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[Aerendur]

Since thursday my computer started crashing at weird times. The first time was thursday night, I was watching some footie on my second screen and playing daoc on my main one. And suddenly it all just froze. No more sound, both screens kept showing what they had been on. Since it was late, I just figured Id let it rest and check in the monring.

In the morning my pc wouldnt start. It would sometimes get to the windows loading bar and get stuck or bsd, or it woudlnt even get past the bios loading screen for it to get stuck.. After two hours of no real change it suddenly booted up and ran for a few hours. Only to crash again in the afternoon.

Then I decided to try and make a fresh install for vista. So I booted from dvd (and got stuck in the loading screens a few times and on other randoms spots) to finally manage a new install. This install has been running since yesterday afternoon (and Im slowly building it out).

Does anyone have any ideas what this could be? I was thinking either mainboard or powersupply issues. But they are so random and the computer can run for several hours just fine now, wth is wrong?

And then for the other part, Im considering buying a new pc and making this one run as my second. But I have no clue about the current hardware and the like. So which bits should I go for and why? Checked out a link kivik gave me on msn, a good bet migh tbe 3 gig quad core + asus p5k + geforce 8800 gts.

All comments are welcome! Thanks in advance

[Corleth]

Often when you get a BSOD you'll get a memory.dmp file, you can load it up in WinDbg and see where it crashed.
Secondly have you submitted the crash to MS? I remember I was having BSOD a while back and it was a MODEM driver.... which I wasn't even using and MS told me to update it and hey presto problem solved.... and I would never had realised it was this driver (I don't use the MODEM).

[Keevom]

I had the same problem a while a go, it was a hardware issue with my network card. Bought a new one and worked perfect sence then. It felt by then it was random, but in fact it was when i tried to move my computer board or someting that the cable twisted the card and made the failure.

Doesnt mean that you have the same fault ofc

[Xandax]

Usually unexplained crashes like this without warning are related to hardware issues. The difficulty is figurering out which hardware.

My first guess would be problems with your memory, although that would usually give you error messages in my experiences. Could also be issues with your CPU (though I do not think it is overheating, based on the pattern in your post).

Issues like this is difficult to debug and deduct, but if you have multiple memory sticks in the computer, try yanking them out one at the time to see if it changes the solution.
Also try pulling out unneeded hardware, such as the sound card if you have non-onboard one etc.

[Maar]

Checked out a link kivik gave me on msn, a good bet migh tbe 3 gig quad core + asus p5k + geforce 8800 gts.

All comments are welcome! Thanks in advance

I would choose a 9800GTX since the price dont differ that much from a 8800GTS and that would open up for PhysX that Warhammer will support according to rumors around the world.

Currently GeForce 9800 GTX, GeForce GTX 280, and GeForce GTX 260 GPUs are supported.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/physx_8.06.12_whql.html
http://www.nvidia.com/object/nvidia_physx.html

And today a CPU above Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 2.83GHz/1333MHz may not be worth the price. I have a Q6600 (2.4GHz) and CPU utilization for AoC are around 30-40% with all details on max.

The above + 2-4GB RAM would be a quite nice gaming machine.

My current Machine: Vista x64, Intel Q6600, 4GB RAM, Gforce 8800GT
After upgrade: Vista x64, Intel Q9550, 8GB RAM, Gforce 9800GTX

* Just my 5 copper *