Pls help me out. System is reseting/crashing for no apparent reason.

[MrGrim]

My brother's system is refusing to play any games. Afer a while it will either crash and through me back into desktop (Win98) or reset (Win2000). The games that I have tried are Starcraft and Unreal Tournament. There doesn't seem to be a pattern though, the system can crash either as soon as you enter the game, or even after 2 hours of gaming.

The sytem specs are as following.

Asus P3v133 (Apollo Pro133)
Celeron 2 566Mhz
128MB RAM
Voodoo3 2000
Quantum Fireball EL 5.1GB

The system is dual booting, Win98 and Win2000. The problem is present in both O/S and none of the components overclocked. I have tried formating and reinstalling everything 2-3 times now, but it hasn't made a difference. I'm using DX7, the latest Voodoo3 drivers (1.07 & 1.03) and the latest VIA 4in1 4.25a drivers. There are no apparent conflicts.

This problem started when my brother upgraded from a BH6 - 300A Celeron to the current setup. Ever since the upgrade he has not been able to play any games at all because of the problem I just described. After posting this message I'll be heading to VIA's website to look through FAQs and BIOS updates, although I think that the latest one is currently installed.

Any suggestions as to what could be going wrong are welcome. Thank you all in advance.

Update
After visiting the VIA web site, I confired that I do ave the latest BIOS, but I found out that I did not have the latest 4in1 VIA drivers. I d/led and installed them, but it didn't solve the problem.

 

[Lalakai]

see what programs are loading in the background and eliminate all non-essential (press ctrl+alt+del to see what is loaded and try eliminating some). Since the shutdowns occurr at random points, it could also be a heat problem or faulty power supply. You've already updated your bios, you may also see if you have the latest v-card drivers. I have the same card and play the same games, but on a K3-400 so my mb is also different. Haven't heard of a conflict with the cpu/mb that you have but maybe someone that has used that setup can help out.

on a side note, W2000 doesn't have a good rep for being kind to games so consider that also.

good luck

 

[MrGrim]

Hi, Lalakai and thanx for your reply.

There are currently NO programs running in the backround, since I only just formatted and reinstalled Win98 and Win2000.

I do have the latest BIOS and V3 drivers and there is no problem with Win2000 and any of those games, because I have been playing them on my setup (remember this is my brother's system we are talking about here) just fine in both Win98/Win2000. Also consider that the problem is present in BOTH O/S.

Although it's not very likely that this is an overheating problem, since nothing is overclocked, I will try using my CPU which has been running fine for the past year. BTW, I have already swapped my brother's V3 with mine, in case it was going bad or something, but no luck.

In the meanwhile, if anyone else has ANY other suggestions please post them.

Thank you.

 

[I'm Typing]

Loading the 4 in one drivers is important, but WHEN you load them is far more important. You MUST load the 4 in 1 drivers FIRST, before you load drivers for ANYTHING else. In other words, format drive, load windows, load 4 in 1, then load DirectX. THEN load video drivers, etc. I was having problems with my new mobo until I loaded the drivers in that order. I was always loading the 4 in 1 first, but would load video drivers before directx. Don't ask me why, but it helps.

Also, you might want to bring your towers together, and try swapping components (starting with memory), to see if a hardware issue is the source of your problem.

 

[MrGrim]

Hmmm, I have read in the past that the order is rather important, but I didn't the order itself. What I did was install the 4in1 drivers, then the V3 drivers and then DirectX 7. Now that I think about it though, Win2k comes with DirectX 7 already installed, so can't reinstall them. I guess the important part in a WIn2k installation is to install the 4in1 before the V3.

Thank you for your reply. I'll try it out on Win98.

 

[Fardringle]

This could also be a power supply issue. When playing intensive games, you are stressing pretty much every component in the system, which causes them to draw more power, and with the newer CPU, you may have surpassed the limits of that particular power supply. Try running the system with the PS from your other computer to see if it still has the same problem...

 

[MrGrim]

Thanx for all your replies guys.

I swapped CPUs between the two boxes and discovered that the CPU was overheating. The heatsink was badly mounted.