Hey Hey,

I'm not one to come here for help, especially hardware help... but I'm stumped... The only thing I can think of is bad hardware, so I'm hoping you all can help out.

My GF bought a new computer from Best Buy... It's a refurbished compaq (I know, I know.. but the price was right).

Specs:
AMD XP 2400+
128MB Ram
40GB WD HDD
4X CD-RW
Yada yada Yada

We also purchased 256MB of RAM and an e-GeForce FX 5200 128MB so that she could play The Sims reasonably well. It came with XP Home pre-installed.

We came home and I installed the new ram and video card (fairly standard stuff.. I prolly do it 100 times a year). I booted it up and started having problems with it crashing.... the times would vary.. Sometimes it'd be as soon as it booted into Windows.. another time it lasted 24 hours.. My GF opened The Sims one time and it crashed at start-up.. another time she played for hours with no problem.

I first assumed that XP Home didn't like the RAM upgrade, so I grabbed one of my legal copies of XP and installed, booted the machine and installed all the updates.. It seemed to be running fine until we went to install the Sims and it crashed again... Now I figure it's the RAM... I've seen picky Compaqs before.. so I tried changing up the RAM configuration.. 256 then 128... 128 then 256.. So I throw in Hirens BootCD and run PC Memory Test 2000... It runs fine for abotu 50 passes and then crashes with a fatal exception.... So I pull out the 128 and run the test the next night with only the 256. It ran 250+ tests without a problem. So I bought the machine and XP blue screens.. I figure it didn't like the RAM change and go to boot it again, same thing. So I grab my XP CD to reinstall.. but I missed pressing any key to boot from the CD and oddly enough the computer booted. I popped int he password and as XP was booting the computer died. I pulled it apart and popped out the 256 and through in the 128MB original... Now it's got it's original configuration + the Video card... I boot it up and it's good long enough to download and install winamp and listen to a couple mp3s.. then it crashes again... I'm going to try pulling out the video card and running it out of the box, but I'm completely stumped.. I'm not sure what the problem is..

Anyone have any Ideas or solutions to offer? I plan on bringin it back to best buy in the next few days if I can't solve it.... but I'd prefer to not have to bring it back... They might not replace the parts.. might just offer cash back.. and I couldn't go buy the processor and motherboard for what she paid for the entire PC...

Thanks in Advance and as always,
Peace,
HT