Hello everyone. I'm sorry about this essay, I tend to write as I think. My PC tends to crash when CPU or RAM intensive applications are running... well, intensively. For example, if I view a web page with many images or play a game at a high (1024x768+) resolution. It also crashes when I multitask, such as typing out a Word document and listening to an MP3, and then flipping open some web pages to scroll 'vigorously', as I do (My poor mouse).
This has been happening for some time now, but I chose to let it slide as I had other priorities, but now I'd like to start playing UT or AoE again, and, well, can't. At first, I thought I had a RAM problem (256MB SDRAM, two sticks). I downloaded a popular shareware DOS application for checking memory which I would recommend to anyone if I could remember it's name, as it is simple to use and pretty effective (touch wood), which informed me, after I looped it's 'burn in' test for a full night, that my RAM was fine. Well, I judged this myself based on 50 Passes and 0 failures of it's tests.
I then updated my video drivers (GeForce4) to no avail. I tried running my system with a few background programs as possible, and still no joy.
This afternoon, I called a local PC 'guru' who, after I explained my other ideas, kept referring to my heat sink and fan. I had my motherboard replaced last year, and although I'm sure whomever did so would ensure the two were applied well, with thermal paste; I began to question this earlier today. I ran my PC at half memory (1 128MB stick in one slot, then changed over after 'testing') and ran it into the ground. I attempted to make it crash, so to speak, but couldn't! I ran AoE at max resolution, played some tunes, and played about in Word simultaneously, and other than being a little slow, it worked fine! I used both sticks in both slots to do so.
When I did this, I had my case off. I have one internal fan over my sound card, one attached to my AGP, and one over my CPU (1.33Ghz Athlon). Could this fan be dodgy and overheating my CPU, causing these rouge crashes? A crash last month caused my to format my HDD, as Windows (XP) just wouldnt boot afterward.
Phew! Thanks for your time!
