Game is freezing

Hi, well I just finished building a new system and Monster Truck Madness 2 is freezing, ( just a little but it's annoying).

My System:
MB: MSI K8N Neo2, CPU: FX-53, Ram: 2 ea. 512 MB OCZ Platnium Rev. 2 in 3 and 4 slots, (dual channel with 2 2 2 2 5 timmings reported when posting prior to boot, 2- Raptors in raid zero config., Evga 6800 Ultra Video card, OCZ 520 watt PSU, Creative labs Platnium 2ZS sound card.

Running XP SP2
CPU running warm @ idle 50 c
I used Artic Silver 5 and only about 1 1/2 times the size of rice per instructions and cooling with a 7000b CU Zalman fan.

Reloaded video card drivers from website both the WHQL, and non signed ones.
Ram is @ 2.7 volts

Every thing set to stock.

Aggressive timmings are off as is cool and quiet in bios.

I am going to try sig sandra to stress test components to try and isolate problem.

Is prime 95 easy to set-up and run?

I am thinking it maybe either low memory voltage, or bad video card, ram, CPU, or MB.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Riddleman]

First of all I'd like to congratulate you on a killer rig, second I want to ask if you've installed and played any other games besides Monster Truck Madness 2 that you've encountered the same problem with. Based on a Maximum Pc article a few months ago, I remember reading that a lot of times when games freezes it?s due to overheating, which in your case might be true. I know you have top of the line hardware components, but I hope you also got a case with a lot of fans to keep the airflow cool, personally I would recommend the Thermaltake Xaver 6000A (sp?) it has plenty of fans to keep your high end components cool and got a lot of good reviews. If you don?t think it?s your case, then it might be the wiring inside the case, try and tidy it up with some wire organizers or something. Its also important to remember that some games are just not compatible with Windows XP, in my case I wasn?t able to play FIFA 2002.

 

[zakee00]

your idle temp seems pretty dang high, my amd 64 3000+ is clocked the same as your FX-53 (i think, 2.43GHz?), and i idle at 33C with stock cooling and AS5. try the stock FX cooler, it is very good, has heat pipes. i dont think that the overheat would cause that though. yes, prime95 is very easy to use.
good luck,
nick

 

[imported_Phil]

1.5 x the size of a grain of rice sounds a bit too little to me. A pea-sized amount (just a bit more than what you're using) should work. Take the 'sink off and see how far the paste has spread out.

 

[Navid]

Use a digital volt meter and monitor the 12V rail that goes to the CPU on an unused Molex connector inside the PC. Run prime95 torture test. Let it run and monitor the voltage for about 5 minutes. Make sure the 12V voltage does not drop too much and meets the specifications.

Run memtest overnight to test the stability of RAM. If the next day, there were no errors, your RAM is OK. If there are any errors, you need to relax timings or reduce overclock or increase VDIMM.

After RAM is stable, run prime95 torture test overnight. if it was still running the next day, your CPU is stable too. If not, you need to improve CPU cooling or reduce CPU overclock or increase VCore.

If PSU and RAM and CPU are stable, monitor the 12V rail that goes to the graphics card while running ATItool and scan for artifacts. make sure that the voltage does not drop too much.

If the PSU and the RAM and the CPU are all stable and you still have crashes, it is your graphics card.
You need to improve cooling inside your case. If the case is cool, i would try the card in another PC. If the problem happens in another PC too, you can RMA the card.

 

[Riddleman]

Originally posted by: Dopefiend
1.5 x the size of a grain of rice sounds a bit too little to me. A pea-sized amount (just a bit more than what you're using) should work. Take the 'sink off and see how far the paste has spread out.

According to Arctic Silvers website they recommend that you put that much for AMD 64 processors, but I back when i built my rig i decided to put a little more, simply because i'd rather overestimate rather than under estimate. More doesn't really damage the cpu however the same can't be said if you underestimate.

 

Thanks all very much for the good suggestions. I am going to start over... reinstalling OS, SP2, redo the Artic Silver 5, andmake sure nothing is running in background.

If I see the same problems then I will start testing as suggested.

I have noticed that my MB keeps losing some of the drive in the Standard CMOS screen. It may have been a lose connection, not sure.

Thanks all again, ltr.

P.S. Yes I have a good case .. the Thermaltake V2000A, with 7 fans, lol