Bad Motherboard? Processor?

I have an Epox 8kt7 a2 MB.It worked with XP for awhile but would freeze every now and then.I thought it was the video card so I replaced my old TNT2 card with a Geforce 5200.It seemed to work fine until yesterday,when it started locking up constantly.I reformatted the HD and reinstalled xp,it installs,but when I do windows update or even "work" the computer a little bit it locks up.I cant tell you anything specifically I do to make it lock up,because it seems random. I tried installing win 98 but it does almost the same thing.

The machine is a 1 ghz athlon,so it wouldnt be the worse thing if I had to change the MB and processor..but I wouldnt mind fixing it as is and giving to my son for his use..any ideas? Help would be appreciated.

Hmm. Before you go spend a lot of money first consider the following:

Is the CPU overclocked?
If so, set it back to factory defaults.

Is your memory compatible and installed correctly?
Check with your motherboard manufacturer to make sure your RAM is compatible.

Do you have the most recent version of your BIOS?
Upgrading your BIOS may help, you may wish to consult your motherboard manufacturer for new BIOS.

Are there any driver updates for your hardware?
Perhaps there is a driver prolem, updating drivers for your hardware may help.

Is your power supply sufficient?
Be sure your power supply is providing enough power accomidate all your hardware.

Do you have sufficient cooling?
Be sure you have enough fans to cool your processor, check the temperature if you can and see if you are overheating.

Check the system log.
Go to Administrator Tools > Event Log and see if there are any critical errors in the log that might tell you what is wrong.

I don't know if this helped any, but hopefully you get it working.

Good Luck!

I'm not sure what model chipset you have on that board, but I had a FIC an19e (KT 400 chipset) bork itself on me. The thing would be fine until it was honked on a little, and I mean very little. It seemed to lock up most often when the HD was being used. The HD was fine in any other system I put it in, so I took the board out and gave it a once over. I had to pop a glued heatsink off, but found the large trace on the corner to be burnt, kinda browned on the chipset end. But the system was great until anything disk or memory intensive was done. So it might be good to check the NB and see what's going on under there. Who knows, maybe dust shorted something out.