Gaming and Crashing

[JoGal]

Hello,

I have been playing Starwars Galaxies online and periodically my monitor
will just go in to power save mode. I can still hear the game going through
the speakers but there is no way to get back to it except to hard reboot.
Once in a while it will actually come back to the desktop and then Microsoft
wants me to report what happened. My system has more than the requirements
for the game. I have made sure the video drivers are right, replaced the
power supply to 350 watts. I have 1 gig of memory and a GForce FX 5200
graphics card (disabled the onboard graphics). It is a P4 system. This is
a Gateway 500s.

I'm stumped, thought maybe it could be heat because I have added a second
hard drive, second cd r/w drive and the better graphics card. When I got
the new power supply it did help some (not happening as frequently) but it
hasn't stopped.

One more thing... does anyone know how to get the windowsxp Help and
Support. Even though I did a clean install of windows xp the help and
support is Gateway's Help Spot and I don't like it. I can not seem to track
issues with Microsoft like I used to.

Gosh I hope someone has some suggestions for me. This is a very annoying
thing!!

Thanks,

JoLyn

 

[Rich Barry]

I guess the simplest thing to do is to go to Control Panel>Power
Options>Hibernate and uncheck the
Enable Hibernation Box and in Power Schemes where it says Turn off
Monitor select Never. See if this
helps. You can use these settings only when you play games if it works.

 

[JoGal]

Hi Rich,

I already had Hibernate turned off but the monitor was set at 20 minutes.
That time doesn't seem to correlate with the crashes though. I did set it
to never and will see if that helps, maybe so!

Thanks,

JoLyn

 

[Quaoar]

Hello,

I have been playing Starwars Galaxies online and periodically my
monitor will just go in to power save mode. I can still hear the
game going through the speakers but there is no way to get back to it
except to hard reboot. Once in a while it will actually come back to
the desktop and then Microsoft wants me to report what happened. My
system has more than the requirements for the game. I have made sure
the video drivers are right, replaced the power supply to 350 watts.
I have 1 gig of memory and a GForce FX 5200 graphics card (disabled
the onboard graphics). It is a P4 system. This is a Gateway 500s.

I'm stumped, thought maybe it could be heat because I have added a
second hard drive, second cd r/w drive and the better graphics card.
When I got the new power supply it did help some (not happening as
frequently) but it hasn't stopped.

One more thing... does anyone know how to get the windowsxp Help and
Support. Even though I did a clean install of windows xp the help and
support is Gateway's Help Spot and I don't like it. I can not seem
to track issues with Microsoft like I used to.

Gosh I hope someone has some suggestions for me. This is a very
annoying thing!!

Thanks,

JoLyn

Go back to the heat issue. Make sure that the fans are actually
turning. I see many computers with fans that fail to start turning
automatically but will start by hand. Is the video card obstructed from
air flow, or does it have capability for adding a fan? Fans are cheap.
Move cables out of the way of air flow, gather up the excess and move
out of the way of moving air. Perhaps you need an additional case fan?
An overheated video card will do exactly as you experience.

Q

 

[JoGal]

Hi Q,

My video card has a little fan on it. Can you tell me if this fan should be
moving at all times, or just when it is needed. I have never actually seen
it move. I am going to check on the things that you suggested and it is
good to know that overheating can cause an issue like this. I will post
with what I find.

Thanks,

JoLyn

 

[JoGal]

Amazing! The little fan on my video card wasn't working. I moved it and it
started up with an awful grinding noise. Apparently it has never worked. I
have had it in since last September and just took it back to Fry's and the
exchanged it for me! I couldn't believe it!! So now I will see if this
puts an end to this issue, it should I think. And again thanks for getting
back to me. Now I know that the fans on video cards are supposed to run
continuously.

Thanks,

JoLyn