Problem with computer.

[Slay 0]

Hi, I'm desperately looking for some assistance.

 

AMD 1.35

512 ram

geforce 4 ti 4600 128 ram

Sound blaster audigy 2

80 gig hd

xp home

 

 

When playing a game, it crashes anywhere from instantly

to a couple minutes into the game, but nothing further.

 

I did a bunch of troubleshooting and nothing worked. I

then purchased a larger hard drive and did a clean

install. I updated all drivers for everything, 3d,

windows, chipset, directx, etc....all is updated. I ran

3dmark 2001 and it crashed to desktop like the games

did. I figured it was my 3d card. I put the 3d card

into another computer and it did not crash.

 

I brought my system to a tech support team and they

worked on it. They couldnt find anything wrong with it

at all and told me they guess the card is overheating. I

got a RMA for the card and got it replaced. Put it back

in and the system still crashes. I did find that my cpu

was running way hot (75 celcius normal, 90 celcius gaming)

which was surprising cuase i have ample cooling. I

pulled it apart and added new thermal gel and system runs

at 52-56 celcius normal and 60 celcius max gaming. It

seems to be cooler and no alarms are going off due to the

heat now. The only problem I may see is that it it

displays my core voltage at +1.76 (red zone) but I'm not

sure what it should be at as the bios says 1.76 (i think

this is its current voltage).

 

I do not know what else to try, please give any sort of

assistance as I have run out of avenues. Noone I talk to

can tell me anything new that I havent tried already.

 

Thanks in advance.

[jmmijo 1]

You have one of the older Thunderbird core Athlon CPU's. They do run quite warm so the need for some new thermal transfer compound was good as you can see by the difference in the temps now

 

As for the core voltage, I'll have to look at AMD's website. They usually have the info there.

 

EDIT: well that core voltage is normal, AMD says the voltage should be 1.75VDC and 1.76VDC is within specs. As for the maximum die temp, that one is supposed to take up to 95C but I'm sure it was better that the machine locked up as I bet the core would have fried otherwise.

 

EDIT2: also you didn't mention the make/model of you motherboard. It's most likely a VIA chipset based machine. Please advise

 

You can get the latest VIA 4in1 drivers from here

[smcgarry 0]

Jmmijo,

 

Thanks for the reply as Slay posted this for me.

 

Gigabyte GA-7ZXR...it is an older (about 1 year ago /sigh) motherboard. You will find it in the "other" section on the gigabyte website.

 

I already have the via 4 in 1 drivers too.

 

What other suggestions might you have?

[jmmijo 1]

I would also make sure to have the latest nvidia device drivers installed, perhaps the reference drivers from their site rather then the manufacturer of the graphics cards version.

 

Also try going into the BIOS and look for the AGP options, set this to either 1x or 2x and turn off all the fastwrite and sidbanding options to see if stability comes back or not.

 

Also try installing the latest DirectX, v9.0b I do believe. If you have previously installed them then try re-installing once more.

 

Since you have the SB Audigy 2 like me, be sure to get the latest web updates from soundblaster.com or use their handy auto-update feature.

[mezron 0]

When you say your system locks up, does it just freeze? Sound start looping? Screen might go black and monitor turn off? I've seen a couple similar setups (VIA chipset with Athlon) do the same thing with GeForce cards. If you can, try an ATI card. I'd bet your problem will go away.

 

Jim

[Tomay 0]

I don't have my via based system here, but you could try changing the agp driving strength. But be careful you can damage the card. Look for geforceFAQ or some place else to get the info about it.

[Mr.Guvernment 0]

VIA + Sound blaster

 

do not mix well and cause enough problems for many people.

 

 

does that board have built in sound - take out the sound bl;ster card, ditch all drivers and try the game with out sound see if ti crashes.

 

try another version of windows as well if possible.