Crash

[Guest]

My comp seems to crash during games after running 1-10
minutes. I have tried everything like doing a hour long
memory scan, new vid card, updated all drivers, load my
comp with 7 fans and put a 1 foot in radius fan up to my
open case, added 150 watts more of power, and reformatted
my harddrive. My comp seems to freeze up and a sound just
starts repeating rapidly. The screen never changes and the
only way out is to manually restart. This crash has
happened while not playing game to, but after about 20
seconds my system unfreezes. PLease help I have invested a
lot of money on trying to find out why this is happening
and I am just about to junk this comp if I can't fix it.
Also i have seemed to noticed when i alt tab out of a game
that usually crashes my cpu usage is at 99% and usualy
when i alt tab out of other games it goes down to 1%. My
computer is well over all the requiremnts needed to play
these games. Thank

 

[Michael Solomon \(MS-MVP Windows Shell/User\)]

Does your graphics card have its own onboard memory or does it share with
main system memory. If it shares with main system memory, this is likely
the issue. Under that circumstance there's no amount of main system memory
you can allocate to graphics to resolve the issue because you would be
stealing from other memory necessary to run the game. You would need a
graphics card with its own onboard memory and since you are a gamer, no less
than 128MB of ram on the card.

If you already have a card with plenty of its own memory, check the
following:
First, be sure your antivirus software has the latest definitions and run a
virus scan.

Second, download, install and run Ad Aware:
www.lavasoftusa.com
Note: you should always be well backed up before running an application of
this type.

If your system is clear of viruses, open Control Panel, open System, go to
the Advanced tab, click Settings under Startup and Recovery, remove the
check from "Automatically Restart" under System Failure. This will cause
the system to blue screen instead of restarting on errors and the
information on the blue screen may give a clue as to the source of the
issue.

Open Control Panel, open Administrative Tools, open Event Viewer, look for
errors corresponding to the crash, double click the error, the information
contained within may give a clue as to the
source of the problem.

Assuming you have an XP CD and not a recovery CD, place the XP CD in the
drive, when the setup screen appears, select "Check System Compatibility,"
the report it generates may point to problem hardware or software on your
system. If you do not have an XP CD, you can download this application
known as the Upgrade Advisor from the following site:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/howtobuy/upgrading/advisor.asp
Note: If you have access to a broadband connection it might be best to
download using that as this is a rather large download.

Check for the latest drivers for your hardware, especially your graphics
card and soundcard and all peripherals connected to your system. Do not use
Windows Update for this, go to the device manufacturer's web sites and if
you install updated drivers, ignore the message about drivers being unsigned
by Microsoft.

 

[Jym]

You have mentioned that you have run a memory scan , but are you sure that
you have high quality name brand memory? I haven't heard of very many memory
tests that actually have found bad memory. Jym

 

[Michael Solomon \(MS-MVP Windows Shell/User\)]

There's something wrong, event viewer should show every crash. You should
be seeing errors if you're crashing. Do you check all three sections of the
viewer, application, security and system?

Are you overclocking, that can cause crashing. Is your system well
ventilated, heat can cause the system to crash.

Did you run the system compatibility check?