New built computer FREEZES please help!!

[welchyboy1]

Hello techs I have a very strange and frustrating issue. I have a computer that has been built from parts from new egg. With a few exceptions. I have an hp case which is stock and came with the original computer and a stock P4 3.0ghz processor. Everything else is new. This is what i bought from new egg...

ASUS P5K-VM LGA 775 Intel G33 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard - RetailModel #5K-VMItem #:N82E16813131187

1 x Western Digital Caviar SE WD1600AAJS 160GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

Hanns·G HW-191DPB Black 19" 5ms Widescreen LCD Monitor - RetailModel #:HW-191DPBItem #:N82E16824254005

1 x Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model BL2KIT12864AA804 - Retail

1 x Thermaltake TR2 W0070RUC 430W ATX Power Supply - Retail

I am using onboard video from the Asus board. I put everything together and installed XP S2 and worked great for a month. Then started getting lots of errors like recovered from serious error and it would automatically run chkdsk and restore lots of information. Sometimes it would start up and not be able to run any program files...couldn't find them but if i restart the computer it will work perfectly for like a day. I wiped the hard drive and reinstalled it and it would never last for more than two days. I would either give me the blue screen of death saying DRIVER errors or just freeze and not ever load windows. At times it would be in a continuous loop. It would come to the boot screen where you can choose normal boot or safe mode and no matter what selection you choose it will restart.

Once I saw the driver issue i started looking at the driver cd i put in and it was the Asus motherboard CD which in fact said VISTA DRIVERS ONLY. So i screwed up...wiped the drive put XP SP2 back on the system let it alone for three days with NOTHING installed. No drivers no software no internet. Worked ok for three days. Went to asus's website to download the drivers for that particular board for XP and still seemed to work. Put office 2003 on there and it restarted unexpectedly in the middle of install. But i blew it off and kept installing stuff. I installed and updated AVG then over night had windows updates installing. I wake up the next morning it is frozen on the screen saver. I restart and it wont boot up to xp AGAIN. I am at my wits end. Sorry for all the information I just wanted it to be clear and show all the things i have done. I have ran mem86 to test both memory sticks. I have ran a western digital hard drive scan to test the hard drive and neither came up with ANY problems. My trouble is it worked perfectly for 1 month with the vista drivers and everything.

Please if anyone can provide any information I will be so thankful. I don't mind reinstalling xp and formatting. Just let me know what i can try or do so i can start making some progress on this computer. Any help or thoughts is much appreciated. I thought I would throw this in just so everyone knows. I was also suspicious of heat because the place where the computer has been setup had no ac. Although after taking it to my house for 2 weeks the house was never any hotter than 80. If this could still be an issue please let me know. I will take anything i can get please. Pass this around or whatever. I need YOUR help. Thanks

 

[cavemangrinder]

Welcome to the forums dude. We'll see if we can help you with your issue. I think the first thing you should do is disqualify overheating as the problem. Download Speedfan and install it before you do anything else. Once installed, run the program and monitor your system temperatures for awhile. If it runs good for awhile, then you can try installing some of your programs (while monitoring your temps). I think its a heat issue, but if its not, then at least we can go from there and troubleshoot other things.

 

[welchyboy1]

Hey man thanks for the quick reply. I will format the drive immediately when i get home and install the drivers from Asus's website from a flash drive (not getting online) Then I will download and install Speedfan. What kind of temps am i looking for? I have never used this program how will i know if it is reaching a point where it shouldn't? Will a heat issue cause the hard drive to not boot correctly? I know if a computer over heats it will shutdown and restart this is very true. I am not putting this heat issue down either because I got to thinking if it works great for 3 days without anything happening then i do lots of installing and downloading updates during the night it could be getting warm. But what I don't understand is that my house is much cooler than where this computer was originally at with no ac and it actually worked great for a month. Thanks for the advice and again I will try this tonight and update as soon as possible. Thanks

Other suggestions are welcome by you or any others. Thanks

 

[cavemangrinder]

Max temps for the Pentium 4 is 70c, so you don't want it near that. It may not be a heat issue, but just want to make sure because overheating does tend to make the computer restart or shutdown itself. What updates for windows where you installing? SP3? When you reformat and reinstall, make sure you download the XP drivers from here http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us&model=P5K-VM .

 

[welchyboy1]

OK Great I will make sure the temps are not causing the problem. I did not do sp3 however i did about 101 of the high priority updates and just left it alone. Not sure what installed or what didn't. I will not do that this time until things get solved. That is exactly where i got the drivers from. I downloaded the chipset one, the LAN, Video, and Audio all from this site and chose the XP driver. Thanks again for your help and hopefully we can get this frustrating issue solved. I have never had this much of a problem before. I will definitely keep you posted.

