Why do my games keep crashing???

[Windrider]

I keep getting critical errors when I'm gaming. I've tried to re-create the problem, but it's not consistent. Most of the error messages say that it's because it had a problem with one of the game files. It happens while playing Tribes: Vengeance, World of Warcraft, Half-Life 2, and Counterstrike Source. Reformatted and reinstalled everything, but it didn't help.

I'm guessing it's either a harddrive problem, a memory problem (although nothing shows up on memtest), or a motherboard problem. Advice on how to check for problems on those three things would be appreciated.

Here's the setup:

CPU: AMD64 3500+
MOBO: MSI Neo2 Platinum
Vid: Leadtek Nvidia 6800gt
Sound: SB Audigy 2zs Platinum
RAM: Crucial 1024mb Pc3200
HD's: WD 250gb ide, WD 80 gb IDE
DVD: Pioneer DVR-108
PS: Vantec 520w
OS: XP Pro SP2

 

[NeoDaywalker]

I will comment on the hard drive issue:

If it was a hard drive problem, you wouldnt have problems just on your games but on your ENTIRE system activities: Browsing, installing things (especially that), uninstalling, copying e.t.c. I had a 120GB WD with 40KB in bad sectors. Needless to say that I had problems EVERYWHERE, WinXP couldnt even load properly in the end. If your HD was in bad shape, you wouldnt of been able to format and re-install properly either.

Go to your hard drive manufadturer's website and download and run every single diagnostic utility you can find. Run also the extensive WinXP scandisk utility. If it wont find badsectors, then you are 90% ok.

If you want my opinion though, its a graphics card problem. I remember having problems like that with some old videocards of mine.

 

[madthumbs]

Check the games manufacturer's forums / sites for patches/ work arounds, etc. Check for better vid card drivers (not always newer). Try more conservative memory timings in cmos setup synchronous with fsb if possible, as well as disabling fast writes or any other vid card feature in the cmos setup.