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Stuttering sound Graphic Freeze in all games

S

simsalabim24

Senior member
Hello and thanks for taking the time to read this.

I have been having a problem for some time now where the sound will stutter and the graphics in the game freeze up for about 10 seconds maybe less then everything returns to normal, it will do this every now and then, no real pattern to it.

This is my system and specs:

Lian Li Aluminum Mid-tower case with two stealth tech 80mm fans and a vantech 430 watt powersupply.

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 2800+ NewCastle Socket 754 Voltage 1.552-1.568 varies according to cpu-z which I was told is normal by AMD. Stock heatsink and fan.

Core Speed 1847.8mhz, multiplier x9.0, HTT 205.3mhz

Motherboard: Chaintech VNF3-250 nForce3 250 Rev. A1 Bios is version 6.00 PG 03/08/2004

Video Card:
Leadtek A400 TDH GeForce 6800 w/ 128mgs V-Ram Non-overclocked

Memory: No-name brand 1 Gig DDR-SDRAM Channels are single Frequency 168.0mhz, FSB😀RAM CPU/11.0, CAS# Latency 2.5 Clocks, RAS#Precharge 4 clocks, Cycle Time (Tras) 8 clocks, Bank Cycle Time (Trc) 10 clocks, DRAM Idle Timer 16 clocks. Module size 512 PC2700 (166 MHZ) In cpu-Z it says under spd timings table that their are two frequencies one is 133mhz and the other is 166mhz, cas# Latency 2.0 and 2.5, RAS# to CAS# 3 and 4, RAS#Precharge 3 and 4, TRas# 6 & 8.

Maxtor 7200 rpm 20 gig hdd

Operating system Windows XP Professional SP2 (build 2600)

Sound Card is a Sound Blaster Live Sound card

The Video card, motherboard, and cpu are all new purchased less then 2 months ago. Everything else is over a year old.

Anyway this has just started happening with the addition of the new cpu, motherboard, and videocard. I have no alternates for these so there is no way to tell if they are faulty.

I have tried turning off sound acceleration in the directx dialogue box to no avail. I have tried moving my sound card to one slot away from the video card, to no avail. I also have tried opening the case and letting a 300mm fan blow inside the case at full speed to no avail.

I have the latest drivers in stalled for everything. Everytime I go to play the games I go into task manager and kill any uneeded programs/virus protection.

This happens in all games from need for speed underground 2 to lord of the rings the battle for middle earth.

This is really bumming me out, I want to have a nice gaming experience I just spent over $500 on upgrades so that I could have a great gaming experience only to have this happen!!

Thanks for any ideas!
 
well rest assured your setup is capable of quality gaming.

did you do a fresh install of XP when you did your upgrade? what settings are you playing the games @? its nice to see you updated all your drivers. driver cleaner can solve problems in some cases where your hardware can be attempting to use the previous drivers that were installed. could be a conflict of that sort. in terms of h/w accel on your sound, i always leave mine on - seems to be the default setting.

sounds crazy but if i were having your problem and i knew i did everything else to try to remedy it, i would revert back to a fresh install and go from there. then you have the peace of mind in knowing it is not your OS or software (drivers) and you can embark down a hardware troubleshooting route. if you don't have the gear to test (ie. swapping out etc) then you might be kinda stuck. but right now knowing if it is either a s/w or h/w problem is your main goal... you seem to know enough about your BIOS so I don't think it would be something simple in there such as a switch from AGP 4x to 8x etc. or making sure your onboard sound is disabled...
 
Try changing CAS to 3. If you have unbranded RAM, it is probably better to run things a little slower. Raise DRAM idle clocks, and make sure your voltage to the RAM is about 2.7-2.8v
 
Thanks for your replys. I completely reformatted the hard drive and did a fresh install of Windows Xp Professional. I have tried adjusting the settings in the game from the lowest to the highest quality and it still produces the symptoms. It has done this since the new hardware and clean install.
 
you might not have an extra video card, but you could remove the PCI sound and try your onboard sound to see if it produces the same results. at least then you have it narrowed down a bit more.
 
Sometimes it is as simple as defragging your hard drive.

(Should defrag occasionally anyway...)

Give it a shot.

Gentle
 
Hey,

I adjusted all those settings according to your suggestion, with the exception of the mem idle time, I could not find an area in the bios where I could adjust that.

Thanks.
 
Okay not only did those changes not work it caused my computer to restart after 5 minutes of playing lord of the rings the battle for middle earth.
 
Okay well I tried 2.8 for the ram voltage instead of 2.7 and so far that seems to be more stable then the other setting. However I will have to do further testing which I will not be able to do till tomarrow, I will keep you updated though thanks!
 
Oh, wait.

The 6800 series cards require a power connector attached to the end of the video card. Did you attach a power lead to it when you installed it?

Gentle
 
Could be an IRQ sharing issue with SB Live card. Did your mobo manual come with an IRQ sharing table? What PCI slot is the sound card in? Try moving it to a difference slot...in my experience the SB Live does NOT share IRQ's well....especially under heavy use like gaming.
 
Well I have tried moving the sound card around to no avail. No my motherboard manual does not seem to have a irq sharing table. :/
 
okay well with the exception of the ram idle clocks (nowhere to change), the settings you recommended did not help and it only made things worse, in that now when playing the game, the game just crashes and the system reboots automatically.
 
removed the sound blaster live card, and uninstalled the drivers, then enabled the onboard sound, so far I have been able to play for a full hour with no interruption in performance!!

It seems so crazy that the sound card I have always used worked fine with the old motherboard and cpu which was a soyo kt400 dragon lite with a Athlon 2400+.

Anyway I think further testing is still needed, but im out of time now so I will have to try it tomarrow.

Thanks for all the help and to Gentle:

Yes I connected the power connecter to the 6800, thanks for the idea though.
 
Played for another hour, staying up way paste my bed time once again, but everything seems to be great. Thanks for all of your help.
 
Originally posted by: simsalabim24
Okay not only did those changes not work it caused my computer to restart after 5 minutes of playing lord of the rings the battle for middle earth.
Click to expand...

Great game! Glad to hear you've been able to resolve the issue - I myself have been troubleshooting my computer just to get my rig working perfect for this game. So far so good!
 
Yeah it is pretty cool, but I have been having this problem with all games if you read the original post, it seems it is fixed now though.
 
Just like Badthad mentioned SBlive cards have a history of incompatibility, usually not worth using a sound card nowadays unless your a hifi buff.
 
Another thing to keep in mind if others are having the problem is that they may not have fixed the AMD/AGP issue yet.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q270715/

I've not run into any SERIOUS issues yet, but i know 3dmark seems to get horrible FPS at certain points since I did a fresh install and I have as of yet not reapplied this patch. I'm trying to limit my tweaking of the OS since thats what ruined my last install... hehe oops.
 
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