 

[cavemangrinder]

Ok, sounds good

 

[welchyboy1]

OK So far I have formatted the drive and installed XP S2 back on the machine. I have also Installed the chipset, video, sound, and Lan drivers. I have speedfan currently running while I installed these drivers and while I am on this machine right now typing this out. The system temp is 34C, CPU t 35C and has gotten to about 42C but again I haven't done much installing yet. The AUX is 37C, and the HD0 is at 32C. What should I do? Should I go ahead and install some software, updates, or just let it sit and see if it crashes without me doing anything? Right now I haven't gotten any errors from event viewer nor have I seen any issues in windows itself. Everything seems to be working great as of now. I will let it sit for maybe a day or until i hear from you again or any other suggestions just to see if the computer holds up. Please let me know what you would recommend. Thanks

 

[cavemangrinder]

Glad to hear its up and running. I think installing your programs would be ok, just don't install the updates yet. I think it would be a good idea to see if your computer runs ok first, before you do any updating.

 

[welchyboy1]

OK I will try installing office 2003, AVG, and a few other programs and see what happens.

Well just to update a little more. It made it through the night last night with no errors. I installed office 2003, AVG, and actually over night about 10 to 15 updates installed automatically because apparently I forgot to shutoff automatically download and install updates. However Everything still seems to be working for now. What do you think I should do now. Speed Fan has not gotten over 42C still. I might run a cpu benchmark or something to see what happens when it starts working hard. What do you think I should try?

Well we have a problem... I left the computer on all night last night with a fresh copy of windows XP SP2, Asus drivers from the website for XP consisting of chipset, video, audio, and lan. I installed office 2003, speedfan, AVG, and about 15 windows updates were installed. The speedfan test never reached anything over 42C for my P4 processor. I checked it this morning and all was right in the world with the computer. I come home at 5 pm and the screen is black. I move the move and push some keyboard buttons and nothing happens. The computer is in fact on but there is nothing happening. I push the power button to completely shut off the machine to restart. I get the screen showing to boot normal, safe mode or whatever. I choose boot normal. Starts to load windows and eventually ends at a black screen. Never loads windows. Does anyone have any suggestions. This is constantly happening. I have run tests on the memory and hard drive and never any errors. No errors in event viewer either. Please spread the news need some help. Thanks

 

[welchyboy1]

This is to update everyone. What I am going to do is format the drive again and put xp sp2 on it. I will install speedfan and everest on the machine first to test temps. Then I will turn off the windows updates completely. I will only install the chipset driver and the video driver for the motherboard which i will get on another computer online at the Asus website and put on a flash drive and install on the machine. Then I think I will let it sit for a few days and see what happens. Possibly running memtest86 to check the memory. I will update everyone on the status. Please continue with the suggestions.

OK here is the up to date status of the computer...

I formatted the drive and installed XP SP2. I went to the Asus website on another computer download the chipset and VGA drivers for this motherboard (for xp). I restarted after each driver as requested by the computer. After that I installed Speedfan and Everest to monitor the temperature of the system. I then shut the system down took of the heatsink and cpu. I used a dry paper towel to wipe off the grey paste off the processor and heatsink. I also reseated the memory. I booted the machine up opened speedfan and everest and these are the temps i got. Computer was idel i was getting CPU: 39C and Motherboard: 38C. I believe before i took the paste of the heatsink and CPU I was getting about 33C idel on the cpu but i could be wrong.

I then decided to run some benchmarks with everest. I ran a cpu benchmark which really heated up the processor.The max it got was 62C. I was told that 70C is the max and you don't really want to get near that temp but not sure. I stopped the test after about 2 minutes. All temps went back to normal and the system is in a stable condition as of now. I have restarted a few times to change the processor and so forth as i mentioned and it came up every time without trouble. There is currently not one error in the event viewer. Not under system or application. I have about four question marks in the device manager which I can get rid of and have before but I was going to see how long the computer lasted before doing these. I just wanted to do the main ones which were the chipset and video. In the device manager I needing
Ethernet, PCI Device, Communication controller, and an unknown device. I know one of these is audio, one is Lan of course, one or two could be a modem. I have an external modem there as well as an onboard. However I was thinking it might be best to leave these alone and see how the system hangs in there. Please let me know if any one has any suggestions up to this point. We are all pretty much going in it together since I started out fresh again. All suggestions and comments are welcome. Oh and I have not done any windows updates as of this point or installed AVG or anything other than the things I have mentioned. I will leave it alone for now until i hear something else that sounds better.