system crashes AFTER playing a game. Help diagnosing.

[mechphisto]

I have a friend who recently built a new PC, and he's experiencing
this odd issue where the system will lock up and reboot itself any
time he exits from playing any decently hardware intensive game, like
"Battlefield 2" or later.

He has an AMD Athalon 64 X2,
POWERCOLOR 26XT512M/D3HDMI Radeon HD 2600XT 512MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI
Express x16,
GIGABYTE GA-M61P-S3 AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 6100 ATX AMD Motherboard
2GB or DDR2 RAM.
Every calculator I've used says he needs 350-420 watt PSU, he has a
520 watt.

I've watched his temps via the mobo software, Speedfan, and other
programs and they never climb very high. Even in the middle of a game,
after an hour, his CPU never gets above 50, his Northbridge sometimes
gets to 60 or 65 but usually 55-60, and his video card never gets
above 55 or 58C. So I don't think it's an over heating thing.

I've run memtest, drive tests (PartitionMagic, badblocks, checkdsk,
etc), video card hardware checkers, SiS Sandra, and everything seems
to say the hardware is fine.

We tried completely formatting and reinstalling Win XP Pro. tried the
default drivers, tried Windows update drivers, and tried Catalyst
drivers, and there's no change.

He never crashes IN the games and programs, just immediately upon
exiting them. No bluescreen, just reboots and auto-chkdsk's upon
bootup.
Any ideas what I should do or look into at this point?
Thanks for any advice!
-Liam

 

[Skybuck Flying]

Look at the minidumps in the windows folder.

Use tools for windows debugging, open the minidump, follow the tutorial and
you can see some driver names their.

Check out if drivers causing problems.

Monkey could do it

So you need special debugging tools download those.

Bye,
Skybuck

 

[Craig Coope]

I have a friend who recently built a new PC, and he's experiencing
this odd issue where the system will lock up and reboot itself any
time he exits from playing any decently hardware intensive game, like
"Battlefield 2" or later.

He has an AMD Athalon 64 X2,
POWERCOLOR 26XT512M/D3HDMI Radeon HD 2600XT 512MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI
Express x16,
GIGABYTE GA-M61P-S3 AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 6100 ATX AMD Motherboard
2GB or DDR2 RAM.
Every calculator I've used says he needs 350-420 watt PSU, he has a
520 watt.

I've watched his temps via the mobo software, Speedfan, and other
programs and they never climb very high. Even in the middle of a game,
after an hour, his CPU never gets above 50, his Northbridge sometimes
gets to 60 or 65 but usually 55-60, and his video card never gets
above 55 or 58C. So I don't think it's an over heating thing.

I've run memtest, drive tests (PartitionMagic, badblocks, checkdsk,
etc), video card hardware checkers, SiS Sandra, and everything seems
to say the hardware is fine.

We tried completely formatting and reinstalling Win XP Pro. tried the
default drivers, tried Windows update drivers, and tried Catalyst
drivers, and there's no change.

He never crashes IN the games and programs, just immediately upon
exiting them. No bluescreen, just reboots and auto-chkdsk's upon
bootup.
Any ideas what I should do or look into at this point?
Thanks for any advice!
-Liam

Make sure you have all the drivers installed for the motherboard

 

[Augustus]

Any ideas what I should do or look into at this point?

Thanks for any advice!
-Liam

Look for updated m/b drivers and install all first before anything else.
http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Support/Motherboard/Driver_Model.aspx?ProductID=2434
Given what you've done, I'd try a couple of things hardware wise. Even
thought the RAM appears to test OK, pull one stick and see if it persists.
If it does, swap it with the other stick and try with just the other. If the
issue is still there, swap out the videocard for another and see whether or
not it happens. I'd probably try the videocard first actually.

 

[First of One]

1) In Windows, go to System Properties -> Advanced tab -> Startup & Recovery
Settings button -> System Failure. Uncheck "Automatically restart".

2) Disable "VPU recover" from within Catalyst Control Center.

3) Try playing games at the same resolution and refresh rate as Windows
desktop.

 

[mechphisto]

Look at the minidumps in the windows folder.

Use tools for windows debugging, open the minidump, follow the tutorial and
you can see some driver names their.

Check out if drivers causing problems.

Monkey could do it

So you need special debugging tools download those.

Bye,
Skybuck

Thanks for the info!
OK, the minidump gives me an error that win32k.sys may be the problem.
Doing some research leads me to think the problem is RAM or OS.
I tried memtest86+, and all is fine. Swapping one stick out and the
other doesn't stop the problem.

I also found on a forum a suggestion the disabling Fast Write in the
BIOS has fixed the same problem I'm having! Unfortunately, that
option's not available in this BIOS. Is this something for just AGP
and not PCIx slots?

Thanks for the reply!
-Liam

 

[Augustus]

I also found on a forum a suggestion the disabling Fast Write in the

BIOS has fixed the same problem I'm having! Unfortunately, that
option's not available in this BIOS. Is this something for just AGP
and not PCIx slots?

Fast Write not relevant here. Did your friend install his OS on this system
after booting up with overclocked hardware? And, did you switch out and try
the card in another system or try another in this one?

