PC Crashing during game

Alex53 · 1 May 2009 at 18:14

I play one game, Lord of the Rings Online.

Anywhere from 1 hour into a session to 3 or 4 hours I may get a crash. No blue screen, just a complete freeze and the sound is stuck in a short loop (as if repeating the last 1/10 of a second of sound).

On reset windows doesn't complain in any way. The PC never crashes outside of the game while browsing, using Photoshop CS3, etc.

My system is not overclocked.

System info:
Windows XP Professional SP3
Intel Core 2 Duo E6420 (2.13Ghz)
4GB DDR2 RAM (2x1GB Crucial, 1x2GB PNY Electronics)
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS (320mb)

I've installed the latest NVIDIA drivers (182.50), thought I'd got rid of the problem, but I got 1 more crash.

Asus P5N-E SLI Motherboard

Firegod · 1 May 2009 at 18:53

Try running a few tests such as Orthos to stress the CPU, and perhaps MemTest to stress the Memory. See if anything fails.

Also check the Windows Event Log via Control Panel. There maybe some entries in there that relate to the crashing.

siumatfung · 1 May 2009 at 19:01

reinstall sound drivers

Alex53 · 1 May 2009 at 19:11

Thanks.

I'm running the 'Blend - Stress CPU and RAM' test on Orthos.

Does it have an actual end or does it keep going until you stop it? (Had it on for 5 minutes as I write this)

Alex53 · 1 May 2009 at 19:16

siumatfung said:
reinstall sound drivers

Didnt occur to me. I'll check for newer sound drivers.

When I've had PCs freezing on me before as far as I remember there was no sound at all after the crash, but in this case every single time there is this very fast loop of the last bit of sound that was coming out.

shadowake · 1 May 2009 at 19:25

Could be a network problem causing the freeze if it only happens on online games? May even be if the servers too busy? Memory would be my guess though, try memtest.

Firegod · 2 May 2009 at 09:39

Alex53 said:
Thanks.

I'm running the 'Blend - Stress CPU and RAM' test on Orthos.

Does it have an actual end or does it keep going until you stop it? (Had it on for 5 minutes as I write this)

Sorry for the late reply. If after around 1hr it's not crashed, then I'd just stop Orthos. In my experience I find that most errors will show up in the first 5-30 minutes.

Alex53 · 2 May 2009 at 11:13

Firegod said:
Sorry for the late reply. If after around 1hr it's not crashed, then I'd just stop Orthos. In my experience I find that most errors will show up in the first 5-30 minutes.

I ran it for 45 minutes without any problems. I also updated the sound drivers as siumatfung suggested and then played the game for about an hour. It didn't crash, but then again it doesn't always crash when I play the game.

Fingers crossed and thanks for your help guys