Games freeze after 1-2 hours of play?

[SnowHawk 0]

I got a ATI all-in-wonder radeon and games freeze after playing for a while. Then when I restart it plays for a while and freezes again. Could this be a driver problem or heat??

 

abit BP6

2x Celeron 366@523

FSB 96

 

ATI all in wonder Radeon 32mb DDR @ 166core Non o/c'ed

2 network cards

250w p/s

1 burner

1 DVD drive

Iomega zip 100 external

1.44 floppy

1 chasis fan sucking air out at the back.

128mb PC100

[three 0]

could be heat, i had that same problem (different video card though) popped open the box and noticed i had an scsi cable blocking the airflow to the card, moved the cable aside and felt the gush of warm air coming from the card. readjusted the cable around and it works fine now

[SnowHawk 0]

I don't think it is a heat problem because my ATI cards are extremely cool...

I played Counter strike for like 2 hours then touched the heatsink on the card and its not even hot..

Its like room temperature..

[ThC 129 0]

then it probably has to due with the overclocking. Have you tried underclocking the CPU and playing games?

[SnowHawk 0]

But the AGP/PCI/BUS speeds are all running at slower than regular speed...

Except for the CPUs...

[Stephen Van Siclen 0]

Purchased an ATI RADEON AIW because I really wanted to believe that ATI has changed in the way of thier driver development. No luck. The card went back the same day. Wouldn't stay running on an Intel MotherBoard without crashing 2000 within a few hours. I have had no problems with the GF2 Ultra from Creative but darn it the picture isn't as clear or as pretty as the ATIs were. I really wanted the ATI to work! (and still do but need to wait and see if they ever get the drivers straightened out) Thats the problem with ATI they design solid hardware but their drivers tend to stink. I really think the drivers are the problem. My suggestion would be that you take it back where you purchased it and wait till you see reports pooring in about how great ATIs drivers have gotten for windows 2000. I had the same problem with the Rage Fury MAXX last year on a 98 machine and never saw the posts stop about how awful the drivers were. I waited for what seems like forever and the stable drivers never came. I wouldn't want to see you go through the same hell I went through with the Maxx.

[Shrink 0]

Stephen - seems as though you didn't give the card much of a chance. I have an AIW Radeon (ex-Voodoo3 user) and have been quite happy with it. However, if you only used the drivers on the cd, that may have been your problem. Did you clean out all remnants of your old drivers as well? My setup is pretty generic intel, and have not had a SINGLE crash attributable to the Radeon in the month since I purchased it. I am running the 3073 drivers that can be downloaded from www.rage3d.com.

 

BTW, even the special purpose drivers from ATI's site work very well, though are not as fast in games. ATI is working on unified drivers for the Radeon that will not be based on the old Rage drivers (as the current ones are), so are being rewritten from the ground up. They are rumoured to be much faster and should be released within the next couple of weeks.

 

With respect to the original poster, what driver version are you running? Any irq conflicts? Is the problem due to overclocking the Celeron? Did you install DirectX8?

 

 

------------------

Shrink

 

92% of the things we worry about don't happen - but the other 8% DO!

 

PIII 650@850

BE6-II Mobo with 320 mb ram

20 gig Quantum KX 8 gig Quantum CR

SBlive Value

All In Wonder Radeon 32MB

... and a bunch of USB Stuff

Windows 2000 Pro Retail

 

[This message has been edited by Shrink (edited 28 December 2000).]

[SnowHawk 0]

Yes I did install DX8 and I have the 3073 drivers...

I'm not sure if they are clean installed because I just kept overwriting drivers from different versions and stuff...

There is 0 IRQ conflicts in my windows2000.

I set the BIOS to have PNP OS installed to YES.

Then windows 2000 is very good at IRQs.

I have more than 15 IRQs. I think the BIOS supports only 15 but if you use Win2k it has more.

I think my ATI AIW RADEON is on IRQ 18.

I never had an IRQ problem with this computer.

 

I'm not too sure about the overclocking.

 

I can play OPENGL games fine.

I played Counter-strike for like a long time and it hasn't froze except for once but I don't know why.

Most of the freezing occurs Only when using D3D specifically when using special features of D3D (ie. Bump mapping, High detail.)

 

I ran 3dmark in 640x480 16bit and I got a score of 2478.

 

I could only get it to run once without crashing.