 

[St]

I have a friend who recently built a new PC, and he's experiencing
this odd issue where the system will lock up and reboot itself any
time he exits from playing any decently hardware intensive game, like
"Battlefield 2" or later.

He has an AMD Athalon 64 X2,
POWERCOLOR 26XT512M/D3HDMI Radeon HD 2600XT 512MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI
Express x16,
GIGABYTE GA-M61P-S3 AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 6100 ATX AMD Motherboard
2GB or DDR2 RAM.
Every calculator I've used says he needs 350-420 watt PSU, he has a
520 watt.

I've watched his temps via the mobo software, Speedfan, and other
programs and they never climb very high. Even in the middle of a game,
after an hour, his CPU never gets above 50, his Northbridge sometimes
gets to 60 or 65 but usually 55-60, and his video card never gets
above 55 or 58C. So I don't think it's an over heating thing.

I've run memtest, drive tests (PartitionMagic, badblocks, checkdsk,
etc), video card hardware checkers, SiS Sandra, and everything seems
to say the hardware is fine.

We tried completely formatting and reinstalling Win XP Pro. tried the
default drivers, tried Windows update drivers, and tried Catalyst
drivers, and there's no change.

He never crashes IN the games and programs, just immediately upon
exiting them. No bluescreen, just reboots and auto-chkdsk's upon
bootup.
Any ideas what I should do or look into at this point?
Thanks for any advice!
-Liam

Had basiclly the same problem using a HD2400.. All went away after I tossed
it and put NVidia card in the machine... Drivers from ATI of late suck more
then they ever did.. and I ran ATI for over 12 years..

 

[mechphisto]

Fast Write not relevant here. Did your friend install his OS on this system
after booting up with overclocked hardware? And, did you switch out and try
the card in another system or try another in this one?

Yeah, Fast Write = AGP only. Darn; was hoping it'd be as easy as that.

No, we've done absolutely no over clocking. We used "optimized
settings" in the BIOS and haven't done anything with the ATI control
panel aside from trying to lower or turn off features.

Unfortunately, we don't have another PCIx machine (or video card) to
do any swapping of that kind.

I thought I finally got it working OK last night by turning off
everything unneeded in MSCONFIG. It'd run without locking up Explorer,
it ran a game for an hour without crashing when exiting.
But then he took the system home and suddenly it won't boot into
Windows (even safe mode), and when I try to use the Repair option in
the Windows boot CD (the install/repair, not the console repair),
repairing the existing OS isn't even an option! Just formatting and
installing. As if it's not even seeing an existing OS on the drive any
longer.

*sigh* This is suck a clusterf*k. I am SO getting rid of all
technology in my life after this (except indoor plumbing. And
refrigeration. And maybe my PS2....)

 

[Skybuck Flying]

Examine those minidumps a bit closer to see if any other drivers are
mentioned.

Also look at other minidump's.

Sometimes to wrong driver is indicated as the source of problems.

Later in the minidump the real driver might be mentioned.

So examine it closely and examine multiple minidumps if available

Look at what functions got called and try to figure out if the function is
part of some kind of driver.

Bye,
Skybuck.

 

[Dr.White]

I have a friend who recently built a new PC, and he's experiencing
this odd issue where the system will lock up and reboot itself any
time he exits from playing any decently hardware intensive game, like
"Battlefield 2" or later.

He has an AMD Athalon 64 X2,
POWERCOLOR 26XT512M/D3HDMI Radeon HD 2600XT 512MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI
Express x16,
GIGABYTE GA-M61P-S3 AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 6100 ATX AMD Motherboard
2GB or DDR2 RAM.
Every calculator I've used says he needs 350-420 watt PSU, he has a
520 watt.

I've watched his temps via the mobo software, Speedfan, and other
programs and they never climb very high. Even in the middle of a game,
after an hour, his CPU never gets above 50, his Northbridge sometimes
gets to 60 or 65 but usually 55-60, and his video card never gets
above 55 or 58C. So I don't think it's an over heating thing.

I've run memtest, drive tests (PartitionMagic, badblocks, checkdsk,
etc), video card hardware checkers, SiS Sandra, and everything seems
to say the hardware is fine.

We tried completely formatting and reinstalling Win XP Pro. tried the
default drivers, tried Windows update drivers, and tried Catalyst
drivers, and there's no change.

He never crashes IN the games and programs, just immediately upon
exiting them. No bluescreen, just reboots and auto-chkdsk's upon
bootup.
Any ideas what I should do or look into at this point?
Thanks for any advice!
-Liam

What about trying the computer just using the onboard Geforce 6100
graphics - which I presume you have already disabled in BIOS. The computer
should have been setup to ignore onboard graphics in BIOS before Windows was
installed.

If it shuts down even with the onboard graphics you can rule out the HD2600
as the culprit, at least.

Last shot in the dark - my computer used to reboot in certain points in
games and in Windows XP's device manager. Turned out to be a crappy old IDE
cable that the DVD drives were using - an old 40-core cable instead of the
recommended 80-core.

Dr.White.