Help! Pc locks up, or shuts off. why???

T

thebeingwithin

the system
Intel P4 2.8 Gh
MSI PX8 neo-v socket 478 p4x53
756 DD
sapphire radeon x1600 pro 256 ag
maxtor 160 G hd 7200rps (only 1/8 full

the symptoms
pc freezes, locks up, or just shuts off durring game play. It happen
with Neverwinter Nights, Dungeon siege 1, and Fable. sometimes th
monitor shuts off while the pc continues to stay powered up.

*when the pc freezes there is a "working sound" comming fro
the HD. it's like it is searching for something but not finding it.

my attempts to fix
i have reformatted the HD
replace my radeon 9200 with the x1600
run the games on a lower setting

any ideas or suggestions
 
S

Sean Cousins

the system:
Intel P4 2.8 Ghz
MSI PX8 neo-v socket 478 p4x533
756 DDR
sapphire radeon x1600 pro 256 agp
maxtor 160 G hd 7200rps (only 1/8 full)

the symptoms:
pc freezes, locks up, or just shuts off durring game play. It happens
with Neverwinter Nights, Dungeon siege 1, and Fable. sometimes the
monitor shuts off while the pc continues to stay powered up.

*when the pc freezes there is a "working sound" comming from
the HD. it's like it is searching for something but not finding it.


my attempts to fix:
i have reformatted the HD.
replace my radeon 9200 with the x1600.
run the games on a lower setting.

any ideas or suggestions?
Click to expand...

Sounds like you need a better power supply.
 
M

Michael

First course of action in cases of freezing or lockup should be to test
memory using memtest. Give it time to run multiple passes (like
overnight). Usually seemed to be the problem with my sons system with
lockups during games.
 
D

dawg

Guys?What about drivers?Anyone think of that?Find the latest drivers
including Audio,video,motherboard and NIC if needed. And,re-install DirectX9
after that. If you still have problems,run memtest.See if that will run.
 
D

DaveW

Since the problem only happens when you are running a graphics -heavy load
(newer games) it sounds like either your PSU is underpowered for your
components, or more likely, you have a part thermally overheating such as
the graphics processing unit or your CPU.
 
T

testarn

thebeingwithin said:
MSI PX8 neo-v socket 478 p4x533
sapphire radeon x1600 pro 256 agp

the symptoms:
pc freezes, locks up, or just shuts off durring game play. It happens
Click to expand...

This seems to happen often with the combination nForce4 mobo and x1600
cards, but yours seems to have a VIA chip. There is a long thread about
this in the Sapphire Troubleshooting forum.

http://www.sapphiretech.com/en/forums/showthread.php?t=1394

A common (but not so fun) solution is to lower the memory frequencies
of the card by half. You can do this with

http://www.techpowerup.com/atitool/

Hopefully, new drivers and bios updates will fix this soon.
 
C

Carlos

thebeingwithin wrote:

sometimes the
monitor shuts off while the pc continues to stay powered up.
Click to expand...

I assume you mean the video signal to the monitor, not the actual
monitor itself, right?
 
T

thebeingwithin

I assume you mean the video signal to the monitor, not the actual
monitor itself, right
Click to expand...
yes just the signal

i ran the memtest and after say... 1 whole second i got error message
out the wazoo. they were comming up so quickly that i had t
transform into Neo for a moment to press the abort button betwee
messages. i have just downloaded a second memory tester to get
second opinion. since if my ram had so many problems so quickly
don't konw how i have been running anything else.

thank you all for all your help and i will let you know what turns up
 
J

JAD

If your PSU is not delivering the proper voltage OR your MB memory
controller is failing/over heating can cause errors. Software diagnostics in
the 'suspect' machine should not be used as the final test in figuring bad
memory as the cause of bad/no boot. The modules should be taken out and at
least tested in a known good configuration, or hardware tested at the local
geek shop. The software 'may' be right and your getting the 2nd opinion is a
good thing too, however I don't think that IF the memory is that bad, you
would get past the bios memtest or even boot to windows. MO, software
diagnostics in a bad environment is less than accurate.
 
T

thebeingwithin

once again thank all of you for your input.

one of my ram sticks was shot all to crap. i simply removed one an
when the system worked i tried to start it up with the other one an
it wouldn't do a thing. it just so happened that the bad stick wa
in my #2 socket and i guess the pc did fine till it tried to acces
that portion of the ram. i've been running it without that stick fo
a couple of days now and it seems to be fine.

thanks agai
 
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