• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Very annoying system lockup problem causing me a lot of trouble.

M

Moatman

Junior Member
Well, this dates back to right around when the game Mafia came out on the pc, I bought it the day it came out but when I would play the game, it would randomly cause my system to do a full lockup with a high pitched sound, screen would freeze and I would have to hard reset. I went and got all the newest drivers at the time and it still kept up, so I returned the game. Then I would get that same thing, though sometimes without the high-pitched whine, during normal operations like web browsing or even overnight when I was sleeping while nothing was being done, totally random and about 1-3 times per day. I had a radeon 8500le at the time, I tried rolling back the drivers to a pre-catalyst version since I had heard some others with the card had the same problem, and it didn't lockup anymore, figured I was safe. Then a few games like ut2k3 and nolf 2 came out that I couldn't play without newer graphic drivers, so I gave in and got them again, problem started back up again Fast forward to this past friday, I got that bfg gf4 ti4200 that best buy had on sale, to replace my radeon, hoping it would fix it and I would have a nicer card. It Still happens, I still get the random lockups, it can happen a few times in a row or it can go a while without doing it.

So far I've tried newer drivers and older drivers for my sound card, since it's a creative product and we all know how great their drivers are... I even tried disabling the sound card, and it seems to maybe do it less(or could be random) but it still does it. I am really upset, this lockup problem causes me a lot of problems with things, I lose a lot of time/data because of it being so random, and it's very frustrating. Here is my current system spec:

Windows XP Home(with sp1)
Athlon xp 1600+
abit kg7-raid
SB audigy platinum
BFG gf4 ti4200 128mb(was radeon 8500le 64mb)
512mb ddr
2x 60gb ibm 7200rpm hd's in a raid-0 array
3com 3c450 NIC(had a fastgear, but they have known problems with my mobo, namely os-based restarting not working)

I sincerely someone has a suggestion that can fix this, I'm sitting here typing this up worried that it might lockup while typing so I have to totally retype this, that's how frustrating this thing is. Thanks in advance:0
 
I've had problems like that in the past. I would definately check your drivers for the chipset in mobo. That was my problem. Also if overclocking anything, bring it down.
 
ooops, hit enter by mistake. anyway, i had the same exact problems with my system awhile back. it was locking up in any game that had intense graphics, cutting the detail down did sometimes make the lockups happen later in the game. like yours, mine started occuring in mafia as well. i had an abit kg7-r board, xp1700, gf4 ti4600. i upgraded to a GA-7VAXP, xp2400, radeon9700 and i still had the same problems. reinstalled windows a couple of times too. just for shits 'n giggles i replaced one of my rounded IDE cables which was connected to my primary drive with windows on it with a standard every day run of the mill IDE cable and it just started to work fine. give it a shot, couldn't hurt
 
No overclocking on anything in the pc. I have the latest 4in1 drivers(besides the agp, got the amd version of that since I have a northbridge) but I haven't flashed the bios on my mobo before. I have a 350w enermax ps, someone else thought it might be a lack of power but that should be enough. IDE cables really helped you? Thanks for the suggestions so far, btw.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top