Computer Massively Unstable in Games

[GoodRevrnd]

My computer is massively unstable in games; it will play for up to 10 minutes and then crash, either to the desktop or bluescreen. When it bluescreens it either has a blank bluescreen with one or two sounds repeating with a slight crunchiness (this makes me think it's the Audigy) or it gives an IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL error 90% of the time, referring to either an ATI driver file, an Audigy driver file or a generic Windows audio driver file.

I am using an EPoX 4GEA+, SB Audigy Platinum, and Radeon 9700 Pro on WinXP w/ DX9. I have all the latest Intel and mobo drivers installed. I have tried combinations of all 3 Audigy drivers and Catalysts 2.3 through 3.0 + the DX9 compliant Omega drivers. I have tried increasing the voltage to the AGP slot. I have tried putting the Audigy in PCI slots 3-5. There are no IRQ's being shared except for some USB with both the Audigy and Radeon, and I have tried disabling those as well. I know the IRQL portion means that the drivers are referencing an invalid address or page, and MS recommends reinstalling them or using the most current, but this did not help. I'm sure there are other fixes for this message but I'm not that smart. 🙂 Finally, this whole computer is a fresh install so before all the format warriors come out lets consider other options. Please help! I'm at wits end! 🙁 🙁 🙁


Afterthought: The Audigy and Radeon themselves should be ok because they both were stable in my last system (Abit KR7A, YES I FORMATTED WHEN I SWITCHED) unless I did something stupid. 😛

 

[magomago]

Hrmm...perhaps it is too hot?

I have a 550k6-2 that works fine just as long as I don't run any programs that push the pc (games, encoding...) but word, internet, 2d cheap games, programming work fine

the reason is because i put a cpufan from my old 233mhz retail AMD k6...If I lowered the speed down to 500mhz it ran fine with games (though it was choppy b/c of the cpu itself)


So my thing - did you put the heatsink fan on right? What are the temps?

 

[GoodRevrnd]

I have that big massive copper heatpiped Coolermaster HSF (with the lowspeed fan) on my CPU. Immediately after reboot I have checked temps and it's never above 42deg Cel. Don't think it's the temp. Radeon on the other hand, I have no real way of knowing but I have felt it to the touch immediately after as well (both on the HSF and on the back of the card) and it didn't seem particularly hot.

 

[element]

Go to Run and type dxdiag and run it. Look for problems regarding the installation of directx. Check how much RAM is being used up perhaps one of the apps or TSRs you have has a memory leak. Just a st@b in the dark but worth trying and easy enough to do so far.

 

[GoodRevrnd]

Originally posted by: element®
Go to Run and type dxdiag and run it. Look for problems regarding the installation of directx. Check how much RAM is being used up perhaps one of the apps or TSRs you have has a memory leak. Just a st@b in the dark but worth trying and easy enough to do so far.

DirectX looks ok. How should I check the ram? Just alt-tab out of game and look? What is TSR? Also a memory leak might make sense because *sometimes* in the mini dump files it will list several drivers and say out of memory after each one. I think each time this happened it was an audio driver, but like I said I tried different versions and nothing is really helping so I really don't know where to look for the memory leak. 😱 This really sucks. 🙁

 

[johnjkr1]

From my experience in the support department, i have seen that 90% of the time the IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL error comes back to driver problems. I know you've formatted already, but you may want to try it again with as few parts in there as possible...maybe using the onboard sound instead of the audigy.

 

[element]

TSR stands for terminate and stay resident, what I meant by that was just programs that are running in the background. Anyway, to check for mem leaks go to accessories and run system information under system tools. Or type msinfo32 under Run like you did for dxdiag. Meanwhile you should heed johnjkr1's advice. Reinstalling everything may sound like a hassle, but so is chasing your own tail trying to diagnose a problem like this for hours, especially if you just end up reinstalling after all is said and done.

 

[John P]

Have you tried running without the sound card installed?

 

[GoodRevrnd]

Well I uninstalled and removed the Audigy and am running on the onboard audio. This cleared up 60% of the problems. Unfortunately I still get some random blue screens and crashes. 1942 lasts waaaaaay longer now, and when it crashes it's a blank blue screen, an IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL error with no driver reference, or an IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL w/ an ATI driver reference (almost always ati2dvag.dll). Sim City 4 locks up sometimes (randomly, after looong play sessions). the OpenGL mmog game I play still has lots of random errors and also gives the same blue screens 1942 does. One time it hard locked for a minute and then I got a Windows error saying something about unstable and device terminated, then I was in 400x320 16 color. I am currently using the NEW Catalyst 3.0 drivers.

