I hope you don't think I'm being rude or condescending, because I try very hard not to be. But, The honest truth is your system is rather dated. Most of the core components have quite a bit of age on them, so it could be any component in your machine. Your CPU was released in 2000 and shipped until 2008 and was outdated at that time. You are running Windows 7 with the absolute minimum ram and from everything I can find out, your PSU is not of the highest quality. it very well could be that your parts are getting weaker with age and you are asking them to do more than they are capable of. I know that sounds harsh, but it was not intended to be. Just a realistic observation. The one thing you should never do is try to save money on a power supply. It is the life blood of your system and can take out your whole system with it. To answer your question, it is possible that a lower power GPU would help some, but how much is the question. You cannot ask a PSU to run at 85-100% of it's capability and expect it to last very long. I believe that is true for even the high quality PSU's. Please understand, I'm not totally blaming your problems on the PSU, it could be a number of things. There are a number of tests we could run to identify the bad component, but we have to get the computer to be stable first.
I gave you a link to help completely fill out your system specs several posts ago (
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/180324-system-info-see-your-system-specs.html ) If we are going to help you with hardware problems, we need to know exactly what hardware we re dealing with. In as much detail as possible. If you will look at the bottom left of this post and click on 'my system specs', you will see mine. That is the detail we like to see. I try not to ask someone to buy a component until we are fairly certain the part is bad. That's why I asked you to try to borrow a PSU from someone and try it for a couple of days and see if the PSU is the problem.
Also, please remember we cannot see your computer and what it does. You have to be our eyes and ears so we can help you. If you get error messages, we need to know the exact message you received. If your computer is acting in an unusual manner, besides freezing or crashing, I would like to know, specifically. I need to know your CPU and GPU temps during normal operation. If you would, please boot into BIOS, there is usually a hardware monitor. tell us the CPU temp reading, the +12V, +3.3V and the +5V reading. We also ask for certain tests to be run. We ask for them for a good reason and like you to run them exactly as they should be run, and tell us. For example, you said you ram memtest. Did you run it with each stick of ram in every slot for 8 full passes? I don't know. Yes, most of the hardware tests are extremely time consuming and I know that. I've been exactly where you are on several occasions. But, by running each test exactly as it needs to be run will get us much closer to fixing your issue. I know how tedious and time consuming it can be, but they are necessary. Computers are smart, but not smart enough to tell us exactly what the problem is. You'll never know how much I wish it was. Believe it or not, I run those tests quite often when there is nothing wrong with my computer. I just do it to stay on top of things. If there is something wrong with my computer, I want to know before it starts crashing. But, once you get into your position, you can't run them because your computer won't run long enough. I know this is a long post and much longer than I intended it to be. Buy, I try to be honest and straight forward with you so you will understand why I ask you certain things. It isn't simply because I'd like to know. It's because we all need to know to help us put the pieces of the puzzle together. There are some of the best computer experts there are on this forum so we have a lot of talent to call on. If you will stick with us and respond to the questions and tests we ask of you, we'll stick with you until we have some resolution. Never hesitate to ask questions. We don't mind answering them at all.
