lock-ups while gaming

[Outlawv6]

Hi all. This is my first home build and I've run into some issues. Basically the system will lock up while gaming (rather quickly when all the eye candy is turned up, even with the original Unreal Tournament) though not completely. If I hit ctrl alt delete the monitor will go black, then pop to a desktop view with some pieces blacked out, go black, and gradually add more detail as it blacks out and comes back. CPU usage goes to 100% and the sound keeps playing, repeating after about 10 seconds.

here's a list of what my system has:
300 Watt Antec PS
A7N8X (1001.E Bios)
2x256Mb Kingston 333Mhz DDR
1.0 gig T-bird w/ Alpha PAL8045 heatsink
WD SE 80Gig 7200 Rpm
GeForce4 ti4200 64Mb
Windows XP Pro

I've tried windows 2000 as well and about 4 reformats and reinstalls to no avail. I've downloaded the latest drivers from Nvidia and Asus but the same thing happens. the odd thing is that running CPU burn-in for 3 hours only heats the CPU to 38ºC, as does running 3dmark2001SE on a loop for 3 hours (scores around 9000 marks too). Nothing feels particularly hot inside the computer, I've tried clocking my video card much slower but that didn't help stability. I've played with ram timings and that doesn't help either. It's just that if I play the Unreal 2003 demo it'll lock up within the first minute. Some other games will run but will ocassionaly have all sorts of funky stuff blur the screen then return to normal.

If anybody can help point me down a path to check out, I'd really appreciate it. If not, does anybody know of a good computer repair shop that can help in the Southern California area?

 

[eklass]

sounds like your vid card may be overheating... my buddy had a gainward ti4200 that he finally had to get rid of because it was locking his comptuer up. sound continued (thus knowing it wasn't a cpu overheat issue) but the video completely went crazy. i popped the card in my computer and it wreaked havoc on my machine when playing too. he finally dropped major coin on a radeon 9700 np

you may want to rma your card and get somethign good like an ati

if you can, try swapping vid cards with someone and see if they have a problem and you no longer do. if so, that's the problem (although it sounds like the problem anyway). nothing "wrong" with the build, just got a bad yield on the card.

hope this helps

 

[Epimetreus]

Are you sure you are not trying to OC your vid card? They can lose stability even when not over heated sometimes.
It almost sounds like some bad vid card RAM, too bad memtest86 doesn't can't test vid card RAM(though you might be able to find something that can). Running memtest is a VERY good idea, but make sure to do the full tests. Just in case.
Another idea is to make sure no other software you're running is conflicting.
Also, Win XP has a problem with causing games to lock up with Athlon processors. If you have not done so, I would consider SP1 to see if this fixes it.

 

[RudeBoie]

It's possible, depending on what else you have in the case, that your power supply is lacking. I don't think that's the problem, but what else do you have in there?

Doesn't the GF4 take up like 80w?

 

[Gronich]

I agree with the PSU comment. I had the same problem with the original GeForce. I went fried two mobos the changed the PSU to a 400W unit and have had no problems since.

 

[Bowfinger]

If your MB uses the VIA chip set, be sure to update your 4in1 drivers. If you have problems with the latest drivers, try the previous version (1381?). I had the same kind of problems with an Athlon MB, finally eliminated them with a VIA update, started having them again a couple of months ago after updating to the newest drivers, and made everything stable again by reinstalling the previous set. I have a buddy who was having similar problems. I gave him the same suggestion and it worked for him too.

Good luck.

 

[Outlawv6]

I've got a SB Audigy 2, and now 4 case fans, though I originally only had 1 plus the processor fan. I thought that the power supply might be lacking, but I had thought that if that were the case that it would just reboot randomly. I've tried running without the sound card and without any extra fans to see if that helped, which didn't.

I'm sure I wasn't overclocking the card as the powerstrip's user interface is really easy to use, I just moved the slider down about 50 Mhz or so on memory and core.

This mother board is an Nforce2 board, and there aren't a whole lot of driver updates for it. I do have the latest drivers as of 3 days ago. There have been 3 bios updates, which I will try once a friend comes over to show me how because I'm paranoid.

Thanks for all of the replies and good ideas. I appreciate it a lot.