Brand new here, so I apologize in advance if i miss a piece of forum etiquette.

Here's the deal:

I am completely lost. I'm fairly proficient with this stuff. Have been building custom gaming machines for a little over 5 years. But I'm completely stumped.

I built a rig about 3-4 years ago (modified it a little bit since then). Worked fine for quite a while. But, in the last 6 months or so, it's become increasingly unstable when running games. It's fine in almost any other application but gaming.

I'm at the point now where virtually any game I run crashes to desktop within 5-10 minutes. From the newest titles like Fallout 3 to older ones like Sacrifice and Medieval Total War. I almost never get a bsod or a reboot, but you could set your watch by the ctd's.

Here's what I know:

-I've thoroughly cleaned out the entire machine. Fans and heatsinks are clear. No residual dust lying around on cards, cpu, fans, etc.

-I've removed the paneling of the case to maximize air flow.

-The system is run through a power conditioner, so voltage spikes should not be an issue.

-I've completely re-formatted the system and am currently trying to run it as a dedicated gaming machine. Shouldn't be any interference from any other application.

-I've installed the latest drivers for every single piece of hardware on this machine, including things I didn't even know HAD updated drivers. Mouse, keyboard, monitor, etc. Updated chipset drivers, video, sound, RAID drivers, SATA drivers, LAN drivers EVERYTHING.

-Ran checkdisk on hard drives. Nothing there.

-Took out individual DIMMS and independently ran Memtest on each one in the primary slot. Both passed 5 passes each (you get bored after awhile).

-Switched out the video card. Needed/wanted a new one anyway. Same problems.

-Creative Labs apparently doesn't have a WHQL driver for the X-Fi series, so I uninstalled and pulled the soundcard and switched to onbaord audio. No help there.

-Upgraded the power supply about a year ago. 800W SLI rated. Power consumption shouldn't be an issue.

-Windows is completely up to date

-Antivirus software is disabled (though enabling it and running a full scan produces no infections.)

-Every test in dxdiag runs flawlessly.

-I've tried to run games at their max and min settings. Can't even run Left 4 Dead at 640x480.

In short, I'm completely and totally out of ideas. I can't think of anything else to try, and I don't know enough to comprehend the error messages you always get in the dialogue box after an application crashes.

Can someone please, please try to point me in the right direction? I've sank about $3,500 into this machine and I just want the darn thing to behave like the powerhouse it was built as.

Thanks in advance for any help you all might be able to give me.

System Specs after the sign off.

Thanks,

E.D. Wayne

Case: Thermaltake Armor
MB: Asus P5N32 SLI Deluxe
CPU: Intel Pentium D 3.4 GHZ w/aftermarket Zalman heatsink/fan
RAM: 2x1 GB Corsair XMS Series
PSU: BFG 800W SLI Rated
HDD: 2 x 320 GB SATA Seagate's run in RAID 0
Video: Single BFG NVidea GTX 285
Audio: Onboard RealTek ALC850 OR Creative X-FI Fatal1ty (same issues w/either)
OS: Windows XP Pro fully updated

Welcome to the Forum evildiscowayne!!

That is, without doubt, one of the best posts I've seen in a long time! The information you have provided is perfect!

Our Talented Techs will no doubt have an answer for you, and as soon as possible.

I thank you for your patience

Marking as open to encourage all that can help to come and take a look.

Hi and what error messages do you get when it crashes?

Wayyy good!!

You got the Dinosaur of PC's evildiscowayne!

Keepin a look, but you are so in good hands!

Thanks for the warm welcome guys. I appreciate all your time.

Madmat: Generic "Xxx has encountered a problem an needs to close. Sorry for the inconvenience." When error reporting actually sends something back, it's always the same generic "a driver or it's related hardware or software, but we were unable to determine the specific....yada, yada, yada."

Trews: I'm just curious, but what do you mean by a "Dinosaur PC?" Is mine really that out of date? Doesn't seem that long ago that everything I bought was top of the line. Man, this stuff moves fast nowawdays.

Again, thanks a million for all your time and any help you might be able to give guys. I really appreciate it.

E.D. Wayne

EDIT: I just forced a crash in Fallout 3. Not hard really, just try to play for about 2 minutes. This was the information contained in that "header" thing when you select technical details. I don't know if this helps at all, but here it is for what it's worth:

AppName: fallout3.exe AppVer: 1.5.0.22 ModName: fallout3.exe
ModVer: 1.5.0.22 Offset: 00069c38

EDIT #2: This is another "header" message that I had copied and pasted. I don't, however, remember the cause of this particular error:

BCCode : 1000000a BCP1 : 00000004 BCP2 : 00000002 BCP3 : 00000000
BCP4 : 804E7EED OSVer : 5_1_2600 SP : 3_0 Product : 256_1

In most cases this is driver or memory related issue. I know you have tested your ram sticks and they seem ok but could you try running the PC with just one of them in and if it crashes swap it out to the other one just to make sure ram is not the issue. Try this first post back the results. you updated all drivers did you flash the bios also with the latest?

While you are right that things change dramatically and in a short amount of time, I was referring to MadMatt..

Check his profile.. he be the Dinosaur! Great knowledge tho, without doubt!

A little humor among friends, yes?

Looking forward to seeing your issue fixed