Freezes in games.

[BrunoP]

Power Supply – Enermax 650W EPS12V 2007 3x12V rails, 82-85% effeciency, 0-40C Full power

Motherboard - ASuStek p5b intel p965

CPU - Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6400 2.13Ghz (2 CPu's) ~2.1GHz, 2MB L2 cache, socket LGA775, FSB 1066 MHz.
Max speed: 3800MHz
Current Speed: 2128MHz
External Clock: 266MHz
supported voltage 1.3v

RAM - 4094RAM
DIMM0 - SDRAM 2048MB 800MHz
DIMM2 - SDRAM 2048MB 800Mhz

Video Card - Nvidia Geforce 8800gtx MSI Nvidia 768MB, Integrated RAMDAC.
dxdiag says appr total memory 1499MB

Hard Drive(s) – 320GB

Operating System - Windows Vista 64 bit, Windows XP PRO 32bit
Soundcard - Sound blaster x-fi fatality gamer, and MB SoundMax


I bought this computer one month ago. First 3 weeks I was using Windows XP -PRO 32bit system and 450W enermax. After three weeks I upgraded OS to Windows Vista64bit and 650W Enermax. The problem still occured and nothing changed.

Freezes - I'm getting freezes while playing games. My screen completely stops, and i cant move my mouse. The sound keeps playing (usually) or loops in a 3-4 second interval (sometimes). In 90% of cases only hard-reboot helps, but in those 10% cases I am able to alt tab and actually restart the windows. Those freezes seems to happen randomly, sometimes after 5 minutes, sometimes after 8 hours, sometimes even in the game menu.
The games I played: Lord of the rings online, Dungeons and Dragons online, Everquest 2,
In civilization 4, the freezes seem to be much less frequent, occurs only once per 2-3 days.
I didnt try to play any other game.

Things I tried to fix this:
Installed every possible nvidia driver for 8800gtx. No difference in freeze frequency.
Im monitoring my CPU, card, MB heat using AsusProbe, and riva tuner. All seems within limits all the time.
I tried to decrease clocks on my card from 600/1000 to 450/800, no change to the freeze frequency.
I disabled my x-fi fatality and soundmax sound card.

[justpassingby]

Hi BrunoP and welcome to TSF

I'm better at troubleshooting XP than Vista, but most of this stuff should work :

Let's start by monitoring your voltages. Try first the hardware monitor or PC health status screen in the BIOS. To enter the BIOS, repeatedly press the del key during startup. If the del key doesn't work, search for a message at startup telling you which key to press to enter setup or refer to this page. Report the temperatures, fan speeds and voltages you find there.

Double check those values within Windows using everest, sensorsview pro (latest version here) or speedfan. The cpu temp shouldn't be higher than 50°C when idle in Windows and the +3.3, +5 and +12V lines should be stable (no constant fluctuating) and in a +/-5% range of their nominal value (e.g. the +12V line should be between 11.4 and 12.6V).

If you see nothing abnormal with your temps and voltages, download and burn memtest86+ bootable iso. You'll need to use a burning software that's able to burn CD's from .iso files, most softwares can do that but the one integrated in Windows XP can't. Then boot the computer on the CD : enter the bios at startup and set the boot order to CD-rom first. Let memtest run at least 3 full passes on your memory or leave it running overnight. It's recommended that you double-check those results with those from windiag as it runs different tests. If possible, it's advised that your run those tests on each ram stick individually (which means removing the other ram sticks when you're testing one). Report if it finds any error.

Go to the device manager : right-click my computer => properties => hardware => device manager. Check "show hidden devices" in the view menu and report any yellow warning sign you could see, with the info from the device status tab when you double-clic the device.

Run the event viewer : start => run => eventvwr.msc. Report if you find any warnings or errors corresponding to the times of the crashes.

[BrunoP]

Thanks for reply.

In the event viewer there is plenty of errors and warnings.
All the warnings are: Display driver nvlddmkm stopped responding and has successfully recovered.

Its full of errors with this message:

The program EverQuest2.exe version 1.0.0.1 stopped interacting with Windows and was closed. To see if more information about the problem is available, check the problem history in the Problem Reports and Solutions control panel. Process ID: 414 Start Time: 01c7b5b24ae2faaa Termination Time: 104

Well Lord of the Rings online has stopped freezing for me for some reason and also Dungeons and Dragons online. But in Everquest 2 it is going worse every day. Today i got three freezes right at the character screen seconds after I entered the game.

I will try the memtest and check the voltages in Bios.


CPU temperatures vary around 48-53 during idle. While playing games it goes up to 58-65.

[justpassingby]

50°C is way too much for your C2duo 6400 in idle. The max temp for that processor is 61.4°C according to Intel's specs sheet. If it gets too high then it will start throttling down (= decreasing its performances) to try to lower the core temp by lowering its power requirements. Your cpu should more likely be in the 30-40°C when idle and 50°C when under full load.

Open your case and check that there's no dust clogging the fans or the cpu heatsink. If there's lots of dust, buy a can of compressed air at your local computer pieces retailer and clean it. Check that the heatsink is correctly seated, it shouldn't move at all. Always unplug the power cable and touch a metal part of your case before you touch any internal component.

Leave the computer running with the side cover off and see if your temperatures get any better.

An underpowered PSU could also increase the general and cpu temps, and may very well be what's causing your hangings in games and the problem with your video not responding. An Enermax 650W may be unsufficient for a 8800GTX. The Hardware Techs would probably tell you to go for a 750W. Check this http://www.techsupportforum.com/hard...selection.html and use the PSU calculator to compute your power needs. Add 30% to the final result to take average efficiency into account.

It's also possible that the PSU is simply failing or damaged. You'll have to monitor your voltages anyway to make sure.

Use sensorsview pro to monitor your temperatures and voltages, it will give you the correct readings on your P5B motherboard and it's compatible with Vista. Asus Probe gave me wrong readings on my P5B Deluxe.