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Ok, feel as if we're getting somewhere.

1) Can you boot into Safe mode without getting the same lines?

2) Unfortunately, I have heard this before, and it always indicates the end of a hard drives life. At 5 years however, this isn't too surprising - my guess is it's a Maxtor or Fujitsu.

3) I'm still not going to rule out the PSU "just" yet, but I'll leave that line alone for now...


Do you know what brand the memory is? It's going to be DDR1, but OCZ? Kingmax? Corsair? GeIL? etc etc

When I boot into safe mode, I do get lines, but there aren't as bad. At least they weren't the last time I tried safe mode. I can boot into safe mode now if this will help you at all.

The RAM....one stick is Kingston i think, maybe two sticks. And one may be corsair. (One came from an old system of mine, two were bought about 9 months ago, so I can't really recall unfortunately.)

I'm sorry for the lack of information. Is there a utility program I can run that will display detailed system information so I can get you better info?

1. I have done a small bit of research on video artifacts, and what I have found is the most likely cause is a combination of a faulty video card (it happens in both nvidia and ATI) and over clocking video cards. There are programs that exist that allow you to down clock your video card if all else fails, but if it comes to that I recommend either trying to swap out that card for an identical one or trying to borrow one from a friend or anyone (be sure the card is pci-e as well) to make sure that the problem does not reside within the pci-e slot.

2. From my own experiences, such things like stalling are often related to the hard drive, although I can never pin point what exactly is causing this issue, it likely could be that you do not have enough free hard drive space, it is only a guess. But if you really want to dig down deep you can format your hard drive and eliminate all possibilitys for software error or any virus's for that matter. I know formatting can be rather difficult at times but nothing educates a person about there computer better then when they format there own beast.

3. A lot of possibility goes into this sort of issue when something like a sound card stops working. The first thing that I can imagine is while digging inside of your pc you may have bumped the sound card itself, knocking it loose or even worse damaging the pci slot (I assume your sound is not intergrated onto your mother board). The next idea that crosses my mind is that the driver some how got deleted or messed with. Uninstalling the driver and reinstalling the driver is a possible fix.

My bottom line is basically going to a pc store and finding a battery for your motherboard (although that issue is not as terrible as it may seem, all that means is the settings it creates when it boots up are lost each time you shut down). The next step is going into your pc, putting in that battery, while you have your pc open make sure everything is in correctly, maybe even removing your sound card and video card and re-inserting them in there appropriate slots, and then boot up your pc. This is only a guess as I do not know anything about your computer, but some computers have both intergrated and pci sound cards. In your BIOS there is a setting in which your pc will use, likely something labled pci or onboard for sound. If this is all true then you will want to set it pci and then boot your pc up. If this isn't the case then simply move on to getting to your desktop. At this point you may want to uninstall and then reinstall some drivers (video and sound). Also be ABSOLUTLY sure that you have not plugged your audio into the wrong slot, and be sure to try all possible slots for sound output, I can't count the number of times it was simple human error that caused problems so be sure to check every possibility. You may also want to check your device manager (assuming you are using windows xp, desktop, right click on 'My Computer', properties, hardware tab, then device manager, and check for sound) to be sure the problem can more easily be diagnosed. If all else fails at this point, then you may want to format your hard drive, and start fresh, if then you cannot get your pc working correctly then you may need to replace something(s). Best of luck!

Here's some new information.

The RAM, 2 sticks are Kingston, and one is an old 256 that came from a system, I can't really make it out. It looks like spex, or spectrum, maybe.

The sound card wasn't seated good. It works now.

CMOS failed again. It told me to "Reset CPU Frequency". No idea what that means.

"Please reset CPU frequency in CMOS setup" is the exact error.

Hi dolin,

Can you please remove the old 256mb stick, and leave the kingmax in there (just for testing purposes)

Once you've done that, can you go into your BIOS and select 'Reset to default values'

With the video card - Brad is most likely right, and it has been damaged by either over heating, being over clocked, or was faulty when you bought it (which is entirely possible).



@Brad, the lithium battery's on motherboards generally last up to 15 years (that's what i've experienced anyway)...a 9 month old board is not likely going to have a dead battery (i did suggest this earlier but have since changed my mind as it could still be anything).

Okay, the old stick is out. I went into BIOS and could not find a "Reset to default values". But I did see a "load fail-safe defaults" and did that. Is that correct? After that, the system hung on the Windows XP loading screen, the screen was very dim, and I had to do a hard reboot. Worked OK on the second try.

Did you get the same CMOS error when you booted up the 2nd time?