All Games freezing up

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15 Aug 2006
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21
Hi,

Wonder if people could shed some light on this for me.

As of today, all my games have started to freeze up from 1 to 10mins of startup. The screen will freeze, all controls become unresponsive and the sound is stuck on a loop. The only way to fix it is to hit the restart button on the PC.

I have not made any changes or driver updates for this to happen, it just suddenly affected all my games at once. I first noticed the problem on BF2142 a few days ago where it would freeze up, but all my other games we're playing fine. Now they are all displaying the same prob.

Its not a temp issue as a game can get to the first menuscreen and freeze, and all temps at desktop are fine.

Any ideas people? I have ran memtest 86 for a few hours with no reported problems. So next option would be graphics card? unfortunatly I dont have a spare PCI-E PC to test it on. I aint really sure what other tests I should do next...

My specs:

EVGA 680i Mobo - P31 BIOS
BFG 8800 GTX
Corsair 8500 2x1gig Ram
Enermax Galaxy 750W
Raptor 150gig
 
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Hi, could be temps as just because they are steady at idle, don't mean they are not on load. And if you are playing games with intro videos, then this will cause the GPU/CPU temps to kick up, esp if it is overheating.

Also it could be your PSU that is throwing a wobbly. How old is the enermax 750W and have it been hit by any power cuts surges that could leave a weakness. Also it could be that the drivers have become corrupt for the 8800 gtx, and uninstall and re-install might be worth a try.

Other than that, it could be a HDD fault. sorry for not giving a specific answer.

Anthony
 
Hi, could be temps as just because they are steady at idle, don't mean they are not on load. And if you are playing games with intro videos, then this will cause the GPU/CPU temps to kick up, esp if it is overheating.

Also it could be your PSU that is throwing a wobbly. How old is the enermax 750W and have it been hit by any power cuts surges that could leave a weakness. Also it could be that the drivers have become corrupt for the 8800 gtx, and uninstall and re-install might be worth a try.

Other than that, it could be a HDD fault. sorry for not giving a specific answer.

Anthony

Hi,

Thanks for reply.

I am fairly confident it isnt an overheating issue. I booted up the UnrealTourney 3 demo earlier and when I got to the first menu screen (roughly 20-30secs into it) the pc froze. Also, the few times I have managed to minimize to view the temps before a freeze, all temps are acceptable.

The PSU is around 9 months old, and we have had powercuts in the past yes. Is there a way for me to diagnostic it?

Also, I will try a HDD diagnostic tool. I have tried reinstalling drivers too (using a drivercleaner)

:D
 
One way would be if you could either get hold of a multi meter and measure the 12v on a molex plug by inserting the red probe into the yellow pin socket on the molex and the black probe in a black lead on the molex. Or swap out with an know working PSU to rule out the PSU.

Also remember that temps drop pretty fast, so as soon as you minismise your game, the temps will fall quite rapidly as the load it not on the CPU. try running prime or something to stress the CPU and see what the temps go to for the CPU and for the graphic card maybe something like 3D mark benching software to see if it locks then, as otherwise it could be sound card drivers corrupt or something
 
One way would be if you could either get hold of a multi meter and measure the 12v on a molex plug by inserting the red probe into the yellow pin socket on the molex and the black probe in a black lead on the molex. Or swap out with an know working PSU to rule out the PSU.

Also remember that temps drop pretty fast, so as soon as you minismise your game, the temps will fall quite rapidly as the load it not on the CPU. try running prime or something to stress the CPU and see what the temps go to for the CPU and for the graphic card maybe something like 3D mark benching software to see if it locks then, as otherwise it could be sound card drivers corrupt or something

Thanks very much. I have a lot of testing to do now, hopefully narrow down the problem. Wish me luck : )
 
a lot of 8800GTX and GTS owners (me included) have been having problems like this. if you leave it long enough it will BSOD giving an error regarding nv4dsp.sys or something of the sort.

its an nVidia driver issue and nVidia are too lazy to fix it. there are many possible solutions, but reinstalling the latest drivers would be a good start (worked for me)

searching 8800 bsod on the almighty google will probably bring up some other solutions.

http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=29428
http://forums.nvidia.com/lofiversion/index.php?t35417.html
http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=31266
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=226782
 
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Thanks for all replies.

I have since tried the following:

memtest - from bootable cd - no errors
memtest - in windows - no errors
prime95 torturetest - no errors
3d mark 03 - no errors
disabled onboard audio - didnt work
reinstalled gpu drivers and tried older gpu drivers - didnt work
ran westerndigital data diagnostic tools - no errors
ran lavasoft adaware and avg - no problems

What does that leave me with? A PSU, motherboard problem?
I will also try taking out 1 memory stick to see if that fixes it, as mentioned by AOD's threads. - Although I did leave the computer when it froze for around 10 mins and I didnt get a BSOD.
 
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Here's my guess at the cause: Realtek. Assuming you run onboard sound? Try disabling it, see if the problem goes away...

abc

yeah, thats another issue i had. i reinstalled with the latest realtek drivers from their webby and the realtek issues went away.

temps on the 8800GTX can fall from 70-80 degrees to 40 within a second of the load on the GPU stopping. try turning your GPU fan to 100% at all times.
 
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