Hi all

I've had a search around and I can't find anything on the forums regarding this subject (please correct me if I'm wrong) so I'm hoping the following info will be of interest to those it might affect. I'll briefly describe the problem I had ......

upgraded my pc with an extra 256MB RAM (before upgrade set up as Athlon 1800+ XP, Gigabyte 7VTXE mobo, nvidia GeForce2 mx400, , Win XP OS, 512MB Samsung DDR RAM). everything went fine until trying to play a game (RtCW, AVP2, Freespace1 and 2, if anyones interested)... then BAM.... PC restarts ... after a few times of this happening I turn off this 'feature' in WinXP and I try again. same thing happens, run Sisoft and MadOnion 2002... memory test in Sisoft fails and MadOnion totally crashes PC. BSOD indicates that there is a problem in nv4_disp.dll. Had a look around the net but couldn't find much of help.... other than - probably bad RAM or bad mobo i.e. the usual suspects. Note this BSOD also only happened with games or memory and 3D benchmarking software - nothing else. I thought at first its bad memory, so replaced the 'new' 256 chip with another one from a different manufacturer... same thing happens, go to a different shop and try out a 512MB stick, again from a different manufacturer... same thing happens again.... starting to suspect the mobo is at fault at this point. Anyway before marching out to burn the shop I got the PC from, I have one last look around the net (from a second PC) and I find a site of some interest. It took a while to find this info so I thought it might be of interest to anyone else having similar probs.... save them from running back and forth from the shop ;-). Anyway the below web page has more info and suggestions for solving the prob (if of any interest I had to open up AGP aperture on BIOS to 256MB, upgrade the nvidia drivers and lower the PCI texture for direct 3D to 32mb)

http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=64

anyway.... hope it helps folks..... only second time I've posted with anything useful so please let me know if this would be better going in a different forum - or indeed if it's of no help....


Z