Video problem for the experts

[Guest_imported]

I have a video problem that I have been unable to solve. I thought I would ask the experts for any ideas you might have:

The system:

MSI 6330 K7 Pro 2-A motherboard
Award BIOS version 3.2
AMD Athlon 900 MGz
Generic GeForce 2 MX 400 video card
128 MB SDRAM
Windows XP Pro

The problem:

I have a repeatable problem that occurs very frequently. It always occurs when I run MadOnion's 3DMark program, but it has also occured while in NotePad or Quicken.

All of a sudden, I will get a blue screen with a message saying that a problem has occured and that my computer is being shut down to prevent damage. I then lose my video signal. At this point, the system is hung.

When I try to reboot, I find that my BIOS settings appear to have been overwritten, so I can't boot. The weird thing is that over time (usually about 12 hrs) the BIOS seems to restore itself and I can boot again.

Other times, I have not gotten the blue screen, but instead, I just lose video.

I have tried the following to no avail:

1) switch to AGP 2x rather than 4x
2) swicth to GeForce 2 Ti
3) switch to Radeon 7000
4) flash to latest BIOS version

Anyone have any advice or thoughts?????????

 

[paparazi]

Problem with the CMOS battery? 2032 lithium.
Dirext X 8a? installed?
HEAT??? I noticed you said in the middle of 3D bench mark when processor and GPU are working at there MAX.
Have you got a hardware monitor installed? a 900 Athlon shouldn't really be seeing much over 45C with blue screens in the low 60's Martin Vote if you found this post helpful please!!