PC hanging at random - faulty m/board?

[wesmantooth]

I'm putting together a new PC using an Asus M2NS-NVM/S motherboard and Athlon 64 x2 3800+ CPU. I have it running with just 1 stick of 1Gb DDR2 667 RAM and the onboard graphics (NVidia GeForce 6100) and have a fresh install of XP on the HD before I disconnected the CD.

The problem is that it randomly hangs with distorted graphics all over the screen. This happens at any stage from while in the BIOS screen to when Windows has been running for 5-10 mins. I have downloaded the latest BIOS, chipset and video drivers etc from my laptop, reseated everyting, tried everything connected up outside the case etc but this hasn't resolved anything.

Can anyone advise if this would sound like a motherboard problem as I don't want to spend on a new Video card if it's not needed. The PSU is 500W.

Any help appreciated and I can post any other info thats needed. Cheers.

[wesmantooth]

Just in case this is any help to any other amateurs like me , it turned out that the heatsink on the integrated graphics chip on the mobo felt a bit wobbly, so I took it off, applied some thermal grease and reseated it and it seems to have done the trick so far.

I wasn't sure if the mobo was faulty or if the PSU wasn't sufficient but hopefully we're all set now.