Problem with A7N8x-VM/400

[tdulle]

I've got a problem with an a7n8x motherboard. I built this new computer for a friend, putting in a 120gb hd, 512mb mem, DVD/CDRW, and loaded it up with winxp home. Everything seems fine, except when I try to either play a game, or try to play a DVD. In either case, I get the quick flash of the BSOD (not able to read what it says), and then it reboots. I completely reformated the disk, tried the newest and some of the older drivers, with the same result.

Any ideas?

[ArcticFox]

Hmm that sucks. Overheating issue, maybe? Unlikely, but possible. What BIOS rev are you using? My A7N8X Deluxe is at 1007, I had to RMA a board with an older PCB and BIOS and received a bouncy new one with the latest version, so update it if you haven't done so already.

[lukewarmdog]

Just built the same system except with 2k and the board is being a total nightmare. Not quite figured out what it is yet but next step is to try different memory, disabling sound and putting a graphics card in.
Read in other places it might be a memory timing issue but the BIOS is the worst I've ever seen, it's like BIOS for BABIES. Totally rubbish.
There is a beta BIOS on the ASUS site but this didn't do me any favours and didn't open up any options.
IN 2k I found that going to control panel, system, advanced, startup and recovery and unticking the "automatically reboot" box helped but I still get crashes and BSODs all over the place.
Errors come from video dlls, 2k sys files, soiund card drivers.. minidump folder filling up nicely, event viewer shows up a couple of event ids but they don't seem to the problem as it just randomly reboots without giving me any errors in event viewer.

With the VM/400 the only BIOS on the ASUS site under latest is the original one. Switch to BETA view and you see the next one out, change the extension to rom and use afudos to install it but tbh it doesn't look any different and hasn't helped my reboot problem.

I'm off to take another machine to pieces and swap bits out on it to see if i can stabilise this absolutely dreadful (from personal experience and what I've read elsewhere) POS.

EDIT
===

Swapped out the memory for some of my own but my memory is 400FSB so didn't work. Worth a try tho. Stuck my gfx card in the machine and it works fine. Seems to just be down to a problem wih the built in gfx chipset. Whether this is a power issue, a heat issue or something to do with shared memory I have no idea, anyway there is nowhere in the BIOS to tweak anything so it doesn't matter. Just have to obtain a gfx card for it now, going to try as many as I can get my hands on and see if any old gfx card will stabilise the system.