I built this killer system to play online games. 600w power supply, Asus A8N-SLI dleuxe main board, BFG GeForce 7800 GTX/OC video card, Turtle beach montego DDL sound card, 160 gig HD, bla bla bla. Any ways I build this system and it works great (for a while). I take it on trps with me (which may of started my problems in the first place). Any who, One day im sitting there playing my everquest when my pc shuts down and reboots. At first it was a miner anoyince. But it kept doing it from time to time. Then it started to reboot and get stuck on the asus bios cmos screen. still a minor anoyance at this stage. For some reasion (i forget why i desided to do it) i went to clean disk to get rid of all the junk. That is when things went from bad to worse. The next day i went to go play everquest and the game wont start said it has errors. So i run the file checker and it tells me all these files are missing. So I solve my problem the way i always love to solve my problems da ta da! REFORMAT. bad idea. I zero write my HD that goes ok. I format the HD that went ok. I go to reinstall windows......that did not go ok. All kind of problems with installing files from the I386? section of the cd. ok so i think my cd is badbut the cd surfae is perfect and every time i tried to install windows it was diffrent files that would not load. Any who. I try and try to get windows in Reformatting over and over and over tll i finaly burn out my HD. Now i have a 160 gig paper weight ( iknow its burt out cause you can hear the read arm in there blowing in the breeze when you shake it). So now I canablized my other computers HD. I clean it and format it and install windows. windows went in with one glitch (one reg file problem that it said it was able to correct) But i got windows in YAY! I install my drivers with no problems YAY! my pc is working fine YAY! I go to install ever quest....BOO! File coruption problems up the butt. Keeps saying such and such file dont match the cab files on record or some crud. So i think is my copy of EQ. I grab my wifes copy and try that. same thing. So then i try to install my Final Fantasy 11 online game. Same thing it says data1 cab files dont match and that it is either a network problem or crupted softwear. S i try installing ff11 on my wifes pc and it goes in fine. So at this point im thinking network? ok lets fool with the network settings. My MB has 2 built in ethers, a nivdia and a yukon. I was useing the yukon and disabled the nivdia. that didtnt fix the problem so i moved my connection from the yukon to the nivida. i goto reable the nivida and it wouldnt reable. So now im thinking its either a bad MB or 64bit conflicts with xp. But maybe (in my mind of simple lodgic) since only online games are having trouble going in its just an online game thing soooo let me install my simcity 4.....my reward was a big time crash! blue screen of doom and everything. BOO! So i thought maybe my windows just need to be updated. so i call up microsoft (cause i have used my copy of xp more then 10 times which is the most retarded rule ever!!!) to actavate my copy and then goto update windows via the link in my starty menu. "windows must install this softwear to check your pc bla bla bla" Ok. CRASH! get the software in on next reboot and got to check for updates CRASH!. next reboot it finds updates and starts to download them CRASH!. next time round (NTR) it finishes the download and starts to install the updates done! done! done! fail! done! fail! fail! CRASH! NTR i compleat the first set of updates and start the next set CRASH! NTR....any who it keeps this up till i finaly get to service pack 2. CRASH retry CRASH! retry CRASH! retry CRASH!. ooooooook so i cant finish updateing windows. So I think bios worm. I know they went away when bios went flashable. but maybe ( long story short not a bios worm). So this is where i am at now. Windows is up but not working right. i cant install my software. and im pissed off. Yes i reseted my cmos yes i flashed my bios to the most recent version yes i repaired windows yes it did nothing to solve my problems. Please tell me my MB just went bad and that i need to buy a new one. Help me guys your my only hope! I have no other tricks left to try.

You should test your memory.

I did. I removed all 4 strips. i tried one at a time. and i even barrowed ram from a friend with no luck

You should run memtest on your RAM.

what free programs would you recomend? i DL MemTest-86 v3.2 buut not entirly sure how to use it

Ok i just ran "BurnInTest 4.0" and found 1 error in my ram out of 4 cycles "error verifying data in ram" However i also got 77 errors in Network 1 (what ever that is) with no sucessful cycles. what now?

Do you have a floppy drive? You simply unzip the memtest file, click INSTALL.BAT & it will prompt you for a formatted floppy disk...it will then copy the memtest files to the floppy & make it bootable. All you need to do is boot off the floppy & let the program run. It's a constant loop & won't stop until YOU stop it. Run at least one complete series of tests to see if any errors are found. Some people run it for hours or even overnite. Test the RAM sticks individually, then together

This has nothing to do with anything, but I find it interesting that a LOT of people have no problem listing some things in detail:

"Asus A8N-SLI dleuxe main board, BFG GeForce 7800 GTX/OC video card, Turtle beach montego DDL sound card...."

But when it comes to the power supply (which can make or break a system), all we get is, "600w".

Anyhow, I noticed you didn't list the make of your RAM either....

Your PC may indeed be "whacked" out, probably from hauling it back and forth.

I suggest you pop the case, dismount the CPU/HSF, clean it out and carefully reassemble it back properly. You may have nudged the CPU/HSF out of efficient contact.

Well my power suppy is from Xion and my ram is from Ultra "ULT31664 to be exact" I am running xp home non 64bit version. Any who i just got done testing my ram with memtest orwhat ever. I tested each strip 4 times by themselves and did indeed find 1 bad strip. so now my ram problem is fixed yay! how ever i still have a network problem. So is this a MB problem still?

BTW yeah i know i cut corners on the ram and powersupply. But with a budget of only 4k i was running out of money

I remember reading a discussion in another forum about XION PSUs & one of the posters in the thread brought up a very good point. XION loads up the amperage on the +5v rail to bring their wattage rating up....kind of deceptive if you ask me.

Look at the specs for your 600W PSU...53A on the +5v?? What the hell for? That pads the wattage rating by 265W!!

You're really taking a chance by running all that expensive hardware on a "cheap" XION PSU.

That's just plain low. Glad I've never build around a Xion PSU.

"If it ain't broke, upgrade anyway."

"BTW yeah i know i cut corners on the ram and powersupply. But with a budget of only 4k i was running out of money"

This speaks volumes. One of the things you cut corners on is shown to be defective and the other is suspect.

I wonder how you got up to "4k".