System reboots during Games :(

[Winger300 0]

On occasions the system just reboots when im playing games, including Half-life, Quake3, Vampire etc.

 

I have the system set to auto reboot upon errors, so why does it still reboot?

 

im dual booting WinME/Win2k and it never occurs in WinMe. My hardware is as follows...

 

Intel Celeron366 o/c 550mhz

Geforce SDR (Using 6.18 drivers)

Diamond MX300 (Using Aureal's last driver release)

Realtek network card

Diamond Supraexpress 56k internal modem

128mb PC100

ABit BH6 (Not latest Bios release)

Aopen DVD rom

IBM 7200rpm 14gig HD

250W PSU

 

Thats probably all thats relevant, but what could be causing this? the only things i can think of are use some older MX300 drivers, or take the card out all together, or flash my motherboard bios.

 

I have tried many Geforce drivers so that rules that one out.

 

Using DX7, and Service pack 1 btw.

[Zoinksscoob 0]

Typically, spontaneous reboots are caused by power problems. There are two real possibilities here - power supply is not giving adequate power to your motherboard, or your motherboard is not giving adequate power to your video card. If the spontaneous reboots only happen when you're playing 3D games, that should set some gears turning in your head. When a graphics card switches to "3D mode" it starts gobbling power like no one's business - Geforce cards have more transistors than your P3. Some motherboards in the past have been known to supply an inadequate amount of power to the AGP slot - when the card is asking for power, it can actually pull more than the motherboard can supply, and it'll reboot. Not much to do but replace the MB - the changes needed to prevent this are physical and can't be fixed with a BIOS update. The problem isn't with the card, but with the MB's implementation of AGP - the power requirements for AGP are well documented and the Geforce cards adhere to them.

 

As far as why it only happens in Win2000, I have to admit that that is weird. I have a similar system to yours, excepting the motherboard and sound card, running Win2000 without this problem. Win2000 is much more RAM intensive than win 98/me; perhaps that is joining forces with the above problem? Also, Win2000 has much different power management than 98/ME; perhaps this is also a factor.

 

[This message has been edited by Zoinksscoob (edited 20 August 2000).]

[Winger300 0]

i was running a 230w PSU for some time and had the problem. After blowing that one up i replaced it with a 250W PSU and the problem is identical.

 

In WinME it never happens. Its not a heat problem, and ive not heard/read anywhere that the Geforce has a problem with the BH6 motherboard.

 

I am using ACPI in Win2k, maybe that has something to do with it, i think a new bios revision is in order.

 

I really dont think it is a hardware problem though, more likely to be a driver problem. The soundcard drivers are most likely the culprit.

 

The problem is that sometimes i can play for hours without any trouble, so its very difficult to know if i have fixed it or not.

[Rik 0]

I had the exact same thing in Vampire, but always at key places in the game. The rebooting was usually repeatable and the only way I could progress was by going back into WinME and saving the game after the troublesome spot.

 

...I just remembered, I'm using a MX300 also and originally I used A3D 2.0 in Vampire, but have now switched to 'Miles Positional 2D'. The game hasn't caused a reboot for ages, so maybe this was the culprit.

 

[This message has been edited by Rik (edited 20 August 2000).]

[Winger300 0]

Looks like my suspicion was correct, thanks for confirming it for me though. I think i should pick up a SBlive sometime soon.

[Down8 0]

My friend had s imilar problem, in Win98 [before he went ME]. His system would ramdomly reboot during games. It turns out that this was related to his system monitoring utliities. It came with his mobo, and was set to reboot the system if it started to over heat, so 3D games would reach near the limit, and... boom, reboot. The stranger thing is that his system log would show a heat spike that went from ~45C to ~70C in less than a second, which is basically impossible.

 

Well, he did not install it when he installed ME, but that was yesterday, so we'll see...

 

-bZj

[TAZNZ 0]

greetings: i am having much the same problem as some of you above

my system is as follows:

AMD Duron750

512megs ram

g-force2mx400

cdrom 52x

cd burner Acer

6 channel sound card (cant remember the brand but i am using Microsofts latest drivers for it)

40gig Samsung HDD 7200

10gig Westerndigital HDD 5400

WINxp Home

 

So my problem is i get random re-boots when playing games and sometimes watchin a movie or listening to MP3 i have a 250w PS when i get the re-boot i dont get an error message just a reboot like when u hit the reset button i do have a T-Bird heat sink and fan..and i have unchecked the button to thats sposed to give you an error on critcal but i dont get any errors.. am i runnin low on power or do i need to go back to Win98 i have all the latest drivers that im aware of....so any help appreciated

[Rogue Jedi X 0]

I had the same problem myself. As it turned out the problem was in my NVidia drivers, the certified ones (30.something if I recall correctly). After that I installed the Detonator 40 drivers and there haven't been any random reboots since.

[TAZNZ 0]

I am running the 40.42 drivers i think it is is a 40. something anyway and the problem is still occuring..

[adamvjackson 0]

How are your case/cpu/gpu temps?

[TAZNZ 0]

thats the next thing there is a program out there that tests these things im trying to find it so i cant say if they are normal or to high

[adamvjackson 0]

Motherboard Monitor should do the trick.