Troubleshooting Games Freezing

[Hauk]

In games only, I'm experiencing screen freezes that last a few seconds. Sound goes into a loop, screen locks up, then returns to normal. It used to happen on rare occasion, but now it's rendered Half Life 2, Farcry and other games unplayable. I ran memtest with no issues, went stock on all timings, updated nvidia and creative drivers, and finally reinstalled Windows XP and all drivers to no avail. CPU temps normal, case well ventilated, onboard sound disabled w/no drivers installed.

Not sure what to do next. Was wondering if I should pop out SB card, uninstall drivers and try with onboard sound.

MSI K8N Neo Platinum w/latest firmware
AMD Athlon 64 3200 socket 754 @ 2255MHz
Thermaltake silentboost 80mm copper cooler
2ea 512MB Crucial Ballistix PC4000 @ 2.5 3-6-3 1T
BFG 6800GT w/ NV silencer @ 390core 1.08mem
Creative Audigy 2
Thermaltake 92mm quiet 410W power supply

Any ideas?

 

[theMan]

Download Prime95 and Memtest86. run each for at least 4 hours. if there are any errors, tell us.

 

[Hauk]

will do. I forgot about Prime 95.

 

[SVT Cobra]

I have had this happen on old computers and have heard of other computers...sometimes it may be a sound problem...but more often than not it is a Direct X corruption...especially if you sometimes get sysdump.saved messages.....

uninstall DX then d/l the newest version

 

[h00dlum]

I had the same problem and it was driving me crazy. Someone told me to turn off Fast Writes in the BIOS. Worked like a charm.

 

[Muscles]

I had a very similar problem in the past and it was my graphics card overheating. Freezes with accompanied repeating sound is a text book example of this. I would look into it.

 

[Hauk]

DX 9C fresh install w/ fresh OS install. As far as graphics card overheating, it's doing it right after startup, and I got the 6800GT pretty cool with Artic silver & NV cooler. Core temps never go above 66 degrees.

Curious about that fast write settting in bios however. I'll try that and double check everything. Will report...

 

[Hauk]

Whoo Hoo! It was fast writes. Disabling fast writes solved the problem.

Thanks Hoodlum for the tip, and thanks everyone else for the input!

 

[siberain]

i have the similar problem though fast write is disabled and games work fine once i remove my sound card and play with onboard sound...


any suggestions?

 

[w00t]

the bf2 demo lags for me not sure what the problem is but its like a hardcore lag for 20sec every 5min. have to check that fastwrites thing in the bios is there for pci-e?