[wplug] Another OT buggy-hardware post

[Brandon Kuczenski]

I'm looking to tap into the wisdom of WPLUG for advice in minimizing the
financial cost of fixing my desktop computer, which crashes frequently 
(MTBF ~36 hours) under heavy CPU load.  I'm running Debian testing, 
2.6.11-k7 on an Athlon XP 2000+ and an Asus A7N-266 mb.

There are three types of crashes.

One, if I set my motherboard's jumpers properly (i.e. my 2000+ runs at 
1667 MHz) then the computer is guaranteed to crash within five minutes of 
boot.  The computer only runs at its reduced clockspeed of 1250MHz.

Two, if I run 'lame' on about 30 minutes of audio, there's a 90% chance 
that the computer will crash (behavior: spontaneously powers down).  This 
also happens in certain other situations with high CPU load.

Three, sometimes the computer will randomly lock up -- screen freezes, 
mouse / keyboard unresponsive, sshd doesn't answer connection requests.

After considering the situation, there are four different possibilities 
that I think are likely.  Any one will cost about $80-100 to fix, so I'd 
like to get it right.
   a. Temperature.  I have lm-sensors installed; mobo temperature is 
40-43C and CPU temperature is 49-51C in the steady state.  These don't 
seem to be abnormally high... fix is to buy a better case+heat sink.
   b. Faulty processor needs replaced (because of the 'type 1 crash')
   c. Faulty motherboard needs replaced (alternative diagnosis of 'b')
   d. It's possible that the 'type 3 crashes' are caused by a bad video 
card.

I haven't really considered the memory because the problem has not always 
occurred (though I can't remember when it started occurring). But I'll 
install and run memtest86+ while I wait for list responses to trickle in.

I built the box myself with parts (presumed new) from a discount on-line 
parts house.  The Video Card is from eBay.

The case has really awful cooling, which is why I thought temperature 
might be the culprit.  I'm also running a cheap aluminum heat-sink instead 
of a copper one.  It's seated so tight that I couldn't get it off the 
processor to check the conductive paste (which I applied when I installed 
the heatsink).  I would have to probably take the whole thing apart in 
order to be able to get at the heatsink to remove it.

If i were better off, I'd just buy a new Asus board, new processor, new 
case, and new heat sink, but I won't be able to swing that.  As it is, I 
am in a constant state of panic that my computer will shut down.

Any advice?

-Brandon