Hi, I'm running a home built computer that looks like this: CPU - AMD Athlon (x86 family 6 model 8 stepping authenticAMD 501 Mhz) RAM - Single stick 512MB crucial Motherboard - ABIT NF7 Graphics - NVidia GeForce FX5600 Sound - Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS I've never had any problems with it except that it's prone to overheating... until the other day. On start up, I got a message saying that I didn't have a Soundcard, and I couldn't get any sound on the speakers (obviously). I tried re-installing my drivers, and things were okay until the same thing happened again, and then nothing worked. So I took it out of PCI slot 1, and put it in a new one, and re-installed the drivers again, and things were fine except that occasionally when I plugged something in, or took something out of the soundcard, the computer would freeze and I would need to restart. At this point I did a virus scan, and couldn't find anything. However, eventually, the computer just froze entirely during start up, and continued to freeze every time I re-started (in whatever mode I chose). At this point I got frustrated, and dismantled the whole thing, cleaning every part as I did so, then put it back together, and things were *almost* fine again.... however, I still have the following 'symptoms': -My computer is now pretty slow when performing most tasks. -Processes that shouldn't cause a problem, are taking up nearly 100% CPU. -For example, playing video files, the frame rate is slow, and the sound skips. -Image and video editing (which I do a lot of), operations take far too long, and the computer freezes easily. -It also doesn't handle running multiple programs at the same time well (as you can imagine given the CPU behaviour). -Anything I put in PCI slot 1 does not work. - It no longer overheats, in fact, it's running pretty damn cold (which is particualry strange given that the CPU seems to be overly taxed at the moment). I'm about 95% sure it's not virus or software related, and I don't want to go to the trouble of backing up all my hardrive and reformatting in order to find out. I can't figure out what the hardware problem would be though (and neither can a few of my tech savvy friends). I would guess it would be a RAM / CPU / Motherboard problem, but I can't be sure, and don't wnat to waste money finding out I was wrong. Could anyone figure out the problem from what I've described?

You mentioned it was overheating and that's my suspicion for the slowdown. I'm an AMD person, but I've heard that Pentiums stop temporarily when they get to hot. What are your temperatures?

My alarm temperatures are 60 for the system, and 70 for the CPU. The alarm tended to go off if I ran too many programs at once, or tried some intensive video-editing (so pretty regularly, maybe once every couple of times I used it). The only thing I could do was open the case and direct a desk fan into the computer to cool it. It tended to run pretty hot most of the time anyway (maybe 50+ for the CPU). However, I'd never had any problems with slowdown like this before, and one of the strange things is that since the problems started, it no longer overheats (in fact the CPU is running at 31 t the moment, colder than normal), so the slopwness can't be caused by the temperature. (Although I guess the constant overheating may have done something to the CPU)

Well, 60 is WAY too hot for your system (case). I would say that's the problem. check your power supply fan. It might not be running or maybe the input vents to the power supply may be clogged with dust.

The PSU fan is running fine, and like I said, I cleaned the whole thing when I dismantled it, so it's dust free too. If overheating was the problem, it's not anymore (or at least the problem is some sort of damage caused by the overheating). Do you have any idea what the damage might be if there is any?

family 6 model 8 should be athlon xp core (either palomino or t-bred). Are you sure you set the cpu multiplier and FSB correctly in the Bios ? Your motherboard is Abit NF7, that's the motherboard that supports Athlon XP cpu also. Download cpu-z from www.cpuid.com and see whether it can identify your cpu correctly before you change the multiplier/FSB in the bios.

Just realised your cpu could be the mobile athlon XP core, ie, it will go down to 4x133 multiplier when idling, but the reported frequency should still be around 532MHz, not 501MHz as you have reported. 501 is 4x125, can you check in bios that the FSB and memory frequency is set to 133 and not 125 ?