Crashing in Games - Any Pointers ?

[SKR]Abe · 1 Aug 2006 at 12:29

Ok, heres the spec.

A64 XP3000+
Asus K8n4E-Deluxe.
2x Maxtor SATA 80GB HD.
1x Pioneer DVDRW.
PCI-E Geforce 7900 GT OC (BFG)
2x 512MB PC3200 Crucial RAM.
Antec Sonata II - 450W smart power supply.

The PC is rock solid when decoding/encoding DVD

Memtest runs perfect - no errors.

I keep getting random freezing during games though

It can range from 10 mins to 1 hour.

Game hangs, sound stutters in a loop and I have to hold the reset switch to reboot.

Tried the usual drivers thing, just doesnt seem to make a difference.

Reinstall made no difference.

Hard Drive? Ram ? PSU ?

Help !!!

[SKR]Abe · 1 Aug 2006 at 12:33

Everything is at standard speeds.

Although my RAM says its at 201mhz. ?

Its running cool as a cucumber too - so not heat related.

Tried using 1x HD and 1x stick of RAM - same happens.

Tried swapping the HD and RAM around in different combos - still happens.

[SKR]Abe · 1 Aug 2006 at 12:41

No option for fastwrites in the BIOS.

[SKR]Abe · 1 Aug 2006 at 20:29

dxdiag passes all tests.

Happens mainly in LOTR battle for middle earth, flight sim 2004, age of empires 3, BF2 etc.

The card is clean - only been in the rig for 2 months.

Nvidia control panel tells me the temp is 54'c when i come out of a game.

I wish I could get a blue screen of death to give me some ideas.

Running in the background while playing is MSN Messenger and NOD32 - I have tried stopping both and guess what - still freezes.

[SKR]Abe · 2 Aug 2006 at 18:57

Turned down the setting in dxdiag as described and it appears to be ok.

Will test it good and proper over the next few hours.

Will I see any difference slowing the soundcard acceleration at all ?

[SKR]Abe · 2 Aug 2006 at 20:25

Well, by jingo I think its sorted !

Just played LOTR battle for middle earth against the computer - 8 player map, 7 CPU players.

All the settings to the max and it played flawless - except a little slowdown when a 4 way massive battle was underway !

Now I just wish I popped in here BEFORE formatting the HD and reaching for the winxp CD.

Oh well, time to install install install.

Thanks for the help guys - Im happy again