CDsDontBurn

The first machine simply locks up in MOST games. Games like Black & White 2, Guild Wars, and ut2k4 are some of the games that this happens on. Older games, such as Star Craft, Diablo II, Warcraft III, and this online game called Ragnarok all work fine.

System specs:
Athlon xp2400+
1Gb Corsair XMS XL (2x512Mb)
MSI KT333 MoBo (via333 chipset)
BBA Radeon 8500 128Mb gfx card (non-LE)
Sound Blaster sound card
D-Link Xtreme G 108 wireless card
520w Athena PSU
Has been a while since last format

The second machine acts up in some games like Fable and Max Payne. Fable what happens there is that the game doesn't want to save. The game has already been installed several times. In Max Payne it just causes the machine to restart after no more than 5 min. of game play. Every once in a blue moon, WMP will cause the system to lock up. Warcraft III, Doom 3 work fine w/o any issues.

System specs:
Athlong xp2400+
1Gb Corsair Value (2x512Mb)
Biostar (i forget model) via266 chipset
BBA Radeon 9200
485 Enermax Noistaker
Machine has been recently formatted

On both machines, i've already ran prime95, memtest86, and PCmark04 (looping). Each of these tests come back solid w/no failures on both machines. On both machines i thought it was a memory issue at first because of the issues occuring, so i changed the RAM to known working RAM, but the issue persists on both machines. After I changed the RAM, they still occurred so now i don't know what it could be...

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Dyre Straits

Just out of curiosity: Are both machines in the same room and plugged into the same outlet? If so, try plugging them into outlets on different circuits.

OR, turn off other devices that are on that same circuit to see if there's an undervoltage to the machine/s.

Also, are these plugged into a UPS and/or surge protector? If you have too much on a UPS it can cause the machines to shut off if the UPS gets an overdrain.

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CDsDontBurn

No, these computers are not even in the same house, lol. they are however both on a surge protector, not a UPS.

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Dyre Straits

Well, that shoots that theory all to smithereens! LOL

The main thing that got my attention is the possibility of low voltage.

How long since the HDDs have been error checked and defragged?

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CDsDontBurn

the recently formatted one was like about a week ago, the not so recently formatted one......well.......lol.

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H3X4D3C1M4L

Do you have a 120V multimeter by any chance? It might be likely the local utility dropped the voltage a little which can screw with non active PFC power supplies a little

CDsDontBurn

both PSUs support active PFC. My friend w/the Biostar MoBo computer recently moved, and the issues were happening before she moved.

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Dowaco

If it is just 3D games then maybe it is video drivers. Instead of using the newest, try older ones more in line with the hardware and the time those games came out.

CDsDontBurn

Both machines are using the CAT 6.3 drivers. This issue has been happening on both machines on older drivers as well.

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swimtech

Yeah, reading this I was thinking drivers too, but no...

Any backround apps set to run at startup on these machines (Antivirus, IM programs, etc...) - especially those that require any network access?

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It's not so much getting your way that matters or not - what matters is how you go about getting it.

CDsDontBurn

on the one w/the MSI board, it might be the anti-virus causing that. that i know of, i've never dsabled the anti-virus proggy. The machine w/the biostar MoBo ATM does not have any internet access, so my friend opted out of having anti-virus software installed. before when she did have anti-virus software installed, it would still cause these issues. i brought her computer over to my place to just basically get all the windows updates installed and to have her copy of windows activated. aside from that brief 30min. online encounter, the machine has never been online since it was last reformatted.

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swimtech

Well, the next thing I would try is installing the latest stable chipset drivers from VIA for those mainboards - those were wiped out on the one machine when you formatted and installed. Could help if you haven't already tried that... Note that the latest chipset drivers might not be the ones you'll want to use for the respective chipsets though - but I honestly don't know which versions of the chipset drivers (Hyperion...) to suggest - I'd have to research...

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It's not so much getting your way that matters or not - what matters is how you go about getting it.

CDsDontBurn

on the biostar machine board, it has the latest chipset drivers installed. and when i checked, those drivers were a bit dated. i wouldn't be surprised if the same were true for the MSI machine board.

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swimtech

Well durn - I feel your frustration...

The first machine might deserve a "cleaning" or formatting, and some research on interactions with the Sound Blaster drivers maybe... The second machine (intermittents are a bummer, eh?), you may actually want to try a video driver update next...

I'm off to bed CD - I'll be around over the holidays though on and off...

