System Freeze on certin games

[davecay2002]

This is my first post so please forgive any errors.

I have recently purchased a new pc, the specs are:

AMD Phenon X4 9550
ATI HD4870 Crossfire
8 GB DDR 2
ASUS M3A79-T Deluxe Motherboard
Windows 7

I have problems with certain games (all original), see list:

Battle for Middle Earth 2
Galactic Civilastion 2
UFO ET
Civ 4

All the games run fine for a while but then my pc freezes with no warning, i can then only switch the power off to reset. I have tried various things including upto date drivers and patches etc. I have also tried turning the crossfire off but that made things worse. This problems also occured with Vista 64 and 32. I play other games with no problems but they are all the 3D games such as L4D and even older games such as Doom 3 work fine. Can someone please help me as i have run out of ideas

[Lord Sirian]

Hi davecay2002. Welcome to TSF.

First try all these steps.

Can you please also download Everest and SensorsView. Use them to check your temperatures while idle and then again after about 10 - 20 minutes of playing.

Can you please also post the make and model of your PSU.

To find your PSU, you will need to open up your case, inside, there will be a large brick shaped box with a sticker on it. Post everything on the sticker.

[davecay2002]

Thankyou for the welcome and the very speedy response. I had already tried all the suggested solutions listed. I have now installed the 2 programmes recommended by yourself and run. The following are the results:

Everest

Idle

M/Board 45C
CPU 47C
CPU 1-4 31C


after 10 min gaming

M/Board 49C
CPU 47C
CPU 1-4 34C


Sensorview

Idle

CPU 22C
SYS 47C
AUX 44C
HDO 31C

After 10 min gaming

CPU 22C
SYS 47C
AUX 44C
HDO 31C

The PSU is as follows:

Corsair TX 750W

No matter how this pans out i would like to thankyou for your help.

[Lord Sirian]

Hi again, thanks for the temperatures.

Your PSU is a good quality one, so I doubt it's a problem with that, however, the temperatures you posted don't show your GPU temperature.

Could you please take a screenshot of what is listed in Everest under:

*Computer -> Sensor*

[Th3 M3$$1AH]

I would take a look at you GPU temperatures just after playing a game. Many manufacturers set a low default GPU fan speed which may cause your card to overheat. Applications like rivatuner will help you adjust your GPU fan speed as needed. Set your fan to auto or 70%+ (Auto preferably).

Have you also tried updating your direct x?
On a windows based system press windows key and "r" to access your run dialogue and type "dxdiag". From here you can test your direct x files and graphics performance.

All the best.

[davecay2002]

Sorry about the long delay with the reply. I have checked the Tempreteure of the GPU, using a few programmes from ASUS and ATI (as the first ones used do not recognise my hardware) they both show a tempreture of 39 Celsius. Thanks to your advice i have altered fan settings but to no avail. I find it strange that this only effects the older 2D games even with the latest updates.

[Lord Sirian]

Sorry for this, but which games is this problem occurring in? In your original post you say it occurs with Battle For Middle Earth 2, but you just said it only effects older 2D games... Which is it?

[davecay2002]

Sorry i used the wrong terminology. What i meant is that the problems only occur with Top view stratergy games. All my first person shooters work fine also all my driving games.