Random freezes

[1337rice]

No matter what game I play, whether it's Call of Duty 4, Assassin's Creed, NHL 09, Need For Speed Undercover.....at some point of the game, it would just freeze. The entire computer. Cannot go back out to Windows...so I would have to press the reset button.
Sometimes, it's not just playing games, it can happen any time when typing a word document or just surfing the net or watching a video. It freezes or sometimes BSOD.

Changing the power does not work...
Changing the video card does not work...
Changing the hard drives does not work...
Re-installing windows does not work...

I'm thinking that it's the motherboard problem...sadly...finding a Socket 939 is quite hard (except online).

Specs:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ 2.0ghz S.939
512mb x 2 Buffalo DDR400 + 512mb x 2 OCZ Premier DDR400 = 2gb
Foxconn Winfast NF4K8AC mobo with latest BIOS
250gb Western Digital SATA(WD2500KS) + 500gb Western Digital SATA(WD500AAKS)
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD3650 512mb DDR2 (updated with 8.11 Catalyst Drivers)

any suggestions on how to fix this random problem?

[careener]

Look at the caps on your motherboard. We had a significant number of machines at work with intermittent freezing problems and it turned out the mbs all had bad caps. Luckily they were all replaced under warranty.

[1337rice]

what do you mean by looking at the caps?
meaning if they're burnt?

[willy]

Have you ever tried to run Memtest on your system before ? Especially after you have 4 sticks of RAM installed ?

[mingyang]

Have you ever tried to run Memtest on your system before ? Especially after you have 4 sticks of RAM installed ?

+1

burn a memtest iso on a cd
do test on boot

[1337rice]

well...it did happen after i had 4 sticks instead of 2...but not instantly...it took like at least a couple months more that things started to screw up.
When I installed Windows Vista, It would generally freeze (so I went back to XP). I thought it was Vista's problem due to the number of bugs the OS has...but apparently XP has that same problem.
So it might be the RAM...
but I still blame it on the motherboard...

But yeah, if it's the RAM...I seriously don't want to spend $70-80 on a new 2gb set. I might as well buy a AMD 6000+ BE AM2 cpu, a new mobo, and DDR2 ram and give it a good overhaul.

For the memtest
So far...gosh this test takes a long time...
it's at:
Pass: 29%
Test #7 Random number sequence
Time: 20:

[1337rice]

Memtest is completed...it passed with 0 errors....
so...what now?

[McLaren__F1]

Memtest is completed...it passed with 0 errors....
so...what now?

how long did you leave MemTest for?

[killoverme]

My computer frozen when I played a game kind of exactly like you I added an extra bit of ram and such. but I did some bios stuff to set my ram to 200mhz (as specs said it could) and timings then when ever i played a certain game, it would freeze, everyone esle ran perfectly though

[1337rice]

how long did you leave MemTest for?

1 hour 21 minutes....should i leave it longer?

[1337rice]

anyone?

[KrayZeeMofo]

leave it overnight

[terrybear]

caps on motherboard would be my guess, the mixed ram could also do it as well.

if the videocard is a pci-e one your 1 idea's probly the best, upgrade to a AMD790GX or 790 FX-B motherboard, 4 gig kit of DDR2 1066 & a X2 cpu for now, grab a phenom II when there down abit in price after initial launch jan 8th.

Sell off the cpu, motherboard(possibly) & ram while there still hard to find to help with those 3 upgrade items.

[ctc027]

what do you mean by looking at the caps?
meaning if they're burnt?

Take a look at the link below. Bad or leaked capacitors on the motherboard are usually the result of Windows freezed or hang at ramdon.


http://cquirke.mvps.org/badcaps.htm

[1337rice]

i checked the caps...they seem to be fine...

[terrybear]

i checked the caps...they seem to be fine...

then I would sugest goin with the theory of as I said a corupted bios, or else the ram's conflicting with each other.

Did you try running the pc with the 2 rams in it seperatly as well ??