don't get is why everything i have starts to go wrong the moment i install it! I put the motherboard in correctly as well, nice RAM and everything. It's a pain in the ass!!!

I suppose my main point is:

Is there any cause for a computer to freeze when you try to download something??:eek:

Are you sure that the processor is getting cooled adequately? The older AMD processors were notorious for their overheating issues.

How much RAM do you have in that older board? Insufficient RAM can cause freezes like that, especially with XP which is a resource hog. You can reduce the drain on the RAM by only having one page open at a time.

Another thing to look for with older boards are bad caps.

Another potential problem may be that the RAM you are now using could be defective. Have you tried to replace the ram with entirely new sticks to see if that is the cause~?

If you don't have any additional RAM sticks available, you could try swtiching the RAM so stick 1 is in the second slot and vice versa. If the computer seems to lock up more quickly than usual, the stick you moved to the first slot may be the culprit. This is by no means a truly scientific test but just a means by which you can guage the trouble a little bit.

Download and run memtest86.

have you actually remembered to apply to the cpu:

Thermal glue (important!)
heatsink(s)
cpu cooler?

A ran a cpu without thermal paste once and it fried it permanently

i think this is the right area to discuss my problem. i have a pretty reliable machine except when i boot up my games. what i experience is a total freeze. no audio, no mouse movement. nothing.

AMD athlon xp (2075mhz)2800+
2.07GHz
BIOSTAR M7VIZ mobo KM400
768mb RAM
EVGA 7800 GS video card

i had problems with the computer freezing before purchasing a video card, installing additional RAM and adding a beefier PSU (350w).

can you suggest a starting point for troubleshooting?
i have the case opened for circulation. i don't know why, but i think its an overheating issue.

plus, is there a way to change the thermal shut off settings? or would this have nothing to do with the problem.

thanks.

okay, i think i;ve come to the conclusion that my bios needs flashed. that or i could buy another mobo for 60 bucks. having a socket 462 limits me, right?

anysuggestions? i hate freezing when i play BF2142. before this game, my computer would randomly freeze, so this is nothing new. i reformatted my computer a couple months ago and still had the problem.

i swapped memory sticks to see if that helped, but i still froze.

cpu runs at 51c which isnt too hot. my gpu runs at 39c.

my processor fan is running at 3900rpm, is that normal?

help!

your temps are normal. CPU should be 40 - 60 prererably. GPU temp is normal too. Dont know about fan speed but its obviously working or else your cpu would be hotter.