My compy needs help, fast

[Kurt`]

Er... system ram that is shared with the video card is called VGA Shared Memory (hypermemory, hahahaha ATI what a bunch of tools) and can generally be adjusted in your BIOS.

His ram isn't the problem. He has plenty for XP to run properly.

 

[Killface]

i looked around in the bios, all i can do is overclock my cpu, nothing with adjusting the video card in the bios at all. My ram timing isn't off is it, because thats what the Intel rep and that store owner said might be wrong with it.

 

[DJ-Ready]

i still think that you can NOT adjust the shared memory since its a feature of the grapic card and not of the mobo
however, even though it would most likely run, i still highly recomment do get more ram

if you cannot afford new ram, or you want your comp up again before you buy new ram, just reinstall windows (format first )
dont forget to save important datas first
either plug the hdd into another comp or use a OS that is bootable from cd (like Knoppix, http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html) so you can save your datas before formatting

 

[Kurt`]

Your ram is NOT the problem!~

But I do recommend you format, since new CPU/motherboard will screw over Windows pretty well.

If you can't get into Windows to back everything up, just take out your hard drive, set the jumper so it's a slave drive, put it in another computer, backup all your files onto the other drive, set it as master again, put it back in your computer, install windows from scratch (destroy and recreate all partitions and use NTFS), once that works take it out, set jumper to slave again, put in the other computer and move all your files back, then set it as master and put it back into your main comp.

I've had to do that hundreds of times.

 

[Killface]

So my ram timing is off then? Just joking.
I thought about doing that, i'll just throw it in my older computer. I guess it looks like i'm going to have to reformat then huh? Oh an instead of destroying the partitions can I just pop in the restore cd's or whatever they are called?

 

[Kurt`]

If the drive with your data on it is using NTFS for the filesystem, your "older comp" will need to be running at least Windows NT/2k/XP in order for it to be able to "see" the NTFS drive.

Other than that you should have no problems.

 

[Killface]

alright i'll try it but how do i format, i haven't formatted in forever.

 

[Ravendust]

There were Windows 98/ME-->XP 'Upgrades' that didn't require you to reformat, as I recall.

Yup, that's correct.

You can format (format/delete partitions) by pressing F8 during startup and following the instructions it gives you.

 

[Deverz]

Bit behind the times but Kurt is right.

I've worked as a teccy for a bit and done tons of hardware changed, You don't need to reinstall windows at all unless your are changing CPU and Mobo

RAM, Sound Card, Video Card, Ram, Modem/Network Card all change around fine without the need to reinstall

 

[Killface]

Alright thanks i'll try it and get back to you guys in a day or two.

So as i can remember all i need to do is get more ram and reformat windows?

 

[Ravendust]

I've worked as a teccy for a bit and done tons of hardware changed, You don't need to reinstall windows at all unless your are changing CPU and Mobo

I've changed both and I wasn't prompted to format, should I? Would the difference be noticeable?

 

[Kurt`]

You have more than enough ram to run XP, but more would be recommended for it to run smoothly.

Windows will "autodetect" and install drivers for all sorts of new stuff if you change mobos, but it won't tell you to reinstall. It's common knowledge (among the somewhat computer literate) that changing a major component like CPU/mobo would generally necessitate a reinstall.

 

[Killface]

okay I reformatted and it still does it, was i supposed to delete the partitions because I didn't, and even though my motherboard doesn't support PC2100 memory should I still throw some in to see if it would work or not?

 

[Killface]

okay I reformatted and it still does it, was i supposed to delete the partitions because I didn't, and even though my motherboard doesn't support PC2100 memory should I still throw some in to see if it would work or not?


oops, sorry for the double post.

 

[Jesus]

yes you were supposed to delete the partitions. if you dont delete the partition, your just formatting the space that isnt designated to anything yet.

and you can delete posts you know =/

 

[Kurt`]

Partitions just divide up your hard drive. Filesystems determine how data is stored on each partition.

In the installer, you probably have 1 large partition covering 99.9% of your drive, and 4-8 megs of "free space" (which is your hard drive's buffer).

If you chose to install onto the existing partition, that's fine, because it would format it anyways before installing (unless you told it not to?).

If you didn't, you should have formatted it using the NTFS filesystem.

 

[SaiyanPrideXIX]

Back ontopic: My only guess is that the motherboard doesn't like your ram. Maybe your ram caught some static when you installed it or something; it sounds an awful lot like the Ram is damaged to me.

I remembered, a friend of mine had this problem after he swapped a two 128's out for a single 256 or something like that. He never did fix it, but he also never tried to replace the ram, and he'd ****canned the old ram (dumbass snapped it in half for kicks). Have you tried different sticks of ram?

 

[Tassadar]

Bit behind the times but Kurt is right.

I've worked as a teccy for a bit and done tons of hardware changed, You don't need to reinstall windows at all unless your are changing CPU and Mobo

RAM, Sound Card, Video Card, Ram, Modem/Network Card all change around fine without the need to reinstall

I never said you had to, I said you should because it could cause problems if you don't.

Oh, and thanks for laughing at me again Kurt.

 

[Killface]

Yup, I deleted the partitions and i reformatted and it still does it, I tested my ram and it works and if it didn't then explain to me how i can get into the bios and let it run for a while (not to be rude, ) Personally I think I dont have enough ram, because that video card uses ram and windows xp uses ram so it is probably getting drained.

and what are the culprits that cause a system to restart? all i can think of is not having enough ram and overheating system/processor, anything else?

 

[Ravendust]

What PSU (W) and cooling system do you use? I highly doubt your RAM being the issue, my brother has a similar setup to you with just 128mb. It could be that you're overheating and Windows is shutting itself down (as opposed to giving you the Blue Screen of Death).