🙁 Now what? 🙁

 

[chizow]

Man...I just remembered seeing a response from either Andy Hui or Evan Lieb about this. Run an advanced search on both their names in GH, Mobos, CPU/OCing and see what turns up. IIRC its caused by something more obvious and less dubious than a PCI/IRQ conflict.

Chiz

 

[GoodRevrnd]

Originally posted by: chizow
Man...I just remembered seeing a response from either Andy Hui or Evan Lieb about this. Run an advanced search on both their names in GH, Mobos, CPU/OCing and see what turns up. IIRC its caused by something more obvious and less dubious than a PCI/IRQ conflict.

Chiz

Ahaa... Andy Hui said:

The IRQ is not equal message is due to general system instability. Normally it is a sign of an overclocked processor or RAM that cannot handle the speed, and has nothing to do with shared IRQs.

I'm not overclocked at all but I did change the CAS from 2.5 to 2, however this is brand new Crucial RAM so if that's the problem I'm going to be kind of pissed. If I lower the CAS and still have problems could the RAM be bad? Should I test it w/ Prime95 or memtest86 then? /me trots of to start figuring this out...

 

[bsr]

make sure there are no IRQ conflictions, go into system info (under sys tools) and under the hardware resource tab goto irq's, make sure video card, sound card, NIC/modem, etc are not sharing irq's. If they are then there are 2 solution. but the best one is to change the "computer" driver (under device manager) to "standard pc" this will enforce better IRQ steering. The next thing that can be done to fix irq confliction is to manually set the conflicted hardware onto another irq in the bios thats not in use.

Also in the bios disable shodowing and caching features (xp doesnt like those features and runs unstable with them, this should also be what xp recommends on the BSOD). And keep all your drivers upto date, seems that all sound blaster cards have problems with certain games so keeping those drivers upto date will help alot. As well as keeping your game upto date, download the latest patches for them (this may resolve issue) .

You say this problem is probly the sound card, if none of the above works you can disable hardware acceleration on the sound card by going to start >> run >> type ' dxdiag ' and under the sound tab disable hardware acceleration.

 

[Kartajan]

I know you said "brand new crucial", but is it rated at CAS 2? I bought PC2700 just to make SURE that I got good CAS2, I haven't seen PC2100 at CAS 2...

(Try running at C2.5)

this is the one that you didn't want to hear:
The newer Soundblaster (Live! and Audigy) seem to be PCI bus hogs. otherwise stable systems stuttering/ locking/ etc. Based on this, I have disowned the entire SB line until I start to hear good things on that particular front.

(If you are happy w/ onboard sound, stick with it.)

 

[GoodRevrnd]

Well it appears that dropping back down to CAS 2.5 has fixed the problem.

I just played BF1942 for over an hour straight with absolutely no problems (other than the laggy server 😛). Guess it's time to put the Audigy back in--this onboard sound is terrible.

BTW, I'm using Crucial PC2700, rated CAS2.5. I ran my old Crucial PC2100 at CAS 2.0 no probs, and that stuff was ancient. I'm surprised it's giving me this much trouble, I'm usually ok with running most generic mem at 2.0. Oh well.

Thanks to everyone who offered their input! 🙂

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: GoodRevrnd
Well it appears that dropping back down to CAS 2.5 has fixed the problem.

I just played BF1942 for over an hour straight with absolutely no problems (other than the laggy server 😛). Guess it's time to put the Audigy back in--this onboard sound is terrible.

BTW, I'm using Crucial PC2700, rated CAS2.5. I ran my old Crucial PC2100 at CAS 2.0 no probs, and that stuff was ancient. I'm surprised it's giving me this much trouble, I'm usually ok with running most generic mem at 2.0. Oh well.

Thanks to everyone who offered their input! 🙂

Hehe glad everything is working now 🙂 I knew it was something pretty simple. Yah its not like the good ole days where you could push your Crucial to the extremes with little effort. I learned the hardway too with some Samsung Original PC2700. I guess the timing thresholds and tolerances are much smaller at high FSB speeds, b/c I had to greatly relax my timings at FSB > 180mhz. Couldn't really justify buying "premium" RAM at 2x the price back in the PC2100 days, but it looks like the 333mhz and greater territories really requires buying the expensive rated stuff.

Chiz