PC crashing when gaming only

[ukJAG]

Dear all,

Had a problem for a couple of weeks now that is just driving me nuts.

When playing any game, ie, Counter Strike: Source, Rainbow 6 Vegas, Half Life 2 etc.. the machine could fly along great for ages then crash without warning. It could also crash after 30 seconds, so, very random. I have received blue screen of deaths relating to the ntfs.sys having a problem and the kmixer.sys causing a problem. As I understand it these are very non specific, relating to RAM, Video or Audio problems. Needless to say I have reinstalled all updated drivers, ran a MEMTEST, reseated RAM, changed video card, reformatted and rebuilt the OS (XP2 SP2) it still happens. Any ideas ​

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Alternatively do you know of any outlet that can let you choose online a spec of a machine and they build it and post out? I just want a machine with a decent motherboard, hard disk, DVDRW, I have everything else but can't be bothered to build it myself!

My machine is:
AMD Athlon 64 3.2
Motherboard: ABit AN8 Series (NF-CK804), (Socket 939) board, currently with nVidia NForce4 chipset
2GB RAM
Geforce 8600GT, was 6600GT
80GB IDE and 250GB SATA
XP PRO SP2

Many thanks,

Ian
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[Taffycat]

Alternatively do you know of any outlet that can let you choose online a spec of a machine and they build it and post out? I just want a machine with a decent motherboard, hard disk, DVDRW, I have everything else but can't be bothered to build it myself!

My machine is:
AMD Athlon 64 3.2
Motherboard: ABit AN8 Series (NF-CK804), (Socket 939) board, currently with nVidia NForce4 chipset
2GB RAM
Geforce 8600GT, was 6600GT
80GB IDE and 250GB SATA
XP PRO SP2

Many thanks,

Ian
​

Hi there Ian

If you should end-up making a purchase, PC Specialist will build you a custom PC. They are not the quickest, but I took delivery of a custom-build back in May, which took around three weeks from order date to delivery. I have to say that I'm very pleased with it. There was a small heat problem - but not being a techy myself, I had to send it back (undoubtedly anyone else here would have been able to just re-seat the fan themselves ) It only took them one week to fix and return the PC, so very prompt - and you can buy a year's cover for only £5, so it was worth it for me

Good luck with fixing your existing one first though

 

[floppybootstomp]

I'd suspect the motherboard but I think you have one of those problems that's going to be hard to pinpoint.

Just on a whim, disconnect whichever hard drive is the slave and try running a few games.

Another option would be to migrate the OS to a different hard disk and try that.

As for building a system, I'm sure somebody here would make you a system for a fair price, I believe you're near Tilbury aren't you?

I'm in Greenwich, you've met Ady before, Chris Postill is in Cambridge (if he's still in touch with the forum that is, haven't heard from him for a while) so... just a thought.