System Freezing

[The Jackal]

Hi,

I have an athlon 2400 on a 746FX motherboard... My System freezes when playing games for about 20seconds, then contiinues. While playing, my CPU temperature hits about 62 degress. I have a geForce4 TI4600 and have installed all the latest drivers bios etc.. Can anyone help?

Thanks
J

 

[1nteger]

A few questions...

When it 'freezes', does the mouse freeze too, or just the game?

Does it happen when you play any game or just one in particular?

If only one, what game is it and what graphics settings have you enabled?

What OS are you running?

Have you checked that the game is able to run on that OS? (For example, Star Wars Racer won't work in Win2K and you need to patch it for XP...etc)

Does the system freeze with any other applications ?

What heatsink and fan do you have installed?

Have you overclocked anything - cpu or vid card?

How much ram do you have installed and what type?

Next time it crashes...do a CTRL+ALT+DEL and see what comes up as 'not responding'.

This will give us a starting point...:spin:

 

[The Jackal]

Hi,

thanks for the reply. I am using Windows XP Pro. The whole PC stops responding. I have a Glacier Igloo Silent Breeze fan.

Incidently, I was using a collermaster, and when I replaced the fan, I had to reset the bios (shorting a jumper) as the PC would not boot... Seemed a bit strange. It is since then that Ihave been having problems. The MSI monitor reports my temperature as between 60 and 62 when playing games, which I have been led to believe is acceptable.

I have no problems at all unless game playing.. Problems with Both UT2003 and TombRaider AOD..

My Vcc3 voltage, has dropped as low as 3.12, but this is not always this low during the freezes.

I have not overclocked any hardware, and curently have 512MB generic DDR333 ram.

Thanks
J

 

[Ian]

Try going in to the BIOS and make sure you have selected the "Optimised Defaults" or other similar setting from the BIOS menu.

One thing to check is if your motherboard has a system heath monitor on it - basically giving you a warning if your CPU goes above a certain temperature.

I cant think of any reason why your PC would not initially boot, unless your fan wasn't actually working - I had a soltek board that did that.

Anyway... go into your BIOS and set the optimised defaults, and then try playing with the CPU warning temperature settings, set them as high as possible for now and see what happens.

 

[The Jackal]

Thanks..I'll try changing to optimised defaults... However, my bios doesn't contain any type of temperature warnings - just sensors.. I have set the warning on PCAlert4 to 64 degress, however, it never gets above 62 (that I have seen)

 

[muckshifter]

Is this the 'ECS L7S7A' or 'Iwill K7S2' MB?

Are you sure you have installed the SIS chipset drivers?


In my opinion 60 degrees is hot, not necessary harmful, but hot.

 

[1nteger]

Originally posted by The Jackal
...my bios doesn't contain any type of temperature warnings - just sensors.. I have set the warning on PCAlert4 to 64 degress, however, it never gets above 62 (that I have seen)

Perhaps it's getting hotter than you think and by the time u get out of the game and into bios the temp has dropped a little - it can fall quite rapidly, especially when processing drops from full load to almost zero (i.e. when u leave a game or it freezes and no further processing is going on).

It could be creeping into the 64 area, triggering the PCAlert warning and the warning is causing the game to freeze...try setting the warning a little higher...say, 70C and see if the game plays a little longer before it freezes. If it does than u may well have an overheating problem - hsf not fitted correctly, fan not working etc.

...or I could be totally mad to even suggest this:crazy:

 

[The Jackal]

Guys,

I reset the bios to optimized defaults as suggested by Ian. My PC then failed to boot into windows...

Since then I have repaired XP using the CD, and everying appears to be fine... I've been playing UT for 2 hrs with no problems so fingers crossed..

I think I will invest in a case fan and maybe a new PSU soon

I am new to this forum, but would just like to say I will be using it more often now. Thanyou all for your help and assistance.

J

 

[Ian]

Its odd that Windows XP failed to boot afterwards, usually if it does that going in to safe mode to sort out the changed driver problems works

Turns out it was a blessing in disguise though if it works now Congrats!

 

[The Jackal]

I know.. I thought it was strange also... Safe mode or last know good not working...

Ahh well - Im up and running now.. Again, thanks for everyones help.

J