 

I had to set all the programs in windows to only use my 2nd processor and I set 3dmark to use the 1st processor and it didn't crash....

 

interesting eh?

well

It has maybe something to do with my 2x celeron setup I think.

 

or win2k

[Shrink 0]

My suspicion is that it is related to the SMP setup. The fact that your Radeon was on irq 18 is rather strange. I would have strongly recommended making a Ghost backup of your current hard drive, and reinstalling Windows 2000. There is something wacky going on with the detection of devices as it should not have been necessary for Win2k to ***ign that irq, rather than irq 11. I have Windows 2000 installed in ACPI mode, btw.

 

 

 

------------------

Shrink

 

92% of the things we worry about don't happen - but the other 8% DO!

 

PIII 650@850

BE6-II Mobo with 320 mb ram

20 gig Quantum KX 8 gig Quantum CR

SBlive Value

All In Wonder Radeon 32MB

... and a bunch of USB Stuff

Windows 2000 Pro Retail

[Stephen Van Siclen 0]

Interesting. I too have an SMP setup. Shrink, I did try the 3073 drivers. I had only tested using some tried and true test programs. Quake III and 3dmark. Also ran the Alice demo. I did a clean install of Windows 2000 as well. I don't overclock, it seems too risky to me. Seems like it may only be a problem with specific setups as was / is the case with the Nvidia drivers with some VIA /AMD chipsets. I suspect your setup may be ok though. Interesting that you are both running BX iteration of Intel chipset. One is working, one is not.

 

My specs:

PIIIDR3

2x P3 1Ghz

FSB 133

 

Non o/c'ed

internal network card

350w p/s

1 burner

1 DVD drive

2 ide HD

1 SCSI HD

1.44 floppy

 

512mb PC800

 

[ December 29, 2000: Message edited by: Stephen Van Siclen ]

[Stephen Van Siclen 0]

SnowHawk,

There apparently have been some bios issues with 2000 and the BP6! I found some interesting info at http://bp6.gamesquad.net/win2k_install.phtml that may be of use, it suggested being sure you are running with the RU bios version. It also has a driver install package that includes the latest drivers you would need for win2k and the bp6. This may resolve the problem. I suspect the lockups may be bios related after looking at the info there.

[SnowHawk 0]

I think I am using the RU BIOS but I updated it a long time ago...

I know about the problems and stuff about the BP6 but my BIOS is fine and I have the lastest HPT366 drivers.

Right now it crashed when I was watching TV on it and when I clicked on something the entire screen went black...

 

OpenGL appears to work flawlessly but D3D is still the culprit..

 

IS there any chance it could be a screwed up driver install..

 

Every thing works fine except it locksup in D3D games after playing 1 - 2 hours and maybe the TV..

[Ge0ph 0]

I still say it's the overclocking.

[EddiE314 0]

had the same problems with my old bp6 setup:

bp6 - dual cel 400@523MHz

256MB pc100

----------

try clocking them back to 366 then if that doesn't work, put a house-fan beside the comp and have it blow air at HIGH in the comp. that should stop it if it's a heat issue.

[SnowHawk 0]

A large Fan would work??

I'll try under clocking it tommrow

 

IT would suck if that is the issue because I dunt wanna run windows 2000 on a dual 366.

[CUViper 0]

it wouldn't suck as much as locking up all the time....

 

it may also be that you're just overclocking too much. if the lockups disappear when you "underclock" (when run your processors at spec ), then you can try gradually increasing it again. you just gotta find that overclocking sweet spot....

[SnowHawk 0]

Oh ya .. one more thing...

The only way I could get 3dmark to run was to set all the programs in win2k to run on my 2nd processor and put 3dmark on my first processor and it didn't crash..

hmm..

[NEO^ 0]

You are having the same prob as me! D3D gamez freezez... I posted it here:

 

Geforce and AsusK7V problem

 

I dunno what kinda card that is but try to disable AGP 4x if that is an option.

[Kyosho46vr 0]

Well I have my Radeon 32DDR running flawless in Win2000, I also play CounterStrike for hours, like 4-5 at a time an never lock, freeze, or error, the Radeon card is great !! So hang in there, I get 5200 3D Marks and 89 FPS in CS!!

 

Ned

[SnowHawk 0]

My counterstrike works flawlessly too..

BUT D3D **** doesn't work properly!!

It took me a long time to get 3dmark2000 not to lock up and I get like 2226 3dmarks!

What the hell?