crashing computer

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PROFESSORI

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unstable computer

I have recently installed a Matrox Millenium 750 triple monitor graphics card in my computer and opened an account with Tradestation(brokerage)The computer now crashes on a regular basis -even on Internet explorer,the cursor freezes and ctrl alt del does nothing,Matrox haven't got a clue and all Tradestation can suggest is getting another computer.I have a 1.4GHz Athlon,Asus A7A266 M/B,512 2100 RAM,XP home AND 750 Mb cable broadband.I am slowly going out of my mind with frustration,IS THERE ANYONE OUT THERE WHO CAN HELP?

THANKS
 
Prof

I would suggest making sure you are running the latest drivers for the P750, the ones on the CD may well be out of date. Worth also checking for OS updates from windowsupdate.microsoft.com. I would also try removing TS and see if that fixes your problem. That way you can hopefully isolate what is causing the problem. I have a P650 dual card and it is rock solid and a great card so it is worth the effort !

Best of luck

Stew
 
Try a bios upgrade too

but be careful and follw instructions closely or you might have a dead computer..
 
Try these...
1. go back to your old video card.
2. take out half the memory
3. take the other half out , put the previous one back
4.If it's a single 512M go and buy a 256M
5. what is the CPU temperature doing?
6. Take the side off the case and see if the CPU fan is going round....
7. Is the power supply fan going round?

I presume it didn't crash before....
 
I had a similar problem to this recently and it turned out my AGP graphics card was not seated correctly. Having secured it better the freezes stopped occuring. Its very hard sometimes to nail down what causes a crash but ChartMan has given very good advice above also.
 
I think I'll write a book..... 1001 things that can cause your PC to crash.... It's a bit like an apprentice car mechanic trying to fix a broken F1 car...... I'm not trying to belittle anyone, but fixing that sort of problem on a PC is a thankless time consuming task with little reward ( except for the customer) and little chance of immediate success, unless you get lucky. Like a good Doctor, careful patient examination with truthful answers often leads to the cause....... I lost count of the number of people ( when questioned) replied ' I never touched it, honest'!!!! :cheesy:
 
If it was OK before the new card, take it out!



CM, you listed half of them :cheesy:
 
Quick reply to all,

thanks very much for your suggestions,I had already downloaded latest drivers,xp patches fixes,scanned system with norton av-nothing,no device manager conflicts,put in old nVidia geforce 3 this morning(single monitor)worked like a dream,downloaded more patches from mickey soft,all fans working ok-case,psu and graphics card, cpu temp steady 55 mobo temp 35 degrees C re-installed Matrox card with cd and dvd roms disconnected from mobo,this time it ran on Tradestation for over an hour before crashing or should I say freezing as the cursor just freezes and there are no error messages or blue screens of death.This is curious since after rebooting it nrmally crashes within 15 or twenty minutes.

The problem I have is that even if I were to replace the mobo and cpu I have no guarantee of them working as it appears to me to be a software glitch of some kind,a further £350 down the Swanee I could be wailing and gnashing my teeth at this keyboard as I am now!!!!

Therefore could anyone who trades using THREE OR FOUR MONITORS
 
It must be the MarstonsPedigree.Hit post reply with the Matrox manual as I was typing last post.I meant to ask is there anyone out there using THREE OR FOUR MONITORS on a share trading and graph charting software that has had no stability or software problems, if there is, could they PLEASE let me know what their complete systems comprise of AS IT LOOKS LIKE i'M GOING TO HAVE TO PUT A HAMMER THROUGH MINE.Thanks again.

Prof.
 
Your CPU Temp at 55 is too high. I'm not saying that's the cause, but it should be NO MORE than 50. ( Athlon 1.4's did run high temps...) Try this - Open the side of the case and run the PC with the side off. This will lower the CPU temp a bit. Otherwise put a fan heater on cold blow into the case.That will eliminate the temp as being a problem.
failing that, any PC 2 Gig + will be fine for any trader.....so long as it's a good-un. :cheesy:
 
I agree with Chartman about this and I suspect you’ve cooked the processor – well, it’s happened to me too. I replaced mine with a bundle from here: http://www.computerfinder.co.uk/asp/showcat.asp?lCatID=4100 and I’ve now got a very stable machine. But, if you want to fit a new CPU and Cooler to your existing MB, then be sure to get a quality cooler – one with steel rather than plastic bearings – because Athlon’s are very prone to overheating and I’ve learned to my cost that AMD retail kits somtimes aren’t quite up to the job – but, that’s only my opinion, of course. 🙁

HTH

Cheers

Mayfly
 
Just remembered another thing.... CPU clock speed..... If the Athlon is a 133Mhz part, you can change the clock speed inthe BIOS from default to 100Mhz. That will reduce the temp too.... But the CPU will run at 1 Ghz. and not 1400.
 
I use a Matrox card with three monitors.

I had a very similar problem. I was OK until I installed the multi-screen card. Then the PC fell over and rebooted many times a day, losing valuable real time data each time.

The fault was the CPU. It coped perfectly with the normal single monitor card but hated running three monitors.

As advised previously, the only way is to replace components and eliminate them from the search. Not much help I afraid, but I just thought I would confirm that a CPU could be to blame.
 
55 degrees centigrade is well within the operating parameters for this processor. I would be looking at the Motherboard and its AGP support.

JonnyT
 
JonnyT said:
55 degrees centigrade is well within the operating parameters for this processor. I would be looking at the Motherboard and its AGP support.

JonnyT
Click to expand...

Normally , yes, but the Athlon 1.4 ran particularly hot....maybe it was one step too far in the die size.
 
jaison said:
I use a Matrox card with three monitors.

I had a very similar problem. I was OK until I installed the multi-screen card. Then the PC fell over and rebooted many times a day, losing valuable real time data each time.

The fault was the CPU. It coped perfectly with the normal single monitor card but hated running three monitors.

As advised previously, the only way is to replace components and eliminate them from the search. Not much help I afraid, but I just thought I would confirm that a CPU could be to blame.
Click to expand...

Jaison,
If you are currently running a three or more monitor set up could you plaese let me know what cpu DOES WORK and give me the spec for the rest of the machine,thanks.
 
My setup is quite antique actually, but considering all it does is monitor feeds it is still fast enough to cope.

I use a 2GHz Pentium 4 with 384 MHz RAM. The graphics card is a Matrox G200 twin monitor AGP with a Matrox G450 eTV in a PCI slot. All running on XP but it worked too on Windows 2000.

I have one LSE real time feed, one Level 2 feed, one IE standard broker feed and DDE the real time feed in to an Excel spreadsheet. It works hard but I have never been aware of any delays.

You don't need anything special to use multi monitors. You will get there with a little perseverence.
 
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