Hi

The Problem:
Sometimes on startup instead of the single Beeeep which always precedes a
normal boot
it goes Beeeeep Beep Beep Beep (long short short short) and the screen
stays black. in fact the main monitor stays in sleep mode.

Other indicators are:
3D games (Grand theft auto, Diablo II) started seizing up after a few
minutes and particularly when things got busy. Sometimes the screen would
go all weird colours. (there may have been a beep involved there too). I
haven't tried gaming for a while.

My system is:
AMD Athlon 2400+
500meg DDR Ram
Asus A7N 266 VM Motherboard
Raedon 9200 series (128meg RAM) Video
Creative SB Live! sound card
Realteck RTL8139 (A) PCI fast ethernet adapter
Firewire card (unknown)
NOTE: I use the digital video output to run a second CRT monitor via an
inline adapter. this has never caused a problem before.

What have I tried?
Reboot, Reboot, Reboot, Reboot, Reboot, Reboot, sometimes I need to turn
off the ups and leave it for a minute or two before it will boot
properly... sounds like heat to me but all fans are working ok.
I thought the video card might be getting hot but the heat sink is barely
warm to the touch. (I've not tried this during gaming though) There is no
fan on this video card.

The only reliable way I can make it fail is via gaming but it has failed at
other times. I cant see any usage pattern there though.

I am tempted to go and buy a new video card (it could do with an upgrade
anyway) but I'm worried it may be something else altogether. flaky ram
perhaps?

Any suggestions would be greatly apreciated
Leigh

Leigh Jennings
Hound Heaven Web Design
WEB:             http://www.houndheaven.com.au
EMAIL:  [log in to unmask]

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