Computer crashing in Holland

OK I'm trying to help a buddy in Holland here - he doesn;t want to post b/c he feels his english is bad

Anyway his system is
windows XP PRO version 2002
CPU inter R pentium 4 2.60 ghz
1GB of RAM
ge force 4 128mb ti 4200
ASAS P4P800 motherboard

Now his story is very strange to me - he thinks it is his motherboard is doing it... the computer crashes *only* when he is playing games... Which makes me think it would be graphics related.. But after reboot he says he must plug his mouse, headset, and keyboard in again because they will not work! This is the part that really sounded strange to me but I thought this last symptom might ring a bell in someone's head as to where heneeds to look first?

 

HI Detox,

It may well be the motherboard but that is hard to say on such limited evidence. Has your friend tried looking at the Event Log (especially system) for errors relating to keyboard/mouse drivers. Obviously he would look especially closely at the points in time immediately preceding the lockups. Also, the Application event log should be checked.

It's strange about the headset needing to be replugged in. I have seen a couple instances of mouse/keyboard needing to be replugged in, though.

 

If he feels this is a problem, let him pose a question at the helpmij.nl forums. Plenty of help in the dutch language over there

 

Hi Detox,
Hardware probs uh....here is my suggest....
Even we "professional students" use one good feature named *Checkit* to locate problems. It is bootable from floppy and antiviruses should be turned off, otherwise false positive alert pops up. The feature incluedes a big bunch of tests, and they should be run one by one. We use it in our school and haven´t heard anything bad about it.
all test results are printable after finished testing
download trial version from here:
http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_description/0,fid,5045,00.asp

Nice hot hot summer aye? too way hot for me in here uh...yesterday meter told 102 F


friendliest -Ari

 

Checkit is definitely much better than nothing but it is not nearly good enough to rely on to give a clean bill of health. The best PC diagnostics that I am aware of (though I have not kept up to date with their latest versions) are PC Doctor and Microscope 2000. Each of these are in the $400 - $600 price range.

 

Dan,
I surely respect your knowledge.......but I need to ask if Pc Doctor and Microscope operate on DOS mode.....if not, they are not so trustworthy if you test the memory. This came up on my course, I personally don´t know much yet ,
I have Pc -doctor too.
(besides they are so expensives ouch)
Ari

 

Hey,

Microscope 2000 works at a lower level than DOS as they have their own proprietary kernel.

The retail version of PC Doctor can operate from within Win95/98/ME/NT/2k/XP as well as from a BootDiskette. The OEM versions of PC Doctor are more limited in this respect but more specialized for the specific OEM platform they are released for. For example, I have retail licenses for both products but as I have the IBM OEM one that came with my Thinkpad I use only the IBM OEM one on it.

Also, useful in something like Detox's friends machine is the PostCard that Micro2000 sells. The main purpose of this is to give a readout of the hardware platform specific I/O port (usually it is I/0 0x80) which indicates the specific subroutine in the BIOS POST process being undergone at any moment so if post fails without a beep or visual error you can deduce the point at issue by reading the LED readout on the card. While this is the main purpose of the card it also has others such as monitoring critical signals such as RST as well as the voltage levels on the main power lines on the PCI and ISA buses. With regard to the latter, in addition to the led that would indicate that, fo instance, the 3.3 volt line is within specs, there are clamp points available on the card that you can use a multimeter on for peak/avg/min readings on a given voltage line during burnin tests.

I would recommend any or all of these products if you feel that you will be doing a significant amount of work in troubleshooting PC hardware but if you think your work in this area will be occasional then I think that your money can best be spent elsewhere.

I bought these when I was working for a large local OEM a few years back but since then I have been doing mostly networking/info-security work so I haven't continued purchasing upgrades (as you said, they are pricey)

Also, with regard to OEM diags, Compaq's diags for servers are very good as well but of course only for the specific models each is designed for. To a lesser extent, Intel's diagnostics are good as well.

HTH,

Dan

 

Thank You Dan for your specified answer,

I think that if I stick on computers and will be fixing them for living (someday after course,1½ years left) those features would be VERY needful ! all of them . New components are not expensives anymore if only you know which one needs to be replaced.

friendliest -Ari