My buddys computer stopped working a few months ago and I rememberd he had an awesome AGP card in it. He had no use for it since it's old compared to the new PCI-E cards on the market now. I installed the card and turned on my computer only to get a blank screen and loud memory check error beeps from my motherboard. I put my old video card back in and reset the CMOS and now my computer won't post unless I leave everything on the slowest default settings. It also won't let me run my memory in dual channel mode anymore. Even the slightest changes cause the screen to be blank when I restart it and cause me to reset the CMOS jumpers before I can use the computer.

Would this be a problem with my motherboard or CPU? If I need to change the settings of my hardware one at a time to work it into using it properly what would be the steps to take? If i were to find the exact model of CPU and manually set everything in BIOS for this CPU would it possibly force it to POST upon restarting the comp?

This computer ran stable for years playing all sorts of games without any problems.

MSI K72n-Delta nvidia Nforce2 Ultra chipset
BFG Nvidia Gforce 5500OC
1gig corsair Twinx dual channel kit PC3200
Sempron processor... I just can't remember what model

P.S.
The computer runs windows and I even play WoW with it in this gimped state. It just lags alot and the video crashes on me maybe once or twice a week. I never could get my friends card to work, I have my origional card in again.

Hello.

A few questions:

What speed(MHz) is the cpu running at now?
What power supply is running the system?
What was the awesome graphics card you tried?
Have you tried with just one memory module installed?

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MSI K7N2 Delta2 LSR|35w XP-M2400 11x214 1.62V|2x512MB OCZ EL 2 2 2 11 2.9V|9600XT|Seasonic 350w
Abit AN7|XP-M2800 10.5x227 1.62V|2x512MB Mushkin XP4000 2 3 2 11 3.2V|9600XT|Seasonic 550w
Asus A7V600|XP-M2600 6-11x202 1.6V|2x512 Crucial PC3200 2.5 3 3 9 2.7V|PCI 32MB gfx|Corsair 450w

1200mhz
I have a thermaltake 430W powersupply
6800gt nvidia
yea i tried just one module and even tried other ram, i had brand new kingston hyberX sitting around.

Last night i took the heatsink off the CPU and found out it was a 2800+ sempron, model number SDA2800DUT3D and set all the power and frequency settings for the particular CPU and it would shut off still randomly before windows would start, even though it was running at around 30C

Could be a power issue, if the motherboard or PSU has taken a hit. If possible test with a PCI vga card or try with another PSU.

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I noticed the CPU has a scorch mark on the bottom. It is where the thermal censor sticks up and touches it, I'm not sure if that could do it. The PSU seems to be in good shape and the video card works fine in my friends computer.