Nick_Cat

iTrader: (5)

This is one of those very difficult to diagnose problems but I am posting this in order to get a rough idea of people's opinions.

It is the children's PC: AMD Athlon 3200 system, with 1 GB ram, 80GB HDD, 256ram graphics, on board sound, wireless network.

Basically when they play games such as Sims, Star Wars Battlefront, the system is ok for anything between 5 - 30 mins, then the sound starts to break up/gets distorted, the mouse becomes slow and eventually the system crashes.

After re-installing XP and drivers and replacing the graphics and sound to no effect I am wondering if it is PSU related. At the moment it is a 350W supply.

Incidentally, I did remove the CMOS battery and we thought that had cured it because it went for several hrs before failing.

Any idea greatly appreciated,
Cheers
Nick

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

Check the northbridge and southbridge heatsinks and fans. The sound processing uses those, this may be down to overheating of that area of the mobo. If it is, it could cause what you are having.

Also look at your other fans and heatsinks. Make sure they are running ok and not clogged with dust. If you unseat any of them, make sure you clean them up and apply new paste.

Also have a look at voltages. Your mobo should have come with software that can do this in windows.

pimmo2000

iTrader: (6)

My system is doin a weird thing with the sound, where it pops and goes quiet?? Some sort of cut off point ?

Yours does sound like over heating though... maybe one of the sinks has come loss or collected dust?

Nick_Cat

iTrader: (5)

OK, thanks. I have removed all dust esp in the fins in the heat sink above the CPU, and checked that everything is properly seated etc. After doing this the temp was 52deg which I think is probably on the high side. Later today I'll get my son to test it the system while directing a desk fan into the open tower to see if it improves.

If no luck I may upgrade the the PSU.

Cheers
Nick