PCA Forums

I just built a new comp
MSI-865PE Neo2-FIS2R (OEM)
512MB HyperX ram - (I think 3200)
Retail P4 3.0

Older IBM 30G hard drive - Need to save up for a SATA RAID setup

And i am using my old video card
Radeon 9500 (non-Pro)

What it is doing is with no warning -

The monitor will just go into off mode (?) with a blank screen and the power button goes yellow - same as if you turned the computer off while leaving the monitor on.

But the computer is still running - no strange sounds - no beeps - hard drive doesn't sound like it is running.

The only way to get it back started is by hiting the reset switch - sometimes works
turning the power off & on - always works.

When it logs back on it is if nothing happened - doesn't ask me to go into safe mode.

I have turned off the screen saver and power shut down settings are all set to never.
Hibernate mode is not on.

I have checked for viruses - there were a couple to start with (Trojans) but it comes up clean now. (Hadn't set up firewall yet)

My question is that I don't know where to start with diagnosis.
Video Card
Monitor
Windows xp settings
Hardware conflict?


Is there a stress test for the video card that will show me if there is a problem?
could there be a conflict in the bios (set to 8x agp)
I am not overclocking at all - still all on default settings.

There is no rhyme or reason to when it will happen
In the middle of playing a game Call of Duty - United Offensive - or online America's Army
Kids playing toon town
Wife checking emails
Or with noone even at the computer at all.

Temp is normal - CPU 50 degrees


My question is really where do I start. I don't have an extra video card or monitor to try.
Is there a diagnostic program out there that can help me narrow it down?

Everything worked fine in the old computer - ABIT KT7A- Raid - AMD 1.2 - 512MB Mossel Ram

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Forgot to mention i did install the newest Catalyst driver from ATI.

try checking the connections on the monitor first. make sure everything is tight.

your board also has a feature called "CoreCell" that supposedly makes adjustments in the voltages and stuff:

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm? ... 402&page=2

seems like it does a lot of stuff by default, you might want to try disabling it and see what happens.

Thanks - I will give it a try.

sounds like it might be a power issue - if the 9500 is running off a floppy type connector you might want to get a converter to use a regular molex connector....if your ps is marginal you might try pulling one stick of ram and see if that makes any difference....they suck up a lot of juice....also check if your cpu is set to throttle down because of heat....open up your case and find an old floor fan to blow on it to see if it is heat....there are a lot of memory test programs out there, but i don't remember names....from the way it is acting i would guess either power or heat is the issue

I assume you're using the 4.11 Cat driver? It has some issues, although that's not one I've heard of. For starters I'd recommend using the 4.9 Cats as they were rock stable.

You might have a problem with the monitor. I've seen some monitors get fooled into thinking that sync was out of range and they go into safe mode and don't come out when the sync comes back. Have you tried turning the monitor off and on to see if it comes back?

Conversely it could be a bad card. I've seen cards that, as they heat up, the sync frequency will drift and the monitor will lose sync.

Do you have another monitor you can try? Some monitors are less fussy about sync than others, and you can use the frequency display in the OSD to tell you if it's on frequency.

You could also try using a different refresh rate - the card or monitor may just have a problem with that one frequency you're using.

Hope this helps...

sounds kinda dumb, but did you put thermal paste on the cpu or dusty cpu heatsink? i get a similar problem, comp wont boot and no video or beeps. i usually give it a good cleaning (vaccume dust otta the heatsink and add or check the thermal paste) then it usually works good again for awhile..... strange...

Here is an update-

I Tried to disable the Core Cell - but not sure if it is or not. In Bios, I turned off the APM (advanced power management) and disabled D.O.T. (dynamic overclocking thingy)

I cleaned the video fan (a bit dusty - but not too bad)

I reattached the Heat Sink & Fan with better thermal paste.

Changed the power supply cord to the video card so it is only going to the card - nothing else on that wire.

Kept the side of my Case open for better air flow (CPU temp dropped 15 degrees celcius).

Updated my Bios

And now it hasn't turned off for about a week.

I was going to go with the new driver 4.12 that I have only heard about - but will wait and see if there are any more problems.

I really feel that it was a heat issue since the CPU was running around 60 degrees (not that bad though) combined with the power management feature.

I appreciate all your guys help.

Thanks.