The "pause key torture test" in HL2!

[richard612]

<crossposted from another forum>

Here's an odd one for you guys. I have a Prime95-stable rig that cannot tolerate hitting the PAUSE key during Half-Life 2. After 1-15 minutes of being paused, the system freezes and then reboots itself. Gameplay will cause a similar crash but only after much more time -- 30-60 minutes.

Power supply? Maybe, but underclocking the 6600GT and lowering the CPU clock back to standard doesn't fix anything. These two things should be lowering the current draw by a substantial margin. I've tried a dedicated molex, remounting the HSF, the mystical 78.05 drivers, AGP 4x, no fast writes, slowing down the CPU-NB link speed, removing my antivirus S/W, cleaning up my startup list, removing my sound card and drivers... No help.

Speedfan logs show that the supply rails aren't sagging and that all temps are reasonable. The VPU is usually around 75C at the time of the crash but I have a log made when underclocking (250MHz) that shows a crash at 45C.

Current supply is an Antec Smart 350 -- I have a Seasonic S12-430 on order. Yes, I know the supply is marginal but all the underclocking didn't help. Venice core AMD at 1.8GHz and one 5400rpm HDD.

Once again, this rig will happily run Prime95 in blend mode for DAYS. If the supply doesn't help, I think the 6600GT is going to get replaced with a 7600GS. I'll send it to my dad. He needs a better card for his Flight sims anyway. It ran fine in a craptastic ECS K7S5A with a t-bred CPU. Now it's in a 939Dual.

Has anyone else had trouble with PAUSE in HL2?

 

[dug777]

don't hit pause?

 

[richard612]

don't hit pause?

Good one.

It locks and reboots during gameplay, too. It just takes longer...

 

[darkswordsman17]

Hmm, strange. I would think it would be a software issue more than hardware. When paused, shouldn't CPU/GPU useage drop?

Why bother with a 7600GS? Don't you have a PCI-e x16 slot on that board? You could get a better card for your money that way.

Could be a power supply issue, but I don't know.

 

[richard612]

The lock is followed by a sudden reboot. I don't think software is gonna cause that unless it's a device driver.

Nevertheless, I replaced the 6600GT with my trusty old ti4200 and the system is stable now. Many of the stutters while gaming are gone, too.

Newegg has two 7600GS cards, both are PCI express x16. Both are priced right around the same as my 6600GT, and I understand that the 7600GS is anywhere from "as fast" to 10-15% faster. Is there another card in that price range I should consider?

 

[darkswordsman17]

Originally posted by: richard612
The lock is followed by a sudden reboot. I don't think software is gonna cause that unless it's a device driver.

Nevertheless, I replaced the 6600GT with my trusty old ti4200 and the system is stable now. Many of the stutters while gaming are gone, too.

Newegg has two 7600GS cards, both are PCI express x16. Both are priced right around the same as my 6600GT, and I understand that the 7600GS is anywhere from "as fast" to 10-15% faster. Is there another card in that price range I should consider?

Actually it was my bad. I had gotten the 7800GS and 7600GS mixed up, and was thinking the 7600GS only comes in AGP. Sorry for the mixup. Glad you got it solved.