"Steve Rennick" wrote in message news:yn5Kb.950474$6C4.912851@pd7tw1no...
hi all!

first-time poster, and really hoping i can get some help from the collective
wisdom here. my system is very unstable. it either hard-locks (have to
re-set or power right down, including the power switch at the back of the
case), or it randomly reboots (the hard lock usually happens either in the
middle of an app, or if i go away and let the computer go to "sleep"..i.e.
shut the display off...rebooting usually happens during a game...no, no
particular game, ANY game). before i go any further, here are my specs:

asus a7s333 mobo
amd xp 1600+ chip
512mb ddr ram
geforce 4 ti4200 vid card
audigy 1 soundcard
maxtor 40 gig hard drive
liteon burnproof cdrw
dlink network card
daytek 95p monitor
smc wireless router (i'm hardwired into it, as is another PC on my homelan,
with 2 other PCs using wireless network cards)
400 watt PS
OS-win98se w/all the latest updates incl. directx9.0b (or whatever the
latest is)
BIOS-updated to the latest for my mother board...have also updated to the
latest SIS AGP drivers for my mother board.

things i have already done (in no particular order...it's late and i feel
like i've been banging my head against a brick wall ):
-swapped memory with another system that has same mobo.
-ran memtest 86 on current memory and memory borrowed from other system
-reinstalled OS (win98se)
-fdisked and formatted hard drive (after running every imaginable maxtor
utility i could download to verify it WASN'T a hard drive problem)
-moved cards around in my pci slots to eliminate possible conflicts
-checked if it was a heat problem (all monitoring programs say no...to be on
the safe side, took out chip and cleaned and re-applied arctic silver)
-tried changing powerbars
-tried plugging into a different electrical outlet
-ran the system w/o cd-rw plugged in (ya never know)
-reinstalled video and soundcard drivers
-uninstalled most recent windows update updates (but left IE and OE 6)
-tried using different plug-ins off my power supply
-tried using different IDE cables..and configurations (master/slaved
HD/CDRW; configured both as masters in primary/secondary IDE channels; right
now, have the HD as primary master and CDRW as secondary slave)

that's all i can remember having done right now. the only things i can
think it would be now a
1) power supply is bad
2) mobo is bad
3) case is bad
4) processor is bad

none of the things i've already done made a LICK of difference...system
crashes many times a day, and at, because murphy rules, the most inopportune
times. luckily, it's mostly a games machine, and not one i do much work
on...but i do do SOME work on it...and this is driving me nuts!!!! the
other machines on my LAN are ROCK-SOLID...so i'm, literally...at the end of
my IDE cable. any help would be HUGE!

thanks a million!
steve in canada

Might have picked up a virus somewhere.

How old is the motherboard? What brand of Power Supply do you have?
While you where in the case did you try and remove everything and just
run with the bare essentials(keyboard, harddrive, video card, memory
and monitor). Have you tried going into "safe mode"? When you
plugged the computer into a different outlet was it on a different
circuit than the other outlet?