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It's not so much getting your way that matters or not - what matters is how you go about getting it.

CDsDontBurn

Well, both cards are older radeon cards. I believe the CAT 6.3s are the last drivers that supported those cards. The machine w/the MSI board, my sister doesn't like it when i format her computer, so i try not to. I just make sure everything is working as best as possible, which for the most part it is, aside from this video game issue.

My friend's computer has gone through several different formats, like i said earlier, and still these random issue continue. After having all kinds of tests run on both machines, i'm beginning to belive it's a MoBo issue specifically.

I can swap the CPUs between both machines, but that would prove nothing if the issues persist on both since the processors are the same, the RAM has been changed w/known working RAM, the gfx cards are not giving any kind of video errors, such as artifacting or causing the system to lock up in games, when the games work of course), and i'm not going to shell out money on a socket A board....I plan on upgrading both machines, the MSI machine first (probably be done by x-mas as i'm piecing it together), and the Biostar machine within the next 6 months or so. I just want the machine to be game stable until they are upgraded.

Bah! so frustrating! lol.

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H3X4D3C1M4L

Does she want a working computer or for you to not reformat it?

The choice, presented like that, may become clear

CDsDontBurn

She wants a working computer that does not need to be reformatted.....a bit of a pickle it is for her, especially since she's the one needing to deal with it

As for the other computer, last night i was playing Doom 3 on it, and even that was acting up. I was playing fine for about an hour on it, and then all of a sudden the system locked up. so i reset the machine, and loaded the game back up, but after that, it would keep giving the, "program has stopped responding. would you like to send an error report to microsoft?" window. This was happening repeatedly. At that point i got fed up and loaded up freelancer. That game worked fine for a bit, and then that game acted weird on me. The game kept working fine except that the keyboard and mouse no longer responded to any commands. That in itself was weird.

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H3X4D3C1M4L

I might be acting like a little bit of a captain obvious here but have you thoroughly dusted the machines out by taking everything apart, cleaning it, then putting it back together? For the 2nd machine that was moved it could be something a twinge loose causing the issue and for you it could be the same if you knocked your system unit, say while engaging in some stimulating gameplay.

CDsDontBurn

Aye Aye Captain Obvious! . Yes, my sister's machine has been throughly dusted fairly recently....like two weeks ago.

My friend's machine has everything securely placed. When i had the machine in my possession i also dusted it out and made sure nothing was loos inside the machine. And no, it wasn't knocked over during stimulating gameplay because no stimulating gameplay has ever taken place.

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Judas

Update bios.

Unplug all unnessary drives and extra components (USB plugged in devices, network cards, disable what you can and run on bearminimums.. even tear the cards out of the computer so they aren't drawing on it)..

Disabled all startup fuctions completely.

run the test and if it fails with CPU/Motherboard/HD/RAM/Video card only running, then something is definitely wrong either with the windows install or with the hardware somewhere..

Download memtest86 latest version and run a good thorough (at least 30 minute or more) test. Usually series memory or even CPU memory bus will show instant errors on the screen. If they are random and never always the same, that usually indicates a problem with the MEMORY bus and not the memory, if it's the memory, usually it'll fail every time on the same test at the same location (example would be AT blocks 87mb (estimate) every single time)


If memtest passes, load up windows again and run a CPU burn in and see if the computer restarts then. If not, i'd load up various 3D apps and figure out which crash and which don't, and what there differences are.

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CDsDontBurn

I've done all that, except for the part where you say to remove all unecessary components. That's only on my sister's machine as she has a printer, sound card, and WLAN card installed. The other machine only has the gfx card and that's it.

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Judas

Well if you've gone that far, i'd investigate heat issues possibly, is the heatsink on the CPU all sitting pretty?

I've ran into some machines where the cpu wasn't overheating, but had "hot spots" which would cause crashes and lockups. What i did was yank off the heatsink and found that the thermal paste wasn't really evenly spread across the cpu, and in 1 case, it had actually gotten so on the surface it turned it a greenish-blue-purple kinda colors in 2 small spots on the die. (with current cpu's with heat spreaders, this usually isn't the case anymore but it would be worth a look)..

Try wiping and reapplying.

Really aside from that, i'm somewhat outa possible ideas. I've had a few windows installations just go bad for no apparent reason.... just a bad install.. it happens... worth a shot there as well.

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swimtech

On your sister's machine, was thinking that the video card might be having a heat problem (it's an 8500DV right?) - they run relatively 'hot' anyway. You could swap the 9200 from the other 'puter as a check...

