Having Issues with my Dell Optiplex GX150
Hello. It's been a long time since I've posted here. Anyways, lately I've been noticing some strange issues with my Dell Optiplex GX150 computer. Every time I play a game on it (Monster Truck Madness 2, for example), it freezes, shuts down or restarts. This has happened in both Windows 98SE and Millennium Edition.
Here are the specifications:
- Intel Pentium III-S Tualatin 1.4 GHz CPU
- 512MB (2x256MB) PC-133 SDRAM
- nVidia Geforce4 Ti 4200 64MB AGP graphics card
- Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS PCI sound card
- 40GB Seagate IDE hard drive
- Pioneer IDE DVD-RW drive
- HL-DT-ST IDE CD-RW drive
- 3.5" floppy drive
Here's what I've tried, with no change so far:
- Replacing one of the RAM sticks as one of them turned out to be bad.
- Limiting the amount of RAM Windows can use via msconfig.exe
- Removing a RAM stick, reducing the amount of RAM to 256MB.
- Visually inspecting the motherboard and power supply for bad capacitors - there were none.
- Changing the AGP aperture from 64MB to 32MB.
- Running Memtest86 and Prime95 for a few hours successfully.
- Disabling Serial ports, Parallel port, and USB emulation in the BIOS.
- Changing device IRQs.
- Moving the sound card to a different PCI slot.
- Replacing the power supply and drives with different ones.
- Installing the Microsoft Windows Security Updates February 2004 CD.
These are the video and sound drivers I'm using:
vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=510&menustate=45,38
vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=1408&menustate=14,1
All other drivers were sourced from the Dell website.
If anyone here has any ideas on why this is happening and things I can try to fix it, I would really appreciate it.
Here are the specifications:
- Intel Pentium III-S Tualatin 1.4 GHz CPU
- 512MB (2x256MB) PC-133 SDRAM
- nVidia Geforce4 Ti 4200 64MB AGP graphics card
- Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS PCI sound card
- 40GB Seagate IDE hard drive
- Pioneer IDE DVD-RW drive
- HL-DT-ST IDE CD-RW drive
- 3.5" floppy drive
Here's what I've tried, with no change so far:
- Replacing one of the RAM sticks as one of them turned out to be bad.
- Limiting the amount of RAM Windows can use via msconfig.exe
- Removing a RAM stick, reducing the amount of RAM to 256MB.
- Visually inspecting the motherboard and power supply for bad capacitors - there were none.
- Changing the AGP aperture from 64MB to 32MB.
- Running Memtest86 and Prime95 for a few hours successfully.
- Disabling Serial ports, Parallel port, and USB emulation in the BIOS.
- Changing device IRQs.
- Moving the sound card to a different PCI slot.
- Replacing the power supply and drives with different ones.
- Installing the Microsoft Windows Security Updates February 2004 CD.
These are the video and sound drivers I'm using:
vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=510&menustate=45,38
vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=1408&menustate=14,1
All other drivers were sourced from the Dell website.
If anyone here has any ideas on why this is happening and things I can try to fix it, I would really appreciate it.
Comments
I remember I had to replace the heatsink and fan on my Ti4200 since I remember the fan was noisy, I took the heatsink off of it recently and discovered that the thermal paste has dried up. I'm guessing it was freezing/restarting because of the graphics chip overheating. I've replaced the thermal paste and will be testing it in my Dell Dimension 4600 to see if it's still good. If it's dead, I've ordered another Ti4200 graphics card to replace it in the event that it is a dead card.