Bad IGP/North Bridge still okay?

[rwest]

I'm getting graphical glithes on startup and the pc wil freeze. But if I make it through startup the systems fine for quite some time. Once in a while she'll be shut down(I leave my systems on), it's very intermitent. First symptoms I noticed was the simple windows screensaver(3D flower box) was very choppy.

Compaq Presario SR1650NX upgraded, as follows:
Original mb: ASUS A8-AELE socket 939 mb
AMD Athlon64 X2 4400+ 2.2ghz
3gb DDR400 running in Dual Channel 4 stix total
Onboard video ATI Radeon Xpress200 chipset / sb400 southbridge
250gb Seagate ide
320gb WD SATA
Original 740r DVD burner
Original Memory card reader
Rosewill RP 550
PCI-E x16 1.0 compliant slot

I replaced the PSU with my Antec 500 Eathwatts and it did the samething. So the Rosewill is back in. The original install was on the 250 ide drive, switched it(the OS) to the 320 SATA and I stil get the same issue.

I was running oblivion on low settings on this system. I'm kinda guessing this may have done in the IGP. So I'm kinda curious, is it possible that the northbridge will be okay with a seperate graphics card? Or is the board a gonner? I was planning on a vid card for the system anyway. Is it possible to damage the IGP and the northbridge be okay?

I also have an alternate board if I have to use it. DFI Lanparty UT nF4 Ultra-D, but I don't know if it will fit my compaq case. I'd rather stay with the ASUS A8-AELE.

[rwest]

So does anybody know if it's possible to damage the IGP and the northbridge be okay?

[EzyStvy]

If I only know what an IGP was I'd love to help.

What is the current status of the machine...Does it boot up and run?

"graphical glithes on startup"
On a scale of 1 to 10 - how bad are the glitches and didn't you mention they go away once Windows is running.

[rwest]

Integrated Graphics Processor - it's onboard graphics.

Glitch- a small problem

The graphical eror doesn't appear to be huge and it's not artifacts. I usually notice the mouse pointer appears to have an additional shadow, but mostly the pc justs stops responding. I'll get the Windows logo screen okay and I'll get to the point of choosing my user. it's in the next series of steps it happens.

The pc has just stopped a couple of times. Once I got this reall pretty screen. Multiple vertical lines different colors but each line was a solid color. It looked like a teat pattern.

Currently I'm typing on it now. Problem is intermittent. But I'm almost garranteed to have problems on boot or a restart. But yet, once in a while she'll restat with no problems.

[glc]

I would test the ram.

www.memtest.org

[rwest]

I'll do that and get back with the results. Thanks for thhe link, but I do beleive memtest is on the ubcd. I actually took the time to create one not to long ago.

[glc]

Yes it is - use it.

[rwest]

So results are as follows:

I didn't get any errors while running memory test, but she kept freezing while running the tests. Anyway since GLC suggested it may be ram I pulled two of the four stix and tried booting, I must have booted 5 or 6 times w/no problems. So I thought maybe the other stix were bad; so I stuck them in by themselves. Again on problems. Well I ran memory test on both sets seperatly and all tests were successful.

So I left in the two 1 gig stix for 2gig of ram. Everythings fine so far.

The original 2 x 512mb are Samsung ram. I added 2 x 1gig of PNY ram. Isn't it strange she ran fine for about two months before I had any problems? Is it possible I had problems due to timings? I'm pretty sure the Samsung ram timings are 3-3-3, whereas the PNY's has 5's and 6's in the timings. I just never suspected the ram, cuz it did fine for so long.

Another strange thing is last year when I temporarily added in some good 2 x 512mb of Corsair ram; the ram speed dropped to 333. But yet when I checked cpuz with the 3gig of Samsung and PNY ram, cpu-z says I was running at 400.

Anyway; it basically ends up the different ram modules just didn't like each other, I guess. Boy I feel dumb after everything I did, and it ended up being a ram problem! Hows that old line go...? Keep it simple huh? what? I didn't hear you....