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by darkelord

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I'm not sure where this problem lays. AOL are, as usual, unhelpful, so I'm turning to you guys.

I'm running a homemade AMD 450Mhz ( with the patchfile for Win95 ), FIC VIA 503+ Board ( FIC deny the problem exists ), 128Mb NEC SDRAM, ATI Xpert 128and Creative PCI128.

Basically, after 12+ hours of uptime, my computer starts to black out on me. The Monitor, that is. The computer also halts, though I see no error messages.

The monitor is NOT the problem, I tried it with several others with similar responses.. AOL 5.0 Blacks the screen, AOL6.0 halts the system - no error reports on any time..

I prefer not to shut down my system during the day, because it's continually used..

Any suggestions?

D

15 replies

by pvp

You implied that you're running Win95. Hopefully, 95b or later.

#1 suspect is always video drivers; you should ensure you have the latest for your configuration.

Swapfile. For 95, I always ran 3x RAM. For NT, 2x the recommended size (which should come up as RAM + 11 MB).

Win95. It does that.

IE 5.0 or 5.5; 5.01 SP1 is less prone to contribute to the problem.

It's also possible you're running hot; the airflow through the case is inadequate, and/or the CPU fan is slow or stopped. Might just be full of dust or pet hair (or your hair!).

by darkelord

I have the latest drivers for my Xpert 128 - no change in the situation.
Having said that, the airflow might have a point - I'll give it a go.

by ciervo-x

It seems like your CPU or your video card
get too hot. Try cleaning the fan/fans in
your computer, or installing another one,
and make it cool the video card.

by bstei18

I've installed about 20 of these 503+ boards, some with ATI Xperts, and have not had this problem come up.

It does sound like an overheating problem. Try cleaning out your fans and power supply. Also clean out any air vents.

A word of caution;if you are using compressed air, use a screwdriver to hold the fans in place. Compressed air can spin the fans too fast and damage them.

Hope that helps.

by dmiles

If you have pin pointed it to this point and not having problems with either Video of your cards,Try running your anti-virus to check your system,It may be a virus that is not being detected.

by bill cassada

Change your graphic card - bet the problem vanishes (you can borrow one from a friend). It sounds like it's overheating to me. Most ATI cards have an adequate heat sink on them, but placing a fan on one certainly won't hurt. A decent fan can be had for about $12 or so from Radio Shack or CompUSA. Certainly cheaper than buying a new card. Let me know what happens!

by darkelord

Um, changing the card really wasn't an option I considered, nor can I afford to. I elected to install a new fan in the case.

by lucard

It's easy to check if it's an overheating problem. Simply run a program that puts a lot of stress on your computer and see if it hangs up. The ideal program for this is the video benchmark 3Dmark 2000 from www.madonion.com (using this one will also crash the system if the video driver has bugs, or a component from your system is defective). Put the benchmark in loop mode and let it work. If you have a cooling problem, your system will crash in maximum 1 hour. But, if you say that the crash occurs after 12 hours in a regular manner, it may be something else than overheating (it’s impossible to achieve the crash temperature after exactly 12 hours again and again because the room temperature may be different from day to day and also the CPU usage). I would check everything related to power management and after that for a virus. Nevertheless, consider placing a cooler on your video card and replacing the one on the CPU with a bigger one. Cooler is better.

by darkelord

In the 12 hours, the machine isn't generally constantly in use - allowing the machine to heat up slowly.
Also, I draw the conclusion because the problem was far more dominant on a warm/hot day than a cold or cool day ( hot=85F+ ). In fact, I don't think it happened on a cool day yet.. Thank you for your input, though

by tony beresford

Don't know to answer to this. I had a similar problem, and got around it by "undercooking" my CPU in the BIOS. I suspect that is unacceptable to you.

You could try using the system monitor (Start\programs\accessories\system tools) to obtain diagnostics. (Slow memory leakage?)
If it is not there, run setup to install it.

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