Hi all,
So, this morning the dreaded event happened. Windows XP SP3 starts booting, then goes back to the very beginning. When I try Safe Mode, it freezes after 1 – 3 minutes, sometimes with a BSOD, sometimes not. I almost definitely have a hardware problem, but that is the one thing regarding computers that I’m terrible at diagnosing. I’m a software architect in Real Life, but I don’t know how to differentiate between bad RAM, a hosed motherboard, or simply a gimpy graphics card.
Quick description — this is a 4-year old build that has been on for 99.99% of those 4 years, because I run SageTV (so why turn the computer off and risk missing a show!). So, this thing has been up and running for quite some time, and parts are going to wear out after a while. It has a then-top-of-the-line DFI LanParty Ultra III mobo with an AMD XP 3200 chip, 1GB of RAM, and a Sapphire ATI Radeon 9600 (regular old PCI). Wow, I can’t believe I actually remembered that. The bios detects all of my hard drives before it freezes, so I think both my onboard SATA RAID card and my additional PCI SATA RAID card are fine (I had too many hard drives for the onboard one).
So, I was thinking about replacing the RAM, since that’s the cheapest and easiest fix, and see if that works. On the other hand, this is a 4-year old rig that has seen some pretty heavy daily usage, so do you all think I should just cut my losses and build new? Chances are very good that any RAM or GPU that I get to try to get this old thing working again won’t be compatible with a new build, and I don’t want to buy twice.
I guess this may be more of a philosophical question than a technical question, although if any of you awesometastic folks out there can simply tell me to do the equivalent of the trusty “Zap the P-RAM” like I used to do on circa-1996 macs, that would be awesome. I never had a problem too difficult for “Zap the P-RAM!”
Stupid technology. Why is it always hatin’ on me!
–Rafi
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