Computer random crashes

[Weophyte]

hello, im running an Abit vt-7 motherboard, Sata Raid harddrive, 1.5 gigs of ram, and a 2 gig processor(let me know if i need to give more info). For a long time now, my computer has been randomly restarting, after either 1 or 2 beeps(different sometimes). Sometimes its just after i power on, sometimes its 2 hours into me turning the computer on. It happened a few months ago very rarely, but now, its gotten to the point where it happens about 6 times a day. Sometimes there are a bunch of lines down my monitor, sometimes it just says no video input. Ive replaced my Ram and motherboard, neither seemed to help. any help would be MUCH appreciated. Thanks

[Inky]

It could be a critical but sporadic problem with your OS, a malfunctioning piece of hardware, or even power fluctuations.

[Weophyte]

well ive reformatted before, so would that emit the OS problem possibility?
and would you have any suggestions towards what to do to try and fix it? since it doesnt happen all the time, if i take it in, it may not show a single problem, and the second i got it back, it would start again.

[Inky]

Doing a reformat and reinstall will usually eliminate OS problems. However, I have seen faulty Restore disks that make the problem worse.

Have you checked your Event Viewer to see if any errors show up in relation to the crashes? Also, have you tried to exclude a hardware problem>

[Weophyte]

ive tried to look several times, and i dont see anything on the event logger related to crashes, im 95% sure its a hardware problem, i just know what to do to figure out which piece it is

[Inky]

Disconnect all non-essentially hardware and go from there. Once, you're sure the crashes have stopped, start reconnecting one at a time until you figure out which one is causing the problem.

[DjLizard]

Start with a memory test: http://memtest.org (it's free)
You can make a bootable CD or floppy disk.
Memory module failure is the most common cause, and it's the easiest thing to test for, so start there.

Let it run until it either finds errors, or Pass says at least 5. Getting 5 passes can take up to 3 hours with the amont of RAM you have. If you find errors (big red lines) then remove one memory module and start the test again. Eventually, after rotating through the memory modules, you can find out which memory module is causing it (if it is indeed a memory issue).