PC in question:
MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum (MS7025)motherboard
AMD Opteron 180-stock heatsink & fan
2x1mb Kingston Value memory
WD 80gb ide hard disk
Creative SBLive sound card
600w PowerTrain PSU
Sony Optiarc DVD-RW
Graphic Cards used:
NVidia 5200 128mb graphic card (AGP)
Matrox Parhelia 256 AGP
Monitors used:
Samsung SM55 CRT
LG L1900R Flat screen
Operating system:
Windows XP pro with sp3 + all updates
System has all latest drivers for all components.
This system ran fine for a couple of years until a few weeks after I upgraded the graphic card from the NVidia to the Matrox, then I started to have the following problem:
The monitor screen would suddenly go black and the monitor light would flash as though it had shutdown(without powering off) but the pc seemed to be still running – the cpu and system fans running normally. Pressing the reset button on the pc had no effect.. it was as though the pc had locked/froze. This happened several times and each time I was doing something different on pc… no heavy usage/games etc. I removed the side panel and checked that there was still hard disk activity (by touch) and it felt as though this was still spinning.
I have subsequently taken the following action:
removed all case and chipset fans, cleaned reseated with new paste, also added an extra larger fan to case (exhaust.
Removed, checked pins etc and reseated graphic cards, memory, cpu etc.
Tried original graphic card and another monitor/cable.
Uninstalled all software, reformatted and reinstalled a fresh copy of XP with sp3 and all updates and reloaded all drivers for hardware.
Despite all the above the problem still persists. I have even started the pc in bios (checked all fan speeds and temperatures – all ok)and left running but the problem still happens there. The pc can run for hours or sometimes just a few minutes.
So now I am at a loss. I have searched many forums and found similar problems but none of the answers have solved my problem.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
