TedSmith

Been having a curious issue for some time with my computer in that the entire machine locks up from time to time during graphically intensive 3d games (Oblivion, GRAW, Rainbow Six: Vegas, Splinter Cell Double Agent). What it does is pretty much randomly, the whole machine will halt for 5-10 seconds, then continue on as if nothing had happened. This problem ONLY occurs in intensive games, never anywhere else, so the presumption is naturally power or heat.

It's relatively infrequent and aside from being a minor annoyance in SP games, it was never a huge deal so I pretty much left it be. I've found though that it freezes long enough sometimes to get me disconnected from MP games, which obviously creates a problem.

It's been doing this for almost a year now, everything else works fine and less intensive games have zero issues. I suspected at first that it might have been a heating issue, but my temps never seemed particularly high and I've been careful to keep some decent cooling going on (thermaltake case with two intake fans and one main exhaust, zalman CNPS7000-Cu CPU fan) and I've even tried removing the side of the case and having a house fan blow on the machine while running a game to see if the freezing stops. It doesn't, of course else I'd not be here.

Thought it might be a power consumption issue, as I only had a 400W supply running it, replaced it recently with a Dynex 500W and though the issue seems to have reduced a bit, it hasn't gone away. It may of course just be my imagination that it's less frequent. Since it's a random occurance, it's tough to judge.

My hardware as it stands:

Windows XP Professional, SP2
Gigabyte K8NXP-SLI Motherboard (Nforce 4 AMD base)
1 x Gigabyte 6800 Ultra 256MB video card (PCI-E)
3GB Dual Channel RAM (2 x 512 MB Corsair PC3200, 2 x 1024 MB Kingston PC3200)
Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum
Western Digital 120GB SATA HD
Logitech G15 keyboard
Razer Copperhead
Acer 22" Widescreen LCD

I've gone through the sticky thread and had already done everything listed there. All drivers are updated, processor, chipset, graphics card, sound card, right down to keyboard and mouse drivers. All the newest official versions as of yesterday (save for the 93.71 Nvidia drivers that are recommended for R6:Vegas).

I was thinking that since I think I got some reduction in the problem with a more powerful power supply, that I might just not have jumped up high enough but I can't imagine needing more than 500W for the system I've got... it's hardly cutting edge, after all. Even still, I don't know how to check whether or not it's getting enough power.

Couldn't seem to get onto the stvsoft website, so I downloaded Everest Home Edition instead. Not entirely sure what to do with it just yet. Still looking at it.

If anyone has any ideas or needs more information, by all means please ask. I'm eager to sort this issue out so that I can get some more stable gaming going.

Oh, and since I've got the box handy, I'll list the written information on the power supply:

Input:

Voltage: 230Vac(180-264)/115Vac(90-132)
Frequency: 47Hz-63Hz
Current: 4.0A(MAX) At 230Vac; 7.0A(MAX) At 115Vac
Inrush current: 70A at 230Vac Cold start at 25 degrees Celsius
Efficiency: 70%MIN at Full Load 230Vac/50Hz, 60%MIN at 30W load 230Vac/50Hz

Output:

Voltage: +3.3V +v5V +12V1 +12V2 -5V -12V +5Vsb
Max Load: 35A 40A 16A 18A 0.5A 0.8A 2.5A
Min Load: 0.5A 2.0A 1.0A 1.0A 0A 0A 0A
Regulation +/-5% +/-5% +/-5% +/-10% +/-10% +/-5%
Ripple: 50mV 50mV 120mV 120mV 100mV 120mV 50mV
Noise & Ripple: 100mV 100mV 200mV 200mV 200mV 200mV 100mV
Power Good Delay Time: 100-500mS
Power Fall Delay Time: 1mS MIN
Hold-Up Time: 16mS MIN
Line Regulation: 1% MAX

Protection:

Over Voltage: +5V:6.8V, +3.3V:4.5V, +12V:15.6V
Short Circuit: All output to GND
Hi-Pot: Voltage 1500Vac, Time 2-3 Sec. cut off current 10mA MAX

Of course none of that do I really understand. I know how to use a computer and a decent amount about how to build one, but the nitty gritty on some of the parts is beyond me yet.