Galloglach

Hey,


I'm sorry to make my 1st post a plea for help, and a long one at that, but I've been tearing my hair out with this problem for a month or two now at least. When running applications like CoD 4 and Medieval 2 TW Kingdoms after a length of time the computer freezes totally - and the sound begins to loop & stutter horribly. If I leave it in this state and come back much later I'll just have a black screen. Basically, the only way to return functionality after the freeze / sound loop is to physically switch the power off and then back on. The freezing itself doesn't appear to be triggered in any specific way ( as far as I can tell) since it happens at completely random intervals. It could happen within 40 minutes of starting a campaign in M2TW, or I could leave the game running for 2 days and come back to find it was still running without problem.

And, Although I haven't been able to re-test this theory recently because I haven't re-installed more than a handful of games, it would appear that only certain games produce this effect - Team Fortress 2 for example has never crashed in this way on me.

I've done everything I can think of to try and find out what is going on, but still haven't had any luck. I've formatted the HDDs and re-installed the OS several times, upon doing this I've put the bare minimum of programs back on here so as not to complicate things. There are no non-Microsoft services running from Startup - and some of the more contentious Windows services like Search Indexing have been disabled too. I've made sure my drivers were up to date - and have tried both WHQL and beta Nvidia Vga drivers which appears to make no difference. I've disabled both Punkbuster Services from startup in case the memory leak issue was my problem, but I'm still getting the same thing even when the services are inactive and when my router is completely unplugged. I've installed all the relevant Windows Hotfixes for Nvidia gpus ( aside from the SLI ones of course) and the one for memory usage too. I also ran Memtest 86+ for about 26 hours but that came back with zero errors.


Furthermore, I've tried to watch the temperatures of core components, which never go above 40 degrees C even under load. All components are at stock speeds too. In fact, I've even had the computer taken back to the supplier for 'technical support' but all they deemed to do was increase the voltage of the memory modules - which I had already done at any rate. I don't know what else to do at this stage, other than either hit it repeatedly with a blunt object, or buy an oem copy of XP Pro and see if installing that will solve the problem?



This is what is in the computer :


OS- Windows Vista Ultimate x86

Motherboard - Asus Striker Extreme ( LGA 775, chipset is nforce 680i sli)

Gpu - 8800 GTX - 768mb ( XFX)

Cpu- Intel QX6850

Ram - Crucial DDDr2 PC6400 800mhz Ballistix ( 2x 1024mb)

Main drive is 400 GB 7200 rpm ( both drives are Sata II and I'm not using Raid)

Secondary drive is 10,000 rpm WD Raptor




I could also include a Dxdiag if that would help ?


Any suggestions / ideas would be greatly appreciated - and my thanks to anyone who read through this.

Zelig

What model power supply and sound card do you have?

And since you didn't mention it, I'm assuming you aren't getting video artifacts in games?

edit:

And you aren't getting problems outside of games?

Is this computer new? ie. You weren't running any other OS before that copy of Vista?

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Zardon

what power supply are you using, whats the rails under load?

Galloglach

Whoops, sorry for not mentioning it before. The power supply is an 1100w Tagan (TG1100-u6). And as for the sound, as far as I'm aware it is just the onboard audio ( the only references to audio components I can find simply state - 'HD Audio Device' which I guess isn't very helpful.

I haven't noticed any artifacts at all, and yes the computer has only had Vista installed on it and nothing else before that.





Zardon, do you mean voltage readings for the components or have I misunderstood you ? I have a list of current component Voltages displayed from PC Probe if that's what you want me to post ?

Al_Vampyre

Mmmm, an 1100W Tagan should easily power that lot, I'm wondering if its the memory, try running Memtest and see if its stable.

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"Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad" - Brian O'Driscoll - Ireland Rugby Team 2009 Grand Slam winning Captain.

Galloglach

I've run it a few times over the last few weeks for about 12 hours on average. I let it run for about 26 hours a few days ago though, but it still didn't turn up any errors.

cozumel

I think he meant to check the output from each rail of the PSU under load with a multimeter to confirm that PSU is operating correctly.

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kris23

ok, heres the final test determining whether you get a new motherboard or not. download Orthos and run as many instances as needed to fully stress your system. (i run 2 to get all 4Gb of my RAM)

Download Stress Prime 2004 BETA

run Blend, if you get errors, make sure it isnt your RAM by running Small FFTs, if you get errors then, then its most likely your RAM.

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Tipstaff

My first thought is that it's the RAM. Most of the issues I've ever had with that board has been related to either ram issues (such as improperly detected timings or voltage), driver issues, or Asus just screwing things up via their damn Extreme Tweaker crap. There's also things like not being able to run 4GB of DDR2-800 ram without either tweaking the ram voltage, or decreasing the speed of the ram to 667, not being able to use Asus NOS with other tweaking utilities such as nVidias nView.. just odd stupid things.

Here's some suggestions to try:

- Find out the exact timings of your ram (CAS and so fourth), and make sure that the bios is not pushing the ram beyond that. If it is, set it manually.

