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Games freezing

C

CDC Mail Guy

Golden Member
First off, my system specs. Dell Dimension 8400 3.6 GHz CPU and video card is a PCI Express ATI Radeon X850XT PE (supposedly top of the line!) I have been playing Call of Duty online, and Half Life 2 with no problems for the past couple months. Now, within the past couple days, my games are freezing less than a minute into gameplay. I push esc or ctrl alt delete, and nothing happens, so I have to hold power button on PC in until it shuts off. Before I call Dell, I am asking here for help. Video card problem? CPU? Hard drive? I updated drivers for video card within the past week, but as far aas I can recall, that is the only change made to my system. Should I system restore, or break down and call dell service? I welcome any and all ideas.
 
It is overheating of your card or proc, I am almost positive.

Download Prime95 or SuperPi and run it full blast to see if it does the same thing. Also, monitor the chips temperature with Motherboard Monitor.
 
Also check the cpu fan and video card fan to make sure they're both still working and not filled with dust.
 
I have Motherboard Monitor, and for some reason it doesn't work. Not sure why it doesn't show CPU temp, but one of the first things I installed. I will check fans now.
 
First, Can you see your temps in bios? That will tell you if you have sensors or not.

Second, this is unlikely, but maybe you have spyware or viruses running in the bakground

Third, Why did you get a DEll?
 
well.. .it is a p4 in summer... so yeh i expect it is overheating! Like cheezit said, check the bios for any temperature readings, and also see if taking a side off of your case and blowing a big fan into it helps at all etc..
 
well, I agree 85% it has to do with the heat, but if you rule that out, maybe you want to check your RAM, which might cause freezes.
Also, did you change anything in the BIOS or installed anything that could cause problems? (like antivirus or somthing like that)
 
Ok, as to "why did I get a Dell"...That's a very good question. I wanted a fast gaming machine, that I could make payments on, and rebuild my credit at the same time. I know I should have got an AMD, but... I have built really good fast machines for less $$$ (5 so far) So I think I did it for the rebuilding of credit more than anything. Nextly, temps are fine in BIOS, but haven't checked them after running it for a while. It IS hot here where I live. Fan on both processor and video card are spinning happily along, a little dusty, but not too bad. Another quick questiion... Is there any way to get into BIOS without rebooting? Only software installed is CPU Z recently, but that's not constantly running.
 
Originally posted by: CDC Mail Guy
Is there any way to get into BIOS without rebooting?
Click to expand...
No.

MBM doesn't work because you didn't tell it what motherboard you have. You have to select it in their wizard. Try using speedfan.

 
Broke down this A.M. and contacted Dell Support. They gave me a link, and I downloaded and installed different drivers for the video card. It works again, although I only tried for a few minutes. So far so good. I installed a pci slot dual fan that blows directly onto the card as well. As usual, thank you all for your help and remedies. Guess this issue is resolved for now. Thanks again.
 
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