Hey all,
I appear to have a serious issue with my current hardware setup and I'm looking for some help in resolving it. First off, let me fire out my system specs (my machine is custom built by me from the ground up):
Asus A7M266 - newest BIOS v1007
2x256 Crucial PC2100 non-ECC
Athlon Thunderbird 1.4GHz AYHJA stepping 266MHz FSB
Swiftech MCXC370 heatsink with delta fan
Leadtek/Winfast Geforce2 Pro (enhanced) 64Meg
Hercules Game Theatre XP 6.1
IBM Deskstar 60GXP 60 Gig 7200 RPM
Linksys 10/100
Pinoeer 16x DVD
Plextor 16x10x40 CDR/W
Windows XP Pro all updates
About a month ago, I noticed that when booting, my hardware monitor started to report errors. When I checked them out, I was amazed at what I saw. The sensors were reporting that the internal temperature in my case was over 200 degrees Farenheit, and the CPU was running at over 220. Also, the voltages were being reported considerably off as well. My 12v connector was reporting as running at 15.35 volts.
Obviously the sensors are in error as my computer was started from a cold boot when these reports came in. Just to be sure, I shut down, pulled everything apart, regreased the CPU core with arctic silver, and put everything back together. When I got finished, the sensors were still reporting the same thing. I disabled the boot-up monitors in my BIOS and continued on my way.
About 2 days ago, I went to nVidia's site and downloaded the latest released drivers 30.82. I installed the new drivers and rebooted. When I got back in to Windows, I started up AH and noticed a lot of artifacts in the game. There were flashing bits and general corruption. Shortly after launch, the system froze and I got the dreaded BSOD. Windows reported that the nv4dsp file was at fault as it had entered into an infinite loop.
To see if I could replicate the problem, I rebooted, and launched AH. Same thing, ending in the BSOD. I also tried it with a couple other games, including Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament. Quake 3 completely froze my machine, but UT played fine. Medal of Honor and Battlefield 1942 both blew up horribly.
Thinking that the new drivers were the culprit, I removed them and loaded up my old ones (29.42). Rather than fix the problem, however, the situation remained the same. I have a feeling that my graphics card may be faulty (as since I've gotten the board, even the demo games it came with -- dronez and gunlok -- have always frozen my machine to the point of needing hard boot).
Now I'm at an impass. I have two questions. First, I've tried everything I know of to remove the faulty drivers. I've uninstalled them the typical way, gone so far as to remove the nVidia references from the registry, and removed all the driver files from my machine. Nothing seems to be helpful.
Are there any programs (like detonator destroyer) for Windows XP?
Secondly, given the obviously faulty sensors on my motherboard, should I replace it? Finally, GeForce4 MX are under a hundred bucks...should I bite the bullet? How will this board compare to my Geforce2 Pro? What will be advantages/disadvantages?
Sorry about the long post...and thanks for all the help you can offer.
