PC locking up, tried a bunch of things

[Shadow]

Ok some questions...

>> Do the video and audio lock up at the same instant?
Yes.

> If so... it's most likely to be bad memory.
All 4 sticks are always showing up.

>If there's a time difference it might be the video card is shot.
Once in awhile, when it freezes, I can budge my mouse about 4 times before it ultimate locks up for good, but it's like stop motion animation(WHILE the sound goes wonky). This isn't as often however.

> Do you get any beeps during startup?
Nope.

> You can often look up the beep codes on the web and decipher them to know what's wrong.
Yep know about that.

>As for booting the DVDs ... how did you make them?
Download ISO, extract ISO with Magic ISO to desktop folder(Magic ISO freeware only allows 300mb), burn to CD everything untouched with Windows.

> If you burned the ISO with the Windows tool or Magic Iso they should boot.
I set my bios up, configured to make it think the only thing it has is a CD-ROM(everything else is disabled). I get invalid system disk with the CD in.

> Also note that most motherboards now support popup boot menus (usually on F5 or F8) during POST so you can select.
Same as above.

> Try different memory...
have, but DOA from years ago

> Try a different video card.
have but wrong PCI version.

> Try a different power supply.
Have but super old and only like 350w(mine's 850)

> It's probably something fairly simple...
Most likely, but not simple finding it when you dont have parts to swap out.

[CommonTater]

Ok some questions...

>> Do the video and audio lock up at the same instant?
Yes.

> If so... it's most likely to be bad memory.
All 4 sticks are always showing up.

That unfortunately doesn't mean they work properly. The POST memory test is really just aimed at sizing the memory, it's not a thorough diagnostic. If memory serves it only checks ever 1024th cell... The windows DVD has a memory test diagnostic on it that is quite exhaustive, give that a try for about 8 to 10 hours... Also make sure your memory is set to defaults ("Auto" in most BIOS settings) while diagnosing problems; you can always get fancy later.

>If there's a time difference it might be the video card is shot.
Once in awhile, when it freezes, I can budge my mouse about 4 times before it ultimate locks up for good, but it's like stop motion animation(WHILE the sound goes wonky). This isn't as often however.

This sounds more like memory than anything else.

A video lockup would have your screen fill with garbage but you're program might still be running, since it doesn't execute in video space... sounds more and more like main memory to me.

>As for booting the DVDs ... how did you make them?
Download ISO, extract ISO with Magic ISO to desktop folder(Magic ISO freeware only allows 300mb), burn to CD everything untouched with Windows.

When making the DVD are you making a "Bootable DVD"? You can't just write the data out, you need to include a boot loader or it's just another data disk... Burn Aware does a nice job with this...

> If you burned the ISO with the Windows tool or Magic Iso they should boot.
I set my bios up, configured to make it think the only thing it has is a CD-ROM(everything else is disabled). I get invalid system disk with the CD in.

> Also note that most motherboards now support popup boot menus (usually on F5 or F8) during POST so you can select.
Same as above.

That's not going to work. The DVD's boot loader starts the setup process and copies the files to your hard disk... no HD, no Setup.

Make a bootable DVD... loader at 17C0 for 8 sectors, no emulation, then use your system's boot menu to load it with all drives and hardware active.

> Try different memory...
have, but DOA from years ago

> Try a different video card.
have but wrong PCI version.

> Try a different power supply.
Have but super old and only like 350w(mine's 850)

> It's probably something fairly simple...
Most likely, but not simple finding it when you dont have parts to swap out.

Get them. Seriously, you can get a dirt cheap PCIE card for under 20 bucks, a gig of ram for 15, etc. just for testing.

One thing you can do right now is run MemTest it with just 1 blade of memory... try each one in turn. Odds are 3 will pass the test, one won't.

What happens if you are not careful is that you fall into a pattern of "Functional Insanity"...
Trying the same failed things over and over again, expecting a different result.

[Shadow]

Thanks for all the help, approaching sleepy time for this guy. I will try all your suggestions tomorrow and if I turn up one that solves it I'll be sure to provide thanks to the person who suggested it.

Thanks.

[Elysia]

This sounds more like memory than anything else.

From my experience, bad memory usually results in a BSOD.

[CommonTater]

From my experience, bad memory usually results in a BSOD.

Not always... If the bad cells are in a section used by kernel code, it can and does just haul off and crash the system.
After the kernel is running, bad memory usually causes an error that is detected and can lead to a BSOD.

Trust me on this one... the kernel developers are counting on good memory as much as anyone else.