System Crashes in Games - Please Help!

[DCZX]

Hi,

I just built a computer:

Athlon XP1800
K7S5A Motherboard
Geforce 2 Ti
256megs dimm
400w power
fullsize case

Right now, the case has one fan blowing out over the processor but has room for 6 more fans 4 in front and 2 in back.

Anyway, it works fine until I try to run any intense 3d games or demos... it freezes after about 3 - 5 minutes in the game. I don't know what is causing this. The video card has a fan and heatsinks on it. My system temperate reads about 87 fahr. when I restart the computer after crashing and the processor is about 125 or so. I am using the new detonator drivers. I am using windows me and its the same installation from my old computer setup, I should probably reinstall but I don't think this is the problem, I might be wrong.

Any help would be greatly appreciated... do I need more fans? Do I need to cool the video card more? I thought it should run stable out of the box. It's not overclocked.

update: umm... I just checked my IRQ's and it looks like the motherboard sound card is using the same irq as the video card... maybe this is it. If so, how can I change the IRQ for my mb sound card?

thanks!

 

[Vic]

Tried a BIOS update?
Also, try lowering your memory timings.
Your temps are a little high but (IMO) not high enough to cause crashes so I think you have a memory timing issue.

 

[DCZX]

Thank you!

I got the IRQ conflicts resolved and that helped somewhat, but it was still crashing. Next, I got the newest bios for the motherboard and flashed it... I can play!!! (at least so far) no more crashes! Your help was greatly appreciated! (as I played through the jedi knight 2 demo)

 

[Vic]

 

[Mem]

I would keep PCI slot one empty which`s nearest to AGP slot (to stop it sharing with agp) ,did you try downloading and installing the latest SiS AGP driver from here . Also some bios tweaks might help,disable system bios cacheable,disable video ram cacheable,I normally disable all video shadowing as well.

 

[GAZZA]

I am using windows me and its the same installation from my old computer setup, I should probably reinstall but I don't think this is the problem, I might be wrong

Did you swap over just the hard drive to your new system you have listed ?

Athlon XP1800
K7S5A Motherboard
Geforce 2 Ti
256megs dimm
400w power
fullsize case

If you did then there is a good possibility that your drivers are conflicting from the old hardware to the new , if nothing resolve the issue per your responses then it maybe time for a fresh install of your OS !.

 

[DCZX]

Oh boy am I having problems...

It seemed for a while like it was working.... then I started to have problems again. I did everything, I reformatted, installed the newest AGP driver, uptodate geforce2 ti drivers (detonator), flashed bios, turned off bios caching, set the dram timing to "safe" and this is what happened:

I was trying to play the Ultima I remake demo at 1024x768x32bit. I had played it for a while before and it just hung up. This time, my whole computer shut off!! It SHUT OFF! I can't understand it. It's back on, now... of course...

I've got a CoolerMaster DP5-6I31C fan on the chip; I thought that should be enough.... is it that my cpu got too hot and that shut it down or is it the temp inside of the case? The temp normally sits at about 32C/89F for inside the case and 51C/123F for the CPU. I've got 3 case fans blowing... one blowing in from the front, one out of the side and one out of the back. Or, is my 400W power supply just not enough and I drew too much power?

help please!!

thanks

 

[Tannah]

hmm possably bad memory? you can check the memory out with a free program from http://www.simmtester.com/

other than that.. run somthing that checks your voltages somthin might be out of wack..

What other cards do you have in your machine?

 

[DCZX]

I've just got a sound card (Ess-1), and a lucent modem installed... 1 cdrom, 1 cdrw

one thing, my motherboard supports the old style dimms and the newer style... maybe the old ones just aren't cutting it? That is, I have PC133 168 pin DIMM SDRAM's in it, 2 128's... it has room for the DDR ram but I'm not using it. Could these just not be good enough?

I tried that simm tester program and it doesn't seem to complete the tests... I don't know if that means I have bad simms or what....

 

[DCZX]

Hi people...

In case anyone wanted to hear the end of this story, I think I figured it out. Everything was working so well at one point, I reenabled by USB ports. This caused my modem and sound card to think they should use the same IRQ, thus all of the strange crashes. I can't believe that IRQ conflicts can cause such grief. I still can't get all my devices to work at once without trying to share IRQ's and all I have are a sound card, modem, video card and usb camera. That shouldn't be too much, right? Well, it seems to be. Is there an easy way to manage IRQ's?

thanks to everyone who responded