The second machine, the one you were playing Doom3 on and gave you the keyboard and mouse problem, is 'feeling' like a mainboard problem unless what Judas just posted with the CPU/heat sink possibility works...

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It's not so much getting your way that matters or not - what matters is how you go about getting it.

CDsDontBurn

on my sister's machine (MSI board), it might be just a format that the computer is asking for. But she is too whiney about it and doesn't want me to do one, so i tell her to just deal w/the problem. The HSF is a Vantec Aeroflow, which IMO is pretty decent. Better than the stock HSF that came w/the socket A CPUs.

on my friend's machine (Biostar board), there have been many different formats on that machine and the problem has persisted on each format. It might be a heat related issue because the HSF is some dinky little thing that i think barely meets the OEM HSF requirements of the xp2400. The only one that would be worthy that is still available would be the Zalman CNPS7000b

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CDsDontBurn

My sister's machine is a standard 128Mb 8500 (non-LE, nothing after the 8500, clock speeds of 250/250...it was the "good one" back in the day).

On my friend's machine, that's what i'm thinking that it's a MoBo problem, but i'm also thinking a heat issue because of the cheapy HSF it has installed right now on the CPU.

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misguided

Definitely agree with Judas's first suggestions,

I don't believe that 485 or higher PSUs have that much problem running devices. I run a 500 watt PSU and it has to power up a DVD/CD burner, a CD burner, a flash card reader, a floppy, a 200gb and a 250 gb eidie hard drives plus 2 - 250gb serial hard drives, a ATI 1600xt AGP card, Creative Audigy 2 Soundcard, Hauppage 350 Capture Card, and a USB/1394 Combo card plus extra fans, and and large Zalman cooler. It never faulters and the cooler was not really needed but does bring the temps down a bit.

however if its not a heat problem it may be driver conflicts or too many processes running in the background.

My wife's computer has nothing but problems with games and its due to Logitech's wireless keyboard and mouse software. Windows updates screws up their software something terrible and by the time all updates are current, keystroke performance is pretty much a no show. The regular wired keyboard previously never had a gliche.

I would start by disabling services you don't need one at a time. I would also disable any imaging and printing devices if they are are not needed to see if there are conflicts there. Certain imaging or videocam software are notorious in older systems for locking up. Disable any screensavers and hibernation services.

You can always reenable everything again later.

The event manager is also useful if it is a driver or software problem. Easiest way to get there is by right-clicking "My Computer", expand Events, then look in the Applications and System for Warnings or Errors. You can also access Device Manager after you back out of Events if you want to try disabling some devices. For Processes I would put questionable ones on manual instead of automatic with the exception of the few system processes that are required by Windows.

as another thought__run a diskcheck on each hard drive from the tools section of the properties menu in My Computer.

After that, if there's still problems and you believe its the optical drives causing the problems try switching out data cables from the optical drives as a last resort. I had a co=worker's computer stop working without any previous indications and a simple cable change brought it back to life like it never happened. If this doesn't work, try switching out the optical drive(s) with known working units.

Hope some of this helps. Most problems are software or driver problems but hardware can also go bonkers on occassion too.

misguided

P.S. if these are online games that you are having problems with then disconnect your internet connection and try playing in singleplayer mode to eliminate internet traffic to see if this might be the cause.

Dyre Straits

CDs, take a close look at the motherboards with a flashlight.

Are any of the capacitors bulged and/or leaking?

My older daughter just has a mobo go bad and it was doing a lot of the same things you're describing. I noticed about 3 capacitors that were bulged. That's NEVER a good sign. If any of them are so, you either need to replace the mobo or, if you know how to solder very well, AND can get a hold of new capacitors, it's not that difficult to replace them. I salvaged an ABIT BE6-II about year ago doing that.

But, do make sure the capacitors are all in good shape and no leaking at all.

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PangingJr

if these 2 computers never had this same problem before? then you may want to ask both owners's to take a step back and ask him/herself when all of these problem start to show up.
unless you have already did and they haven't a clue... then i would suggest you to help them building the software system on the computer from ground up and then go from there. other than this i can't think of anything else new atm.

Judas

Older ABIT boards have a bad reputation of exploding capacitors... (and wow, man, some of the boards would run flawlessly still with the capacitor goop all over the board from 12+ capacitors blown).

Mine actually went POP loudly several times yet i could still use the computer without much of any stability issues.

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