system freeze

[Guest christian]

Not strictly flightsim related, but it does hinder my scenery design!I just bought a new system (just a few components) and have a problem, which I hope maybe someone here can help. (P4 2GHz, GF4 4400 Ti, 256RAM, ASUS P4S333/C Mobo). I run XP, but that seems secondary, I got this problem just when installing XP from scratch (while it was booting and reading from the CD).What happens is that my system runs fine, but suddenly (completely random, sometimes right after powering up, sometimes after hours), the system comes to a near halt. It looks like it freezes for 2 seconds, then for a short burst (half a second) works fine, than 2 sec pause again, etc. It is so slow that I have to press 'reset'...Now, I brought the system back and it turns out to be fine there. I tried it at work and it also seems to run fine. I have monitored tempuratures and processor power, but there seems to be absolutely no change. The processor is just 40C which is fine, and the currents are stable.Since it only seemed to fault at home I did some more testing. It seems that the USB ports were causing this, ie I only had the slowdown happening when I had a USB device connected. But then I did some driver updates and bang, now it even does it without any USB device plugged in. I tried just with my keyboard, monitor and mouse connected and still get it. I also unplugged everything in the room except my monitor and case.The only program with which I can cause this to happen within minutes is Quake III Arena. I can play FS2K2 for hours (weird because when I actually use a USB device like my joystick it is fine). With all USB devices unplugged and before my driver update Quake ran without problems, as I said, normally it would definitely crash within minutes. And only when any USB device was plugged in. However, the USB thing may have been a coincidence...It's really odd, but I suspect a hardware fault. However, I have to prove the guys that sold me the system it is indeed the new system components, because it runs fine when it's not at home. I will again carry it to work and try it there and maybe take my joystick along.In the meantime are there any suggestions from the hardware wizards here?Thanks, Christian

[Guest Eagle92395]

Just a shot in the dark..but what is the power supply? All that high end stuff, I hope it's not a 300 watt PS. If the mobo is getting a switching power supply, with dips in power it'll slow or crash quite often. I only say this b/c Quake 3 pulls a lot of gfx power and processor power. Adding another power mongrel (joystick, camera...etc) only adds to this. If it's a poor power supply, maybe think of getting a good one. If not... maybe someone else has some ideas!

[Guest christian]

Its 350 watts, but not necessarily the best quality. As I said it never crashes only this weird pseudo freeze and Q3A is not the most graphics intensive app I have run. Plus, it worked at my work place...Thanks for trying to help,Christian

[Guest Barney1]

RAM....check the RAM. If you have more than one stick, remove one and try it out for a couple of hours. Then switch with another stick and try it.