Crashes during gameplay

[HailAngus]

MOBO: Asus P4R800-v deluxe
video: 9800 pro
1 gig ram
3.00 ghz pentium 4 processor
integrated audio

HI

My computer was recently crashing due to out of date BIOS in addition to a faulty power cable. Now, a new problem has arisen.

While playing Day of Defeat source for instance in game play the screen will freeze and the last 1/2 a second of audio will loop. But, Windows is still running....

I can KIND OF alt tab and guess what the screen says and get out of the game and then i can restart the game.

This has happened repeatedly with that game.

With BF2 it just freezes and i have to reboot. This only happened once (at that point i had to come on here and try to figure out what to do).

My brother just graduated from college with a degree in computer engineering and he suggests possibly: Video card, MOBO, or power. But then he suggested asking the anandtech forums.

Thanks for any help

 

[oynaz]

It is probably the 9800 Pro overheating. The stock coolers on this card are notorious for being crapping out. Mine actually exploded.

 

[bob4432]

how are you cooling your 4GHz P4 - is it the 805? is it prime95 stable? or dual prime95 stable for at least 12hrs?

how is air circulation in the case? if you take off the side and blow a house fan inside does it fix the problem?

what are you running the 9800 @ o/c?

what psu?

 

[HailAngus]

Originally posted by: bob4432
how are you cooling your 4GHz P4 - is it the 805? is it prime95 stable? or dual prime95 stable for at least 12hrs?

how is air circulation in the case? if you take off the side and blow a house fan inside does it fix the problem?

what are you running the 9800 @ o/c?

what psu?

Sorry, Typo--- its actually 3ghz

I'm not over clocking anything
air circulation hasnt seemed to be a problem, havent tested anything out though. one on top letting out air one on the side blowing in

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: HailAngus

Originally posted by: bob4432
how are you cooling your 4GHz P4 - is it the 805? is it prime95 stable? or dual prime95 stable for at least 12hrs?

how is air circulation in the case? if you take off the side and blow a house fan inside does it fix the problem?

what are you running the 9800 @ o/c?

what psu?

Sorry, Typo--- its actually 3ghz

I'm not over clocking anything
air circulation hasnt seemed to be a problem, havent tested anything out though. one on top letting out air one on the side blowing in

run orthos - http://sp2004.fre3.com/beta/beta2.htm and see if it is stable. just use the blend test for now. let it run for quite some time. beware, orthos maxes out your cpu and ram, but should get to the bottom of this. on a visual inspection, does you m/b have any capacitors with anything leaking out of the top?

 

[HailAngus]

Ran Orthos Blend for less than 10 minutes and got this.

Using CPU #1
Beginning a continuous self-test to check your computer.
Press Stop to end this test.
Test 1, 4000 Lucas-Lehmer iterations of M19922945 using 1024K FFT length.
Test 2, 4000 Lucas-Lehmer iterations of M19922943 using 1024K FFT length.
FATAL ERROR: Rounding was 0.5, expected less than 0.4
Hardware failure detected, consult stress.txt file.

 

[HailAngus]

Originally posted by: HailAngus
Ran Orthos Blend for less than 10 minutes and got this.

Using CPU #1
Beginning a continuous self-test to check your computer.
Press Stop to end this test.
Test 1, 4000 Lucas-Lehmer iterations of M19922945 using 1024K FFT length.
Test 2, 4000 Lucas-Lehmer iterations of M19922943 using 1024K FFT length.
FATAL ERROR: Rounding was 0.5, expected less than 0.4
Hardware failure detected, consult stress.txt file.

just got it again


Using CPU #1
Beginning a continuous self-test to check your computer.
Press Stop to end this test.
Test 1, 4000 Lucas-Lehmer iterations of M19922945 using 1024K FFT length.
FATAL ERROR: Rounding was 0.5, expected less than 0.4
Hardware failure detected, consult stress.txt file.
Torture Test ran 8 minutes 6 seconds - 1 errors, 0 warnings.
Execution halted.

 

[Insidious]

So what does the stress.txt file that the report references say?

 

[HailAngus]

Originally posted by: Insidious
So what does the stress.txt file that the report references say?

Can't find the file anywhere. Even searched for the file. Nothing.

 

[Insidious]

Originally posted by: HailAngus

Originally posted by: Insidious
So what does the stress.txt file that the report references say?

Can't find the file anywhere. Even searched for the file. Nothing.

bummer

sounds like a M$ pop-up help window:

help on the 'edit' command -> "use this command for edits"

But seriously,
if you don't have hardware to swap, and have NO diagnostic information, it is going to be hard to find your fault.

maybe run with the side off the case and a window fan or table top oscillating style fan blowing on the innerds to eliminate overheating as a possibility

-Sid

edit: maybe try running memtest86+ to see if it is a possible mobo/RAM probolem and in a seperate test, run 3dMark05 repeated a couple of times to try and make the video card show as a problem if memtest86 is OK (for at least an hour or so)

I'm assuming you have watched the system run and observed all of the fans running at full speed.

