Friend having problem with his PC
 

My mate has a problem with his PC. I wasn't able to help him fix it (he lives no-where near me) so I thought some of you guys may be able to help :)

When he plays games on his PC, his computer will crash, with no error message, and no signal going to his monitor (his monitor says "No signal") but the power is still on, and the num-lock is still lit on his PC. Also his PC does not respond, no disk activity and he has to wait a while before he can actually turn it back on again. His CPU temperature is about 45C under-load, and his case temperature is about 29C. At first I thought it was his PSU, but he has a dual fan PSU and he said it doesn't give off much heat. The only other thing I thought it could be is his north bridge and south bridge over heating, or is there anything else it could be?

Re: Friend having problem with his PC
 

it could be a million and one things, how about getting him to start at the basics , remove all the bits the pc dont need to work and go from there , fault finding its called , some spec of the pc would be useful as well , and what games he has problems with :erm:

Re: Friend having problem with his PC
 

He's AFK at the moment (I talk to him on TeamSpeak) but when he's back I'll ask for his PC's spec, what games this happens on, and tell him to try the "fault finder" :)

Re: Friend having problem with his PC
 

Here is his PC spec:

AMD Athlon 2800
768 Mb DDR
80Gb HD
Asus Ati 9600xt/tvd
Asrock K7S8X

It crashes on ALL of his games.

Re: Friend having problem with his PC
 

oh deary me , where to start , tell him to pull some memory and see what happens for a first guess :)

Re: Friend having problem with his PC
 

Nah, those temps are well within limits.

Like paul suggested, I'd suggest testing the memory.. is it all the same brand ?

Re: Friend having problem with his PC
 

Sounds to me like he has an intermittent fault on his graphics card.Might be worth checking that it is properly seated in its AGP slot and that the cable between the card and the monitor is properly connected.

Use one of the free trial 3DMark programs to put the graphics card through its paces as it may be the demands of ther games which spark off the problem.

Might also be worth running the machine with the top off (desktop) or side panel off (tower system) to see if temperature is a factor.

Hope this helps. :)

Re: Friend having problem with his PC
 

Just got to wait till he comes back online now :erm:

Re: Friend having problem with his PC
 

Sounds like a dodgy motherboard/AGP port.
(exactly the same thing happens to me every few weeks BTW and I know what the problem is with mine, I'm just waiting for a new mobo to come out)

Re: Friend having problem with his PC
 

Yep..... :sorry:

Re: Friend having problem with his PC
 

He put his old ATI 9200 back into his PC, and it hasn't crashed. So his ATI 9600 XT is the problem, and he's sending it back.

Re: Friend having problem with his PC
 

Good, nice to see it's sorted.

Re: Friend having problem with his PC
 

OK, may be not. He just told me it's done the same thing with his other card. So my guess is it's the AGP slot or the motherboard.

Re: Friend having problem with his PC
 

can he try the card in another pc? - also did u try the memory start of with 1 stick and try it in different banks (if u can) see what happens..........