Computer Freezes.... FIXED!! THANKS!!!

[azncoffeeboi]

Hey, whenever I play any 3d game (Deus Ex is very rare, but with any Half life engine game it hapens very frequently) it runs fine for a while, but then the screen freezes, and it repeats the last 1 second of sound over and over again. Anybody know what could be causing this? I know heat is NOT a problem rite now. Here is what im using

CPU: AMD Athlon T-Bird 1400MHz

Motherboard: Soyo SY-K7V Dragon
Memory: 256 MB of Crucial PC 2100

Video Card: Nvidia TNt2 32 MB

Hard Drive: Maxtor 20.0 GB @ 7200 RPMS

Storage Interface: IDE

Operating System: Windows 2000 Professional

Please Help! I am suffering from game withdrawals =P

 

[Grunt03]

Do you have director x8 or higher?

Have you ever been able to play a 3D game?

 

[azncoffeeboi]

Yeah, I am using the highest version of DX and I have been able to play 3D games (when I had a Geforce 2 Pro, but i still encountered the same problem, just not so often)

I juSt used to live with it but...... this is becomming increasingly frustrating... HELP~!

 

[AnujTech]

azncoffeeboi,

Here is a wild idea, some guy on irc told me about it when I had the same problem with Unreal Tournament:

Restart your computer and jump into the BIOS.
Find the video card settings stuff, and find the AGP Aperture size option.
Crank that up to 256MB or something else very high.

Try playing now. It's a longshot, but hey!

AnujTech

 

[azncoffeeboi]

I tried that Apature size thing, and it diddnt work

I even changed my video card to a Geforce 2 Ultra and it still doesnt work! AGGHHHG!



HELP!

 

[ojai00]

What sound card do you have? I think it's an issue with your sound. I've had that problem before with my Santa Cruz sound card, and it turned out that I turned on 3D sound support. After I turned it off, I've been fragging (kind of) to my heart's content! Hope this helps.

 

[azncoffeeboi]

Thanks, this fixed the problem in HAlf-Life Games but I still get problems in Serious Sam and Alice... any other suggestions?

I noticed when It freezes sometimes if there is music it will keep on playing...

 

[dude8604]

I'm not sure if this could be the problem, but the video card (or processor) could be overheating. Check your CPU temps when it freezes. Also, make sure that the fans on the CPU and video card are working. I don't know if the TNT2 comes with a fan, so if you think that the problem is that it is overheating, then you may need another fan. I don't know if this is the problem though.

 

[FPSguy]

What version of the video driver are you using? You could try uninstalling the video driver, searching for nv*.* and deleting all such files in your Windows directories and subdirectories, and then installing the newest NVidia Detonator drivers.

It could be a DirectX issue too. Does it happen when you are using OpenGL as your video mode? If not, you could try blowing away DirectX and reinstalling it. I haven't tried it, but this software is supposed to remove DirectX.

 

[azncoffeeboi]

=( that diddnt work either... can anybody help! please!

I found out it still freezes in half-life games too... =(

 

[Passions]

crank the AGP aperature size down to about half of your ram size or even lower, lower your ram timing settings, make sure nothing is turbo; set it to normal, make AGP not 4x but like 1x or 2x, and see how well it does.

 

[Thalasi]

I had the same problem with my Dragon Plus. Anytime it had to render a 3D image... in a game or benchmark... it would lock up.
I updated the BIOS and didn't have a proplem after that.
Dragon BIOS's

 

[azncoffeeboi]

HELP!! FLASHING MY BIOS DIDDNT WORK!! ACK!

 

[DaiShan]

try the latest via 4 in 1's? here There are also some other drivers on there that you might check out (I haven't looked through the entire list) Hope this helps ya

 

[azncoffeeboi]

=( Updated VIA drivers... still no help....



Anybody else!! I need help!!! ahhhh

 

[GregANDTCH]

Why don't you just remove your sound card &
try it for awhile (a week) & see if it still locks up.
I think it still sounds like a sound card problem.
My .02 worth

 

[azncoffeeboi]

Took out the "sound card" (Im using the soyo dragon 6 ch audio thingy) and im still getting lock ups!! ACK! Help!!!!

 

[acidvoodoo]

if u're desperate enough back up important data, format, and have a nice fresh windows install, i recently did and i don't get lock ups anymore

oh, only do that if all else fails

 

[azncoffeeboi]

Heh, I dont exactly feel like reformating because:

1) No burner/zip drive to back up stuff
2) redownloading everything sux on 56k =(



Well, any other soulutions? Im really dyin' here!

 

[WT]

Not that I have the same hardware, but I had to set my AGP aperture size to its LOWEST setting (4) on my MSI BX board. It hasta be something with my board since the initial problem was a lockup in UT after 2 minutes of gaming. The lower I set the AGP size, the longer it would remain stable with no lockups. My GF2 Pro video card must be part of the problem as an older GF1 SDR was bulletproof in this PC. Switching the GF2 Pro to my other PC (albeit w/ a slower cpu) resulted in both of them working fine. Problem was, this wasn't what I wanted so I eventually switched video cards and deal with the occasional (2x a week) lockups. I'm somewhat fortunate the MSI board offered such a low aperture size, as anything over 8 would lock up my UT game in 20 minutes flat. Hope this helps you out

 

[earthman]

You may need new (and better) memory.

 

[LS20]

same problem here on GF2 MX200 video card.

although the only video game that i play is NeedForSpeed5: POrsche.

first i had stick of pny 128mb pc133 and kingston 64mb pc100.

the game runs for 15-20 minutes and then lock up. i figured that it would run fine on the pc133 but after a while, it would start paging to the slower kingston and then freeze because of that.

ive removed the kingston and havent tried it since. nothing is OC'ed on my system

 

[azncoffeeboi]

ACk! The 4MB aperture size diddnt work either....

 

[pamf]

i just told another guy the same thing, but try this .. win2k has some fairly evil problems with athlons and agp ..

 

[azncoffeeboi]

Thanks!! THAT DID IT!! THANKS THANKS THANKS!!!