Comp crashing, freezing, ect on 3d apps like UT

[nickname1]

I have:

ABIT KT7a (no raid being used)
AMD athlon socketA 1.13 (no overclocking)
Diamond Viper770 (non ultra) set to 4x agp on card and board.
Currently cheap ram, 512mb pc133
300W sparkle PS
Win2k

Ok here is the story,

I have all the crit updates, service packs, or newest via 4 in 1s, Detonator drivers.
Any time I play UT, starcraft, diablo2, ect. I can go for a little while and then BOOM, blue screens, lockups, restarts.....you name it. I have put a fan on the bastard, lowered the temp in the bios to 33deg C, So I know it is not a heat issue. I have tried Mushkin 512 pc 133 ram and I can't even load the OS with that installed, it absolutely FREAKS out and crashes right b4 Win2k loads. I have tried win 98 se on this too, no luck. I also have switched the vid card, no luck. I am at wits end and am loading my shotgun as we speak to really show this bastard who is boss. Does anyone have a reason I should put my gun back in the closet?

Thanks for any help

 

[Bovinicus]

I say you just format your harddrive. Make sure to backup all necessary files.

 

[MrBond]

What drivers are you running?

I had a similar problem with my GF2 and Win2k. No matter what driver I tried, the same effect. I could do anything on the computer, but play games. I could play for 5-30 minutes at a time, then boom, hard freeze and had to reset the PC to get it working. Never got a BSOD though.

I upgraded to XP, not expecting to fix it, but out of curiousity. One of the extra bonuses was that it fixed my hang problem. I can game with impunity now.

I am using Nvidia's reference drivers, dated 11/29/01. I'm nopt 100% sure, but I think I upgraded to another version of the drivers other then the ones that shipped with XP.

Edit: oh, and before you shoot the PC if you still don't fix it, pull out that PS and send it to me

 

[ST4RCUTTER]

Hmmm...that's a toughey considering that you've knocked out all the major causes. It seems to only be the games that crash you box ehh? What version of DirectX are you running? What are your RAM timings? Have you tried swapping out your PS just to see if the stability improved? Was this computer "updated" by swapping mobo's without a clean install?

C:\Please input more data...

 

[nickname1]

ST4......Ram is CAS3 ram so i have it set to 3, the mushkin was cas 2, so I tried 2 and 3, no luck.

win2k starts with DX7 i believe, so initially that, then I tried 7a, 8, and 8a in that order. 8a is on there now.

Oh yeah, I did flash the bios too.


I really want to stay away from windows BigBrother if possible, GO Lindows.

 

[ST4RCUTTER]

Well, you've narrowed it down pretty much. I say it's either a driver conflict or your power supply. What sound card are you using?

 

[nickname1]

no sound, no nic, no modem.


just vid, ram, HDD, DVD, and FLoppy

Other thing that pisses me off is that I can have the OS up for hours on end with NO crashes, i can play a DVD movie, and run smaller programs like winamp (i know no sound :|) and it all works FINE. Just when I start playing a game the thing crashes.

 

[ST4RCUTTER]

Pull!

 

[Willoughbyva]

What is your video arperture (sp) set to in the bios? What is your agp speed set to in the bios?

I remember some people having problems like that in the past.

Try setting agp speed to 2X and arperture(sp) to 32 megs. and see what happens.

Good Luck

Will

 

[novice]

Did you try disabling your video bios cache and all video shadowing in your BIOS? I was having similar problems with a Geforce 2 Pro card in one of my systems and it really helped. (Thanks, Mem) You might try it, as well as setting your card to 2X to see if it can run stable at 2x AGP. Good Luck.
Chuck

 

[Maggotry]

<< I can game with impunity now. >>


That's the best one-liner I've ever read in this forum!

 

[nickname1]

I cant seem to locate shadowing on my award bios, however my aperture size is at 64. I have also tried a Gforce2 in this machine that works in my friends CPU. I have had the current viper 770 in there at 2X b4, but ill give it a shot again.