HELP: When I try to run any game my computer freezes at the startup screen

[jkalman243]

Games tried:
Quake 3, Unreal Tournement, Everquest. (Computer also freezes often at startup before the icons start appearing on the screen.)

System:
AMD thunderbird 900MHz,
Abit KT7 Raid,
256 megs 150MHz Mushkin RAM,
GeForce2 GTS 64 meg video card (I tried all the drivers from the ones that came with the card to the detonator 3 drivers),
Monster sound MX300,
IBM deskstar,
Hollywood DVD decoder card,

Operating System:
Windows ME

 

[Klosters]

The best question I can posit is: What's your cooling setup?

 

[han888]

is it you overclock your geforce?

 

[bluezebra1098]

Forget cooling....with all that heavy duty stuff what power supply do you have?

All of your hardware is power hungry and your system better have a 300 watt or bigger.
I've noticed that this is the second thread in a few that has the Diamond MX sound card install in an Athlon system. I'm wondering if that is not the problem?

 

[RoboTECH]

hmmm...a computer with a GTS is having serious issues....where have I seen this before?

Latest Via drivers installed?

Try 5xx for your GTS?

Yank everything from your system except one stick of RAM, the video card, and the HDD. Try to load up a few games. Report back on your results.

 

[Compellor]

I have a similar setup. I had the same problem until I figured out the problem. After formatting your hard drive and installing the OS, you need to do this in the following order:

Install latest VIA 4in1 service pack
Install latest VIA USB filter driver
Install Microsoft VIA USB patch
Install latest DirectX and latest patches
Install latest video drivers
Install latest sound card drivers
Install latest HPT370 software (on the KT7-RAID)
Install other latest drivers, e.g. joystick, graphics tablet, etc
Install applications

I also installed each card seperately in my system -- one at a time -- after installing the OS. The Vortex 2 sound cards do have a compatibility problem with the VIA chipsets, but I haven't had one single lockup or crash since I did it this way. Go here for more help:

ABIT KT7 & KT7-RAID FAQ

Note: I tried everything before I formatted and did a fresh install of Windows 98 SE. Nothing worked until after I did what I described above. Since you own the "Raid" version, don't put any card in PCI slot #5. Full details on what cards to put in which slots are described in the link I provided above. Good luck!