- Try running your ram at a lower speed. I've noticed that the board usually runs better on DDR2 667Mhz ram than it does 800mhz ram.

- Be sure that you are running the latest bios for your board.

- Speaking of the bios, give these settings a try until you can sort things out: "AI Tuning" to Standard, "Overclock Options" to disabled, "Intel SpeedStep" to disabled, "Enhanced Intel SpeedStep Tech" to disabled (yes, you are reading this right.. it's in there twice! Dumb ass Asus!), "Nvidia GPU Ex" to disabled, and lastly, be sure that "Plug and Play OS" is set to yes.

- Don't use Asus NOS. If it's installed, remove it. Hell, don't use any of the Extreme Tweaker tools for that matter until you can get this issue resolved. Especially the ones in the bios (as I mentioned earlier).

- Be sure that you are using the latest sound, chipset, and graphics drivers. Preferably the ones of the manufacturers site, and not the ones of Asus' site. The hardest driver to find will be the ADI driver (specifically, it's the SoundMax ADI 1988b, listed as the SupremeFX) as SoundMax doesn't put their drivers up on the net. Instead, they rely on the manufacturers that use their chips to do so. Your best bet in this regards is to look at other boards, even ones from other manufacturers that use this chip, see if their drivers are more current, and try them out.

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Galloglach

Thanks for all the suggestions,





My current bios revision has been the most up-to-date for a long time, but I've noticed that a more current version has been released recently. Apparently all that has been changed though is 'increased compatability with X-fi sound cards', so, I don't know whether to risk flashing the bios when I'm not sure whether it'll help me with my problem or not ?
As for settings in the bios, Nvidia GPU Ex is disabled, so are Enhanced Intel SpeedStep Tech and Intel SpeedStep. Overlock Options is set to disabled. Actually, the only setting that wasn't already as you described was 'Plug and Play OS' which was set to no and I've now turned that to yes. Also, I don't have any tweaking utilities installed on this computer, Asus, Nvidia or otherwise - and NOS is not enabled in the bios.


You're right about finding it difficult to get the sound driver - the results are so thin on the ground that Google even throws up this thread on the second or third page of any search . The Asus website seems to be the only easily accessible location for any recent drivers - as most of the other motherboards with the same onboard sound appear to be manufacutred by Asus as well.


with regard to Ram timings, the specifications I can find all list timings of 4-4-4-12 but the bios settings are not using lower latencies than that - quite the converse in fact. At present they're set at 5-5-5-15 and appear to be even more lax when the bios is allowed to automatically set them. I did have the speed lowered to 667mhz a while ago but if I remember rightly it didn't solve the problem - though it might have lowered the frequency of the crashing. I'll probably try that again tomorrow and see what happens)


I do have two gigs of Corsair 400mhz Pc3200 sitting right here, from a previous computer, I could swap in to see if it makes any difference ? Or, is the difference in specifications to current DDR2 ram too great to reliably discern anything ?




EDIT :


Downclocked the memory to 667mhz but same problem is still persisting & also downloaded and ran Prime for around 35 hours but with 0 errors. Any new ideas ?

Galloglach

Sorry to bump this thread , but I still haven't been able to solve this problem yet. Seems like I'm going round in circles trying to figure out what is going on - and it's really starting to chip away at my sanity I've been told by the retailer that they can't rule out the 'possibility of it being a driver problem' - but I'm loathed to accept that given the nature of the crashing as described above - I'm tempted to take Vista off and install Xp instead to call their bluff on it ( but I suppose that would either involve buying a copy of xp since all of mine are oem, or 'downgrading' my Vista to xp. Speaking of which, does anyone know whether this is reversible or not ? i.e. if I downgrade to an xp installation with my Vista Ultimate cd-key, can I still legally put Vista back on there later with the same cd-key at a later date ? )


Any further ideas would be greatly appreciated.

ChaosMinionX

Rather than Orthos, most of the community has shifted to using Prime95 Download Prime95 25.5 - A program designed to be used to find Mersenne Prime numbers. - Softpedia

for the stress testing, as it has more options than Orthos, also it supports multithreaded stress tests for processors with more than 1 core, as well as full support of quad/8core and beyond.

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PangingJr

you can also browse this FTP for all released of Prime95's (and mprime/sprime's for some unix like OS's)

ftp://mersenne.org/gimps/

25.6 is the latest version of Prime95's

Tril

What's the exact model name of the RAM? It's probably one of the following :

BL2KIT12864AA804
BL2KIT12864AL804

They are 2.2V RAM. If you run RAM at a voltage lower than what they are rated for, your computer might freeze for no apparent reason.

I learned this last week when I built my new computer. My new built uses DDR3 RAM. DDR3 standard voltage is 1.5V but my RAM is rated at 1.8V. The computer was randomly freezing in Vista x64 until I manually set the RAM voltage to 1.8V in the bios.

