Stab in the dark!

[Tommy B]

I know you guys get threads like this the whole time, but if anything comes to mind please mention it.

I've just got HL2 Episode 1. For the third time, it has just crashed after roughly 5 minutes of gameplay. I tried CTRL+ALT+DEL but Windows says that taskmgr.exe failed to initilize, and shortly after that the computer does the system beeps and freezes completely.

This could be the GPU?

Any ideas?

 

[Defcon5]

it could be overheating, have you checked the temps?

Is it just hl or other games too?

 

[Sultan of Ping]

If your graphics card is overclocked, try winding it back to default settings and see if that makes a difference - from my experience, newer games are really pushing the envelope on OC'd cards, and a stable overclock on older games can be an unstable OC on newer games like Oblivion, etc...

 

[Tommy B]

Just HL2. The settings were on default when it crashed.

 

[Rokusho]

Shame, is a very good game...

Have you tried to vertify the content in steam.

 

[Tommy B]

Now it jams every time before the dog throws you in the citadel.

Stuff this. I'll wait till after my A levels then format this piece of crap.

Thanks for the suggestions though!

 

[Tommy B]

Shame, is a very good game...

Have you tried to vertify the content in steam.

It's doing it now.

 

[Tommy B]

Delete

 

[comradpoplin!]

sounds like the sort of problems that occured when hl2 was origanaly launched same with cs:source to.
steam never do things smoothly do they lol
good job they make good games or they wouldnt last very long

 

[Tommy B]

It's defo not my graphics card. This is the only game that does it. I left it running the Toy Shop demo for about 2 hours which is ridiculously GPU intensive.

 

[barney]

The fact that task manager didnt run makes me think it could be a problem with your windows install.

Do you have antivirus installed and up to date? There is a registry checker built into windows but i cant remeber how to run it. Also try running a disk scan as i have seen some programs randomly crash in the past because they just happened to be installed on a bad sector of the disk (if it happens at the same spot all the time this could be the case).

 

[Tommy B]

The fact that task manager didnt run makes me think it could be a problem with your windows install.

Do you have antivirus installed and up to date? There is a registry checker built into windows but i cant remeber how to run it. Also try running a disk scan as i have seen some programs randomly crash in the past because they just happened to be installed on a bad sector of the disk (if it happens at the same spot all the time this could be the case).

I'm beggining to think you're right.

After the initial crash, Windows took 20 minutes to boot. I am NOT joking. I got in a stress and pushed the reset button, went away to do a microwaved pizza, watched a bit of Pimp My Ride, came back up and it was still on the XP logo sceen with the moving bit.

I think i'll just give it a miss until after my exams.

 

[Mr Jones]

Any chance you've got a Stardock program running in the background or use to but have uninstalled it (but not cleared the system registry?)

Stardock programs have conflicts with games - that happened to me (had to complete format my system and banned Stardock).

 

[Tommy B]

Any chance you've got a Stardock program running in the background or use to but have uninstalled it (but not cleared the system registry?)

Stardock programs have conflicts with games - that happened to me (had to complete format my system and banned Stardock).

Nothing came up in the registery search.

 

[Tommy B]

Well BLOW ME DOWN!

I uninstalled the ATI drivers using Driver Cleaner and went with OMEGA drivers.

First thing I noticed was XP boots MUCH faster. The general performance of my PC is better, and HL2 works fine!

Thanks for all the suggestions though...