Member Avatar for BrooklynB

I am having random restarts in addition to random program crashes (usually IE, Firefox, Mozilla Thunderbird and Dreamweaver MX). The programs tend to crash without warning – they just disappear!

This is getting worse recently since I added 512 RAM. But it was happening when I had 512 RAM. One tech told me I probably had motherboard problems. He suggested that perhaps the memory slots on the motherboard were the problem. Another said I should clean up the hard dive.

So I reformatted my hard drive, reinstalled everything. And the same things are happening.

Should I change motherboard? Or does anybody have another idea?

System:
Micron Millennia® Max XP
Operating System: Windows 2000 Professional Operating System Windows 2000
Processor AMD Athlon XP 1600+ 1.4GHz 1 CPU002096-00 link
Memory 2 512 MB DDR SDRAM
Hard Drive Seagate Snowmass 40GB ATA100 7200RPM 1 HDI001767-00 link
Video Card VisionTek NVIDIA GeForce2 MX 200 32MB 1 VCD001542-01 link
Motherboard Aurora - Gigabyte 7DX Motherboard with Integrated Components (Millennia® Max XP)

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by Danniboy

Dani AI

Generated

This is a practical, step-by-step diagnostic checklist to narrow down whether the instability is hardware or software. Several people here (for example , , and ) have correctly pointed to memory, power and heat as likely culprits — the goal below is to prove or eliminate each possibility with low-risk tests before replacing the motherboard.

Start with data collection: check the Windows Event Viewer around the crash times (Application and System logs) for repeated error sources or timestamps that match the failures (). Next, isolate memory: run a full pass of a dedicated tester such as memtest86 (several passes, test each DIMM alone and in every slot). If memtest reports errors, that pinpoints RAM or the slot. If it is clean, move on.

Power and storage checks: verify PSU stability by swapping a known-good supply or using a PSU tester / multimeter (check that +12V/+5V/+3.3V rails are within ATX tolerances; see ATX spec summary). Test the hard disk SMART data and run a long self-test with the drive vendor tool (for Seagate use SeaTools; smartmontools is another option).

Visual and firmware checks: inspect the motherboard for bulging or leaking capacitors (a common failure mode). If hardware looks OK and diagnostics pass, update chipset drivers and the BIOS only if the vendor lists a relevant fix (BIOS updates carry risk). If intermittent failures continue after these steps, swap components (PSU, single DIMM, known-good HDD) one at a time or consider bench-testing with spare parts before replacing the motherboard. Safety note: always power down, unplug, and discharge capacitors before touching components.

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All 10 Replies

Member Avatar for Dark_Omen

Is it the system that crashes or the programs that crash. There are three things that I can think of that might be the cause of the problem.
1. Bad Ram
2. Bad MotherBoard
3. Bad Power Supply

Member Avatar for BrooklynB

Both the system (sometimes) and the programs (sometimes).

Member Avatar for moderate_rock48

Are you running 2 different speeds of ram(i.e. pc2100 and pc3200)?If so I would return the stick of ram you just purchased and buy the same speed of the original stick. Ram could be incompatible, kingston is a good brand. go to www.4allmemory.com they have a scanner to scan your computer and tells you which ram would be best for your computer.

Member Avatar for Dark_Omen

But it was happening before he upgraded to 1gb of ram. Did u originally upgrade to 512mb from something, or is that the original amount of memory?

Member Avatar for BrooklynB

But it was happening before he upgraded to 1gb of ram. Did u originally upgrade to 512mb from something, or is that the original amount of memory?

When I got the machine in 2001 it had 256 mb. In early 2002 I ugraded to 768. The problem started about 3 months ago (I had not yet made any changes). I updated to 1 mb about 2 weeks ago. It has steadily gotten worse.

Member Avatar for Dark_Omen

How many slots do u have for memory?

Edit:
Nevermind about that question, I looked it up, it wouldn't be the problem I was thinking of.

Do u still have the original stick of memory. Try putting that back in and see if it still does the same thing.

Member Avatar for BrooklynB

2 slots. I don't have the original any more.

Member Avatar for caperjack

So, is the CPU heatsinc and fan clean of dust . ,maybe try someThermal grease n the cpu .
The powersupply fan clean ,pull the side of the case and leave it off to see if maybe staying cooler helps .
As you can see im thinking HEAT

Member Avatar for Dark_Omen

You can put another fan in your computer if it is a heat issue. Also another reason might be your power supply has died. This happened to me it would shut off after a little bit because there was too much power that the computer needed to run.

Member Avatar for Danniboy

im with caperjack, sumhow i dnt think its faulty ram, it sounds to me like ur ram is possibly gettin hot or its heat in some way that is causing it, another thing tht u could try (just to add sumthin else to ma post) is try disconnectiong peices of hardware and turn on ur comp without them plugged in at all, 1 by 1 like floppy 1st... then get the cd out, then any usb things, until solely the crtitical things are plugged in, becuase mabe, just mabe it could be a hardware problem, but somything tells me its heat...:confused:


Danniboy.

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