 

[HailAngus]

I bought a new Video card yesterday... xfx geforce 6800xt... I'm going to swap that out once it arrives.

Just downloaded memtest and 3dmark, will let you know how those go.

 

[HailAngus]

I ran 3dmark05 and I dont know what to tell you but it ran? and i got a 2000 something number...

Screen shot : http://xs511.xs.to/xs511/07013/Benchmark.jpg

I dont know how to use memtest86, i looked at the read me and it only gave instructions for linux installation

 

[Insidious]

Go here to get memtest86+
Make sure to download the one labled: Download - Pre-Compiled package for Floppy (DOS - Win)

unzip it and you will find instructions to run it from a bootable floppy disk

-Sid

 

[HailAngus]

Originally posted by: Insidious
Go here to get memtest86+
Make sure to download the one labled: Download - Pre-Compiled package for Floppy (DOS - Win)

unzip it and you will find instructions to run it from a bootable floppy disk

-Sid

My floppy has been broken for a while... can I do it on a cd?

 

[Insidious]

Originally posted by: HailAngus

Originally posted by: Insidious
Go here to get memtest86+
Make sure to download the one labled: Download - Pre-Compiled package for Floppy (DOS - Win)

unzip it and you will find instructions to run it from a bootable floppy disk

-Sid

My floppy has been broken for a while... can I do it on a cd?

yes, the readme.txt in the .zip file I mentioned explains how. (it will tell you to download a .iso compiliation and tell you what to do with it.)

-Sid

 

[bob4432]

http://www.memtest86.com/#download0

 

[HailAngus]

I installed my geforce 6800xt a few hours ago and i havent had a single problem since!

Edit: Spoke too soon. Now, i can no longer guess on my own what is going on... something else is messed up but I can't determine what is messed up MOBO, or PSU or who knows something else.

All the signs that I had before I installed my new video card had vanished after putting in the new one. It didn't crash once while playing BF2 nor CounterStrike:Source. But, when I least expected it, browsing the internet, it crashed. Randomly. WTF

 

[bob4432]

if you have memtest/orthos/prime95 problems you still have problems. can you go buy another psu and test it out? and possibly return it if you still have the problem? did you ever run memtest overnight?

 

[HailAngus]

Originally posted by: bob4432
if you have memtest/orthos/prime95 problems you still have problems. can you go buy another psu and test it out? and possibly return it if you still have the problem? did you ever run memtest overnight?

I havent had time to mess with memtest yet, i reckon i will do it tonight

 

[HailAngus]

I still havent messed with anything yet, and i should, and i will soon but...

another symptom....


my computer is running on a never ending LOOP of "system has recovered from a serious error" one after the other. WOW. annoying... reporting this problem comes back as a RAM issue.

 

[goatjc]

Ram would be my guess. Memtest86 has a file on their site. I had the exact same issues (almost exact same rig too) and ran the bootable CD (b/c I dont have a floppy either lol) ISO file off their site and sure enough, it was one of my 512 sticks of ram. Replaced it and runs like a charm now. No more random crashes, no freezing during games. . .I can actually install BF2 without any problems.

When I did this, I also replaced the stock cooling on the CPU and there was a noticable performance increase, namely better fps in CS:source and the like.

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: goatjc
Ram would be my guess. Memtest86 has a file on their site. I had the exact same issues (almost exact same rig too) and ran the bootable CD (b/c I dont have a floppy either lol) ISO file off their site and sure enough, it was one of my 512 sticks of ram. Replaced it and runs like a charm now. No more random crashes, no freezing during games. . .I can actually install BF2 without any problems.

When I did this, I also replaced the stock cooling on the CPU and there was a noticable performance increase, namely better fps in CS:source and the like.

if you replaced the stock cooler on the cpu and you actually gained performance then your case has serious airflow issues causing your cpu to throttle meaning it was very high because there is no way a different hsf can make a game play better unless there is a serious overheatiing problem that still needs to be addressed.

 

[HailAngus]

 

[HailAngus]

Sometimes when I turn on my computer the computer turns on for 1/2 a second then dies. The only way to get it to work again is by flicking the power supply switch off until the motherboard light goes out then I can flip it back on and boot up the computer.... Repeat until it stays on.

 

[Insidious]

That is normally a sign of an overload of your PSU or it's overload protection is malfuncioning.

You may well either have a failing component in your PC that is drawing too much current, or a faulty PSU.

It is the current in-rush that's tripping it out... the running load on the PSU is always less than the starting load.

Try the easy ones first.... unplug your case fans and see if it is still hard to get started. If it helps. remember it is start up you care about. you have to add a fan, try startup, add another, try startup. and so on.

If it's not a fan, I would suspect your PSU next. Got another one to try?

-Sid

edit: after re-reading the rest of this thread, I think you've got a bad PSU