Couple of days ago I started getting random BSODs when I was doing nothing at my computer. This had me scratching my head as it was one f those cool ones that means “either software or hardware has fucked up… probably.”
So I pretty much crap in my pants and go through the checks. Drivers are fine, temps are fine and I check all three sticks of ram , seperatley and at the same time.
I figure I may as well do the usual and format my drive and reinstall WindowsXP. Apparently it fixes everything. So I pop in my XP CD, boot from that, format the drive…start installing XP… BAM! BSOD … reboot… it continues with setup… another BSOD… next reboot it BSODs before it gets to fixing the shit if messed up last time.
I try antother HDD that had windows XP aready installed on it. BSOD.
Is there anything else it could be apart from my mobo taking a huge poo and needing to be replaced?
PS- I have also tried taking everything out that wasn’t needed (sound card, network card, tv card…extra cd-rom, other hdd… etc) to see if that does anything, alas no…
I’d try pulling the ram and leaving one stick in, see if it will install. If that works then try adding the 2nd stick in and see if it now starts crashing.
If it doesn’t work try swapping the ram in to different slots on the board and see if that corrects it.
If that doesn’t work try different ram from another machine and go through the same process.
If none of that works you’re screwed and need to toast a beer to your MOBO.
Okay, I replaced the mobo and got new RAM ( I was using SD, the mobo I got made me buy DDR ) and I still get weird crashes… so… could it be my PSU or something? Do power surges cause shit to go nuts and should I buy another one? ( This is getting expensive ) .
Only time I’ve experienced BSOD (rather than any other type of error message) on windows installs it’s been a problem with the memory/CPU speeds. I originally tried running an Athlon XP 2000 on a K78NX Mobo with 512mb of 2700. Eventually I had to rip out the 2700 and go with 2100 to match the FSB of the CPU before I could even install windows let alone do anything useful with it.
Power surges either cause your PSU to fuse, your PC to shutdown or things to start smoking. Unless the PC wont power up at all I wouldn’t suggest suggest replacing the PSU at this stage.
