Stability Problems and Questions

[fauskie]

I posted this in another forum but have since been experiencing the same problems. My computer keeps freezing up on me and not even during times of being stressed due to multiple programs/games/apps etcetera. This is my first build and I am not very familiar with BIOS and changing settings to get my computer to run optimally but I think that may be why it is running unstable.

The following are the parts installed;

Motherboard- MSI K9N SLI Platinum

CPU- AMD Athlon 64 X2 3.2 GHz Dual Core AM2

Video Card- EVGA GeForce 8500 GT 256MB DDR2 PCI Express

Memory- Corsair XMS (4GB Total) DDR2 Dual Channel (PC2 6400)

Power Supply- Apevia 680 Watt ATX SLI-Ready

Hard Drives- Western Digital Caviar SE 160 GB 7200 RPM SATA 3 gig/s
Western Digital Caviar SE 80 GB 7200 RPM SATA 3 gig/s

OS- Win XP Pro, service pack #2

I've been told that my PSU is pretty bad but would that really cause my computer to freeze so often? There is no rhyme or reason for when it freezes, but it happens alot immediately after windows loads, after "awakening" from screen saver/hibernation and during game play (Flight Sim X on medium high settings).

My question(s) are;
1) How do I change settings in BIOS for my memory timing correctly? It seems like my BIOS has many more options than what I've seen in FAQ's. I've also seen a lot of posts from people who have the same memory as me that were having problems with their computer freezing when the timing was set incorrectly. My timing options for memory in BIOS is the following;
1)TCL
2)TRAS
3)TRP
4)TRCD
5)TRRD
6)TRC
7)Bank Interleaving
8)Enable clock to all DIMMS
9)CMD-ADDR Timing Mode
10) Software Memory Hole

The settings for my memory say that it runs best at 4-4-4-12 2T but I have so many other options aside from those clock settings that I don't know what to input.
Can anyone offer some help/advice when it comes to changing the settings I have for my memory?

Also, one thing that struck me as odd is that in BIOS it shows my CPU clock at 2010 mhz. I thought it should read 3200 mhz since my CPU is 3.2 ghz. Am I reading this incorrectly or is it that my CPU isn't performing as strong as it could?

Thanks in advance (again)!

[Cricket]

Originally Posted by fauskie I've been told that my PSU is pretty bad but would that really cause my computer to freeze so often?

Yes, it can. Apevia power supplies are rubbish. The power supply is actually the most important component in your computer. If it's not functioning properly and not feeding clean steady power to your system you can see weird stability problems like you're seeing. I would replace that Apevia with something much better ASAP.

Cricket