System crashing???

[efc]

FastGame has covered most of the things I would try. The things I might do a little differently follow:

I personally, have had more problems with memory in cold boot situations than other hardware. Flaky video cards have run second. Until two weeks ago, I would not have even considered the CPU. In that case, I was trying to upgrade an older MB with the new Duron 1.6 MHz. With no bios upgrade available, I had to give up on that project.

In testing cold boot issues, it is easier when you narrow your focus by reducing the number of variables. When I have a suspected memory issue, I will swap memory banks for the first try (assuming two banks). If that doesn't help or if the MB has three banks of memory, I will test the memory, one stick at a time. If it works with each stick individually, yet has a problem with two or more sticks mounted , the problem is a flaky stick that refuses to work with the others. Testing two at a time will eventually reveal the problem stick. I have run into that situation more than once.

As FastGame stated the video card is a likely candidate. I keep an old Banshee 16MB card around just for that purpose. It has never failed to install and work on any MB that I have tried it on. It is a quick way for me to test the new video card. That is a good reason to keep old components. You never know when one might answer an illusive question on your latest project.

One last point: If you do frequent hardware upgrades, consider purchasing a PCI Post Diagnostics Test Card. It is a $35 investment that can save countless hours when dealing with boot issues. If you are not familiar with this item, the following is related to the StarTech.com card.

The StarTech.com PCI Post Diagnostics Card makes troubleshooting PC problems easy. Simply plug the card into a PCI slot on a malfunctioning PC, and the card reports any problems in the form of error codes on its LED display. These codes are then cross-referenced to the enclosed error code chart to pinpoint the cause of the problem. PC technicians and system builders can save hours of troubleshooting time and prevent non-defective parts from being replaced.