Hey there,

I desperately need some help concerning random crashes. I have recently installed a Geforce 5600 AGP 256mb RAM. Now this may have been a silly idea considering the fact that my computer is a little bit dated now. However I thought I'd see what if any difference the card would make to my framerates on various games. So I installed said card knowing that although the card is 8x and my motherboard only supports 4x that the card would run at the slower. Everything seemed to function fine for a while, until all of a sudden my computer clicks and goes onto a blue screen. The blue screen recommends I reset, since this is my first error. The crashes continue thereafter sometimes blue screens, but mostly random resets. Sometimes the resets get so bad that I can't even get past start up. Sometimes the resets occur during scandisk. However sometimes the resets cease all together just to come back again. It is fairly common to find that the computer asking me to choose whether to start up from the last know best configuration etc. Choosing this option never helps. Choosing Safemode results in an error, making mention of partitions. All in all I'm very flustered.

Now I have no idea what could be causing these crashes apart fron installing my new graphics card. I was wondering if an out of date bios might be causing problems. My motherboard is an MSI 845 Ultra-C. My processor is a Pentium 4 1.6GHz. I have 1Gb PC2100 RAM. I also have two hard drives. One was brought recently and is around 160Gb and just stores data, whilst the other is 40Gb and contains my operating sytem. It is my oldest drive.

Could anyone point me in the right direction? I'm in desperate need of guidance here. Also just to note I would prefer to keep the card in my comp if I can.

Thansk, any help will be much appreciated.

p.s if you need any other info don't hesitate to ask.

Make sure you have it on x4 and not x8. It could also be overheating, open your case and run the computer and see if it get really hot becasue it could be that the fan is broken.

the mobo automaticlly switches it from 8x to 4x, etc. is your power supply large enough to handle the power demands of your computer? i have a 5600 also and it runs fine, but i dont have 2 HDs. and my system is a bit newer. check the power output of the power supply. maybe your system is not getting enough power.

What does the blue screen say? Generally (depending on the OS) the blue screen will contain 2 things of interest for troubleshooting.

1) A STOP Error message with a bunch of letters and numbers
2) a filename (may have one, may not).

Providing this information can help in troubleshooting the exact cause of the problem. Meanwhile, since the vast majority of these kind of problems are associated with the video drivers - try this procedure to fix it (this is for XP - there may be differences with other OS's):

1) Download the latest WHQL certified driver from http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp (Here's the link for the XP/2K one's -
http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_2k_78.01.html ) and put it on your desktop for later use.

2) Go to Start...Run...and type in "devmgmt.msc" (without the quotes) and press Enter.

3) Click on the + sign next to the words "Display Adapters". Then right click on your display adapter and select "Uninstall" (Don't worry, you'll still have video after doing this).

4) Reboot your system. When the Found New Hardware Wizard pops up - Cancel it (we'll install the drivers in the next step).

5) Once the Wizard is cancelled, double click on the file that you downloaded in Step 1 and follow the prompts to install the updated drivers.

6) You may have to reboot for the settings to take effect.

Let us know how this works out for you.

You need to check the fan on the card is running and get the latest drivers as others said but my guess would be a power supply issue like Legoman suggested -

Power connectors (that plug into the motherboard) have been in a state of transition in the last few years where an extra 4 cables have been added to provide more power for hungry graphics cards - sometimes these cables go to a seperate square 4 pin cable which plugs into a socket on the mobo close to the AGP, sometimes they are incorporated into the main power connector. You can tell by counting the wires going to the main power connector - if there are 10 on a side then it does not have the extra power cables there and there should be another 4 pin connector somewhere. If your lucky this connector may never have been plugged in and all you have to do is connect it (with the PC switched off of course!). If its already plugged in then maybe your power supply does not have the grunt to power your current configuration.

Let us know how you go.

Well I thought it may be a power issue. The card says it requires a PSU 250W minimum and this is what I have and no I can't afford to buy a new power supply. With regards to fans, I have 2 running, one for the PSU and one for the case itself, both are fine. I also always keep the side off my computer for extra ventilation. Also, just to note I have my graphics card plugged into the MoBo. It's own on board fan seems to be functioning perfectly.

However latest update is that now my comp has died altogether. Tried to boot up today and got error message

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
\windows\system32\config\system

You can attempt to repair this file by starting windows setup using the original setup CDROM
Select 'r' at the first screen to start repair.

Now this could be an extension of the problem I've been having with the resets or possibly due to an improper shutdown. Only problem is I don't have my original setup CDROM. I wasn't given an XP disc. Can anyone help. Is there any way to create a repair disc using somone's else comp? I may be able to get an XP disc off somone else, but will this work?

Also trying to start in safemode gives me the following:

multi(0)disc(0)rdisc(0)partition(1)/WINDOWS/SYSTEM32/ntoskrnl.exe
multi(0)disc(0)rdisc(0)partition(1)/WINDOWS/SYSTEM32/hal.dll
multi(0)disc(0)rdisc(0)partition(1)/WINDOWS/SYSTEM32/KDCOM.dll
multi(0)disc(0)rdisc(0)partition(1)/WINDOWS/SYSTEM32/BOOTVID.dll
multi(0)disc(0)rdisc(0)partition(1)/WINDOWS/SYSTEM32/CONFIG/system
multi(0)disc(0)rdisc(0)partition(1)/WINDOWS/SYSTEM32/CONFIG/system.log

and then I get the boot error message as stated above. The message directly above was appearing when I tried to boot into safemode previously however before the boot error incident. I don't know whether this means anything to anyone.

Could somone please help. I'd prefer to not be told to ring somone or buy something, because this is not really an option. Thanks for any help in advance.

Running chkdsk may fix the problem.

NTFS4Dos is a freeware floppy disk that has a chkdsk utility that you can run.

Alternatively build the UBCD4Win which will give allow you to run chkdsk and other useful diagnostic utilities.

How to do a repair install

However on another forum I use one member who's a IT admin fears this \windows\system32\config\system as it's a indication that the hdd is failing. So you may want to run your hdd manufacturers diagnostic utility. I've seen this message before and done repair installs etc.... and the hdd has never failed afterwards but it's something else to consider.

I shall look into this. Thanks. Any other help would be much appreciated.

It seems the chkdsk utilities you have mentioned are for NTFS based systems. My primary hard drive is FAT32. I am assuming I will not be able to use these utilities. Am I right in thinking this?

I'm also not even sure how these utilities work. Do I install them onto a disc? Sorry I'm a novice at this sort of thing.

I'd also like to note that at no point during the start up am I able to use command prompts. If I try to use the keyboard after the boot error message, my computer restarts.

I have started a new topic on the no boot issue.

here

Any more input on the random crash issue would be much appreciated.