Computer crashing confused.. help appreciated..

Hlebio

Hlebio

Hlebio

Permabanned
Joined
18 Mar 2006
Posts
1,862
Hey guys.

First of all my PC specs..

AMD x2 3800
PowerColor ATI Radeon X1800 XT 512MB
MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum nForce4 Ultra
2gb GeIL RAM
Hitachi Deskstar T7K250 NCQ 160GB
NEC ND4570 16x16 DVD±RW
Antec Sonata II Piano Black Quiet Case - 450w Smart Power PSU

I've got both my motherboard and graphics cards' latest drivers.

I've installed Sims 2 for my sister but it keeps crashing. First time it crashed when she was creating a family (just randomly, she had been playing it about 15 mins) and second time was when she went in to the neighbourhood screen. We managed to get the game in to one of the houses and I pulled all the settings down to the lowest possible and it was running fine. Just as a text I started knocking things up one at a time and eventually, of course, it crashed again.

Aside from Sims 2, 3DMark 05 also crashed too about 30-40 seconds in to the test.

Anyone know what the problem could be? From looking at my spec it's obviously not the Sims 2 or 3DMark are too powerful for my PC to run so I am really confused. CS 1.6, and Yuri's Revenge work absolutely fine..

Could it be my 450w PSU? I'm hoping not because I can imagine what a bugger they are to take out and replace.

There is also a blue and black wired thing coming from my case's PSU and I can't help but feeling it needs to be plugged in but I don't know what it is. From looking at the end of it (two holes) it looks as though it'd fit a fan header.. :confused: :confused:

Also might be worth mentioning that since I installed the motherboard drivers there is a screen that comes up, inbetween the Windows XP loading screen and the Windows XP logon screen, that looks all crashy.. hard to describe heh.. :D

EDIT

Tried to play CS 1.6 tonight and it crashed, in the same way the Sims 2 and 3DMark 05 do, so I am guessing the other times I managed to play CS 1.6 without crashes were complete flukes.

HELP :(
 
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The IDE drivers yes, not the firewall ones I don't think.

Reckon I should try reinstalling my motherboard's latest drivers without the IDE ones then?
 
Uninstalled the IDE driver, problem remains.

Pretty peed off now.. :(, just spent £800 on a machine specifically for gaming and it won't without crashing. :(
 
I reckon it is probably down to PSU, a lot of people are saying it's a poor PSU in the reviews of the Antec Piano case..
 
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Dunno because I didn't try any games before installing them.

Just reinstalled Windows XP now for the hell of it and only installed the motherboard drivers from the disc that came with the mobo. See how I get on...
 
First time I loaded Sims 2 up I got an actual message saying there was an error and the Sims had to close. Progress I thought, but then I loaded it back up and this time it just completely froze. :(

This is the screen that briefly pops up inbetween the Windows XP loading screen and the Windows XP logon screen,

26040623141vj.jpg


Obviously I don't think it's supposed to be there... :p

Also, I was playing CS 1.6 earlier and it froze, just like the Sims 2 and 3DMark 05.

So as it is I've paid £800 for a gaming computer that won't play any :(..
 
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I'll try the bios thing.

Don't suppose my problem could have anything to do with putting a 20 pin connector in to a 24 pin slot? My motherboard manual said it'd be okay but I thought I'd check with you guys..

Also there was a 4 pin connector cable tied to the 20 pin connector but it wouldn't reach the 4 pin power socket so I found another 4 pin connector coming from the PSU and plugged that in instead. That is okay too? It didn't NEED to be the 4 pin cable tied with the 20 pin?
 
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Just had a quick re-read of my case manual and unless the socket is a 20 pin you have to connect the 4 to it and then plug it in, which I have now done.

I've got something plugged in to to the JPW1, I always had, probably my post wasn't clear enough.

Anyway, attaching the 4 pin to the 20 pin and plugging it in seems to have removed the crash screen from boot up (although I am not 100% sure yet) but games still crash..
 
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Just thought I'd let you all know that I've fixed the problem.

I think I had my RAM in the wrong slots, before it was in the two green slots but now there is one in green and one in purple.

Thanks for all your help anyway.
 
Games started crashing again for some reason, despite not fiddling inside my PC since I "fixed" it or installing new software that might start the crashes back up..

Although last few times I've tried to play the games that in the past froze my PC, my PC has restarted itself rather than freeze..

This give anyone a better clue as to what exactly the problem is?
 
IwantanewPC said:
Alright dude, just tried both sticks on their own in the first green DIMM slot and both ran games absolutely fine with no crashes... :confused:

Now I'm really confused.. why can't they work together?

As I said in my first post (I think) originally I had both sticks of RAM in the green slots (didn't realise at the time that this would mean they weren't running on dual-channel) and games were crashing. I switched to one green and one purple and games ran fine until yesterday.

Reading my motherboard manual I shouldn't run a stick of RAM in the purple DIMM slot without a stick in the green DIMM slot so that rules out trying two sticks in the two purple slots.. To run dual-channel I need one in the green and one in the purple which is what I had before...

Is it possible, maybe, just maybe, that the crashes I came across yesterday were just crashes in the game none-related to the problems I was suffering before?

(By the way, I found out that the compute restarting was down to me stopping 'cl.exe' from running in msconfig this morning :p..)

So I am going to shut down now and place both RAM sticks back in the PC (one green, one purple) and see how I go..

If games aren't crashing anymore, no problem. If they are.. what the hell is going on? :p :D
Click to expand...

That was me by the way on my mate's PC..

Anyway,

I've put the RAM sticks back in how they were before (purple and green) and I've had no crashes in games so far. The computer froze when I came out of the Sims 2 and then tried to load up CS Source (before it got in to the actual game) but that might have just been a general Windows freeze..

We'll see how it goes..
 
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PC was running fine with games all of yesterday then I turn it on this morning and load up Counter Strike: Source.. I am in a game for about 5 mins before my PC randomly restarts...

Rather than start booting back up my monitor stays black and I hear beeping from my tower (the beep........... beep........ beep, which means RAM). I opened up my case and the RAM was seated fine yet I gave it a little push anyway. Booted back up and was just browsing the net and doing an online virus scan when it re-booted again, but this time no beeping.

Let it load up and managed to play Source for a good 45 mins with no crashing.

FFS I am so confused!

Useless, absolutely useless! Knew I should have got an Asus motherboard! I am just going to send it all back and buy a bloody gameboy. :mad:
 
Okay mate, thanks for the reply.

What I am going to do now is leave it as it is and see if there are any other crashes. One more and I am going to just run one stick of RAM and see how it goes for a week or so.

If there are no crashes with 1 stick, what steps should I take then? Eventually by 2 sticks of 1gb RAM of a different brand?

The only problem is that these crashes and problems seem so bloody erratic that it's hard to track whether something is bloody fixed or not. Since buying I've thought 'seems to be fixed now' at least 5-6 times only for it go and crash later that day/next day etc.
 
Installed Pro Evolution Soccer 5 this morning and I tried to play it..

I put it at the highest resolution and started a game. I was playing for about 3-4 minutes before my PC restarted like it did yesterday with Source, only this time there was no beeping coming from my PC and it booted back up.

I tried PES5 again with the same resolution but this time no crash... :confused:

This was first thing in the morning when I had only just turned on my PC, same with the restart in Source yesterday. It's almost as if my PC needs some time to warm up or something but... I've never heard of anything like that before. :(

My PC restarting is a hell of a lot better than freezing though :D, but still... I'd just love to know what's wrong..
 
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