Operating System: Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional // OS Service Pack Service Pack 3 Internet Explorer: 6.0.2800.1106 (IE 6.0 SP1) DirectX: 4.09.00.0900 (DirectX 9.0) Motherboard: CPU Type: Intel Celeron 4A, 2400 MHz (24 x 100) Motherboard Name: PCChips M925 (2 PCI, 1 AGP, 1 CNR, 2 SDR DIMM, 2 DDR DIMM, Audio, Video) Motherboard Chipset: VIA VT8751 Apollo P4M266 System Memory: 512 MB (PC133 SDRAM) BIOS Type: AMI (01/13/03) Display: Video Adapter: RADEON 9200 SERIES (128 MB) Monitor: NEC MultiSync 95 [19" CRT] (1611989TA) Multimedia: Audio Adapter VIA AC'97 Enhanced Audio Controller Network: Network Adapter VIA Rhine II Fast Ethernet Adapter (full system report: http://sinceretheory.net/iota/report.txt) --- --- --- --- --- --- A few days after December 25th, but before New Years 2005 -- a rather significant power surge after a large snowing went through my house. Shocking a computer I had put together nearly five years ago. To make a long story short on the prelude.. http://www.flickr.com/photos/mesh/3436105/ My (then) box was toast. This could not come at a more critical time. I was at a 'milestone' of research in my over longing journey to know more and more about CSS and PHP while authoring my website. A new box was essential and I did NOT have the time to put another box together. I had due dates I had predetermined for myself and image on Flickr to upload. So out of impatience I purchased a computer from a guy who runs a business out of his home, and runs adverts in the local newspaper. Querying the Better Business Bureau and getting positive results for his company I decided I would purchase a 2.4 GHz machine from him. Upon getting the box home, at first glance, everything was fine. Spend three days back-to-back setting up the machine to my liking, installing the applications that were essential to my daily computing habits, and tweaked the layout to make it feel like it was the box that I had before the power surge. Then it all came crashing down. After uploading about 75 images to Flickr, I went to the Organizr to put my images in their appropriate Groups, and Sets. This is when the first error happened. "A script in this movie is causing Macromedia Flash Player 7 to run slowly. If it continues to run, your computer may become unresponsive. Do you want to abort this script?" Google query after Google query led me to believe that this happens on systems with poor system memory or lack-of-good video processing. But his made no sense to me. My laptop with nearly half the system resources as this box \\IOTA (the boxes name). I had run across a fix for Mozilla Firefox which would allow you to set the timeout for Flash elements on web pages. After setting that to a lower number I reattempted to go to the Flickr Organizr. Again the error dialog came up asking me if I wanted to abort the script. I clicked NO (which is what the Flickr support people suggested doing) and immediately after I did so, the box froze. I was irate and could not believe a 2.4 GhZ machine would puke on going to a Flash-content site. But bigger problems have come along before. I eventually decided that I would just go to the Organizr on that box, and that would solve the problem. Unfortunately that was not the case. At random the machine was just freeze. Sometimes just booting the computer will make it freeze (stay on the "loading Windows" screen), sometimes opening Firefox would make it freeze, and sometimes it just sitting idle would make it freeze. I can recall on more than one occasion going to take a shower and coming back to a frozen box. The person who sold me the PC does not answer his phone and has ignored two snail-mail letters. I have begun an arsenal of attack on his company through the Better Business Bureau and Starbucks Community Bulletin Boards throughout South-Eastern Wisconsin. Between myself and my online contacts, I would figure that this is just some simple hardware problem that could be quickly addressed and brought to a solution. A good contact of mine suggested that maybe having the RAM in the other provided slot might solute things. I did that and nothing seemed to improve. Then we concluded that more RAM inside the machine would improve things. So I went to purchase another 256MB of SDRAM and installed it. Nothing! It would boot up and everything but freeze at random, as its "seemingly normality". So we then figured that maybe its cos the manufacturers of the RAM are not identical. And while I've heard its not PROTOCOL to have RAM sticks matching in identity, it SHOULD be protocol while building a machine. So I pulled out the original RAM that came with the machine (a solo 512 PC133 stick) and a solo 256 PC133 stick (cross compatible with 100 and 133 MHz). Went to Milwaukee PC and purchased two PC133 512 sticks, totaling 1024 MB of RAM. Installed them and the same stuff happened. Except this time the computer seemed to crash "quicker", or would stay a lot less stable in a shorter amount of time, however you want to look at it. By this time and you can imagine being a geek yourself -- my head is spinning in a thousand directions. I took the System Report provided by Everest Home Edition and took it to the college I just graduated from (ITT Technical Institute) but all the troubleshooting tips given to my from prior Professors and mentors were things I have already tried. But a few new ideas were given to me also. More video power! When I purchased the system it came installed with onboard video, which to my understanding handles video processing on the motherboard and borrows time and space from your RAM when necessary. Now while that understanding might be incorrect its what I have come to know and please correct me if I am misunderstood. So I went to another computer retailer and purchased an ATI Raedon 128MB video card. I'm not much of a gamer, and code hasn't really been too system-intensive on my video processing so there has never been much of demand for a "multimedia" PC. Nevertheless the 128MB card is amazing and installation was a breeze. Installed it and everything was fine. There was no way to disable the onboard video as it 'detects' if you have another AGP card installed. But the same result -- RANDOM SYSTEM FREEZES! About two weeks later of loosing work in the middle of a project, and loosing nearly all the data on my USB 2.0 HDD -- the last and final attempt at a solution. My dear friend (call him kaos) suggested that maybe my PSU was choking, or 'burping' and loosing stability and as a results "freezing". So I once again went to the store and purchased a VERY nice Antec 400 W power supply. I wont even tell you what happened next because you already know it didn’t not solve a single problem on this box. I am at wits end with this problem and do not know where to go from here. My only feasible option I suppose would be to get another Motherboard (assuming that's the problem) and a case, and start with a whole new box (with the components I purchased while trying to fix \\IOTA). If there is anything, anyone from this great community would suggest doing I would appreciate any feedback. Its taken me nearly three weeks to type this little post up as the computer freezes all the time and any saved work -- lost. Even when you save every two seconds -- that doesn't seem to matter. Luckily there is NO SAVE on Microsoft OneNote, so its been my tool of choice for the entire year. Tomorrow it will be months of daily back-to-back dissections of this machine in hopes for a solution. I question my knowledge and education. I turn to the community. Thanks in advance.

