PC Freezes (again)

[Jayson113]

I've had this problem before, but I guess it wasn't completely resolved before and now it's reared its ugly head again...

My PC seems to reset on the more advanced graphic games (Half-Life 2 for example). It usually will freeze when it loads or about 2 min into gameplay. I do sometimes get a Windows error after I reset saying it had to reset due to drivers, but how would you determine which driver is causing it? I updated my GPU drivers recently and I ran Windows Memory Diagnostic to see if it was the memory causing it, but it passed all the tests.

Specs:
AMD Athlon 3800
1 Gb RAM
ATI Radeon X800Pro
NVIDIA nForce3 K8N Neo2

Power Supply:
Brand:Turbolink
Model:450ATX
Watts:450



It says the CPU Fan is running at 0 RPM, but at only 43ºC, I'm just thinking the sensor is out. All the temperatures are very good and are actually cooler than expected, so it's not cooling.

[koala]

Is that screenshot taken at idle or under stress? Post another after a few minutes while Half Life 2 is still running. The +12V reading is at the high end of the accepted +-5% range (11.4-12.6V). It may go even higher under stress from a 3D game.

Are you playing the games at high settings/resolution?

Have you installed or updated DirectX and your other drivers (chipset, sound, mouse etc). If it's an AGP card, go into BIOS and change the AGP speed to it's lowest setting and turn off fast-writes.

If none of that helps, remove the graphics card, blow some canned air around the graphics slot, heatsink and fans, clean the gold strip on the card and reseat it.

[Jayson113]

This is right after the G-man thing in the beginning and like 5 seconds into the train ride thing. And yes I am playing it on high with 1028 x 1024 resolution.

[koala]

Post the error message in full if it comes up again.

Test DirectX in Start>Run>dxdiag. Install the chipset drivers (from the motherboard CD), drop the AGP speed to x4, check the fast-writes setting.

Which graphics driver are you using, and did you fully uninstall the previous one and then install the new one in VGA mode?

Any yellow flags in Device Manager?

[Jayson113]

Originally Posted by koala

Post the error message in full if it comes up again.

Test DirectX in Start>Run>dxdiag. Install the chipset drivers (from the motherboard CD), drop the AGP speed to x4, check the fast-writes setting.

Which graphics driver are you using, and did you fully uninstall the previous one and then install the new one in VGA mode?

Any yellow flags in Device Manager?

Oh...never did that. How do you uninstall the old ones after I downloaded a new one?

[koala]

More details about installing drivers correctly here

Basically, you need to uninstall the nvidia software and drivers through Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs to prevent driver conflicts, reboot into VGA mode, disable antivirus, install the new drivers and reboot again.

[Jayson113]

Originally Posted by koala

More details about installing drivers correctly here

Basically, you need to uninstall the nvidia software and drivers through Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs to prevent driver conflicts, reboot into VGA mode, disable antivirus, install the new drivers and reboot again.

Is it the same for ATI? Because I'm using an ATI Radepn X800, unless this is for the motherboard and I just updated drivers for it recently.

[koala]

Sorry, I saw nvidia in your specs and missed the ATI one.

Yes, same procedure. Just delete the ATI drivers and ATI Catalyst Control Center, then reboot into VGA.

[Jayson113]

Still freezes. I uninstalled my old drivers, ran the DirectX tests (passed it all), updated motherboard drivers, updated mouse driver, and changed AGP speed to 4x and turned off fast-writes.

[koala]

OK, let's see if your PSU is good enough for your system, as the 12.60V reading is quite high. Enter your details into this power calculator and add 30% to the total figure.

Are you still getting the error message about drivers?

Which version number is your graphics driver? You can find this in dxdiag. Display tab, under Drivers > Version.

[Jayson113]

Originally Posted by koala

OK, let's see if your PSU is good enough for your system, as the 12.60V reading is quite high. Enter your details into this power calculator and add 30% to the total figure.

Are you still getting the error message about drivers?

Which version number is your graphics driver? You can find this in dxdiag. Display tab, under Drivers > Version.

It's roughly 338 Watts. It's more of an estimate because there was some stuff I was unsure of (Surge Compensation, CPU Utilization, and Capacitor Aging).

I'm not really getting that error message anymore. It's freezing less, but in HL2 it will crash or freeze. It'll start out by the game freezing with a repeating sound then it comes up with the send error report message. It'll give me a microsoft site saying they're investigating it with Valve and don't have a solution except uninstall HL2. My pc also reset twice today after making those changes. It doesn't usually reset like that and there was no error when it returned to the desktop after resetting.

According to dxdiag my driver version is 6.14.0010.6648

[Jayson113]

I just played some HL2 and it did crash and reset. I also did get the driver error plus a hardware error.

Hardware error...
http://oca.microsoft.com/en/response...1458b7&SID=571

Device error....
http://oca.microsoft.com/en/response...92b495e&SID=10

It's the first time I've gotten the hardware one.

[pharoah]

* Random Access Memory (RAM)
* System board
* Central Processing Unit (CPU)
* Power supply

this is what microsoft listed as your possible problems.the power supply you have is a brand ive never heard of.so most likely a generic.i would consider getting another one regardless of this being the problem or not.in the ram,and power supply section of this forum is a list of recommended power supplies.id look into one of those personally.

[koala]

It's looking more and more likely that your PSU is the cause, although as usual the Microsoft error report leaves it wide open to interpretation. And the device driver error is just as vague.

Did you get a blue screen with a stop code? If so, post the message in full.

You say you've ran a RAM test and it passed. Was this one stick at a time and for a few hours each?

Which motherboard drivers did you recently update? This could be the cause of the device driver error. http://www.msi.com.tw/program/suppor...UID=607&kind=1

[Jayson113]

PSU...well at least it's not too expensive.

No, I didn't get any blue screen. HL2 just froze with the repeating sound and my PC just reset.

I ran the RAM test for about an hour or two, not very long. I'll probably do it longer this weekend though.

The driver update I downloaded was from nVidia's site.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce3_winxp_5.11

[Jayson113]

Originally Posted by pharoah

* Random Access Memory (RAM)
* System board
* Central Processing Unit (CPU)
* Power supply

this is what microsoft listed as your possible problems.the power supply you have is a brand ive never heard of.so most likely a generic.i would consider getting another one regardless of this being the problem or not.in the ram,and power supply section of this forum is a list of recommended power supplies.id look into one of those personally.

Well I was looking at some PSUs and came across this one: Link

I was wondering if you guys think it's a good PSU for my system.

[pharoah]

yes enermax makes excellent power supplies.cant go wrong with that

[Indoril Nerevar]

Originally Posted by pharoah

yes enermax makes excellent power supplies.cant go wrong with that

I completely agree. That power supply will be excellent for your system.