Galloglach

After retrying all the aforementioned tests for cpu and memory exhaustively but getting no closer to finding out what was going on, I decided to re-install xp and 'downgrade' from Vista to see if the Vista Drivers for my hardware ( as the retailer's support had suggested was likely) were the cause of the problem.


So, after a few excruciating hours on the phone with Microsoft, I was able to get xp activated on this machine. All I put on it was the relevant vga, chipset, ethernet & sound drivers for xp, security updates for windows, and some of the games that had been freezing on Vista.


Unfortunately, the exact same thing has continued to happen - and to my surprise, I just had a total lockup occur on the desktop as well. While Vista would have been a nice scapegoat for what was going on, evidently that isn't the problem either - so I'm right back to where I started from - but now just with a slightly less ostentatious looking Desktop

thenewguy001

At least you know it's not a OS/driver/malware problem now.

I had to diagnose the exact same problems with my PC a while back, freezing/restarts at desktop and in the middle of games. It turned out I had 2 separate problems.

1. Failing PSU. Memtest86+ would not detect RAM problems because it did not tax the system. Running a windows based ram test (MemTest: RAM reliability tester for Windows) did find tons of errors. Seeing how the errors were only happening when the system was running in a more intensive environment, I suspected the PSU and I was right. Replacing the PSU fixed all problems with freezing, and I was able to run prime95 and memtest with no problems

2. freezing in games. Turns out my GPU was also dying. I had to run artifact scan in ATI Tool (ATITool - Overclocking utility for ATI and NVIDIA cards) for at least 10-20 minutes before artifacts started appearing and then system lockup/restart happened. Underclocking the card by 50% helped stability somewhat, but I wouldn't use it for any intensive 3D applications anymore.

I hope this helps you out.

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Oh I'm sorry, the correct answer is "naggers". "Naggers".

Tipstaff

Actually, that's not quite the case. While it looks more to be a hardware issue, there is still the possibility of it being driver related. Remember, the problem reoccurred after things were installed. It would be better to redo XP, and leave it alone for a while without installing drivers. Then, if stable, reinstall the drivers, and leave it alone again. If stable, install an antivirus software, download the updates for Windows, and leave it alone for a while. The idea in all of this is to get to the point of it crashing again step by step until you find out the culprit. This is, however, very time consuming.

BTW, it just dawned on me, but nobody (including myself) has gotten you check to make sure that the CPU cooler is installed properly. It's been my experience that people tend to install the cooler on the Intel 775 based processors incorrectly, and either the cooler pops off, or isn't actually fasten down in one corner. Hard lockups can occur for any number of reasons, overheating being one of them, so this is something to look at (and I still can't believe I didn't mention it before). You need to make sure that all the fastener pins are in the wholes, and that metal around the pins at the bottom is flush, or almost flush with the motherboard. If you are unsure if it's secure, while it's time consuming it's best to remove the board so that you can check the backside of the board to see that the pins are infact in, and secure.

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kmonica

I have very simiarl specs to yours and was getting same problem while playing sims 2. new video drivers seemed to fix the problem for me.

Galloglach

I am writing this post tentatively, but the longer I go without a crash, the more hopeful I am becoming that I have finally gotten to the bottom of the issue.



Over the last month or so I've tried almost everything imaginable to try and fix the problem. At the beginning of this week, after exhaustively rerunning all of the stress tests & memory tests without any clue as to what was going wrong, I was about to give up completely on ever finding out what was causing the freezing, when I stumbled upon a post on the Nvidia forums from a user who professed to have had similar crashing on an 8800 ( the specific description of the crashing was not exactly the same, but it did mention looping sound so I thought I might as well try the solution he proposed.)



According to his post, what had removed the crashing for him was to install the 'NvStrap' driver in Rivatuner - and force off both ' AGP Sideband Addressing' and 'AGP Fastwrites Support'. Amazingly, after doing this, I was able to run a huge siege on M2TW with all settings maxed out @ 1920x1200 ( which is more graphically strenuous than I'd run under normal conditions) for 60 + hours without a single hiccup. I then repeated the same thing just to make sure it wasn't coincidental and I haven't had a single crash in around a week since making the changes.



Quite frankly, my knowledge of the two settings I have disabled is nonexistent, but what I could glean from Google seemed to suggest that they are largely unnecessary and shouldn't do anything negative to my overall system performance. ( Anyone able to confirm this ? )



So, providing I don't need those two things enabled - or that the need to disable them points to a convalescent Gpu, I think the case might be closed at last





Thanks btw to everyone who posted in here & put up the links to prime etc

MitchRapp

ahh see! don't blame Vista, blame nVidia for not making sure their drivers work 100%

Tipstaff

WTH? No way, man. I would never have guessed it. Not in a million freaking years. I mean, how would turning off "AGP Side Band Addressing", and "AGP Fast Writes Support" fix a problem with a PCIE system? I never would have even considered that given that neither of those options should obviously be running on a PCIE card. Something is definitely not right here.

Thanks for updating us on this, Galloglach. I'll have to keep an eye out for this one.

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