Might I make a suggestion and next time just display what the problem is instead of a life history. I apologize if this seems rude, bit I honestly got bored reading about how you bought a new computer, you got irate, and are talking to the BBB, etc. Short and to the point is the best way to get helped. We can fix this, but you're gonna need a butter knife, a roll of duct tape, and a car battery

Do a Google search some noted problems with the PC chips MB another thought is to look at the event viewer log and look at drivers being current for flash problem

Nice story. What's your question?

WOW! That is the longest single post I've ever seen...& there's no real question...lol! I certainly hope you didn't pay much for that outdated system. PCChips isn't known for making high quality boards, & the one your system is based on is old news...it's at least 2 years behind the times. KM266 chipset w/PC133 RAM? Yikes! I suggest you start by testing your RAM. Go to the following site & download the Windows/DOS version of Memtest86 v3.2. Unzip it & click on INSTALL.BAT & follow the instructions. It will create a bootable floppy w/the diagnostics program on it. Simply boot off the floppy & let the program run for at least one complete test series. If any errors are reported, replace the RAM. Test only one stick at a time. http://www.memtest86.com Asus A7N8X-X 1800+ @ 8 x 210MHz 512MB PC3200 Asus Ti4800SE 128MB WinME/WinXP Pro

BTW, arbitrarily replacing parts is not a good method of troubleshooting. Asus A7N8X-X 1800+ @ 8 x 210MHz 512MB PC3200 Asus Ti4800SE 128MB WinME/WinXP Pro

You didn't mention trying a BIOS update, and checking to see if your device drivers are updated, or if there is a shared resource conflict, which is my guess.