SN45G and Far Cry problem

[leopold]

My SN45G has never been the coolest-running system in the entire world, and during the hotter months (weeks!) of the year I've had to have the cover off and additional cooling applied in the shape of a 16 inch desk fan to stop the damn thing shutting down on me But enough of that... I cured that issue, sort of, by having the fan work at full tilt all the time, and this keeps the temps down to a low enough level to keep things going.

My problem is solely with running Far Cry, in which I get slowdowns, pauses (often over one minute), lockups, and then the dreaded overheat shutdown. this happens to me every time I play, and after 5 minutes maximum I'm unplugging the power lead to reset the overtemp circuit.

I don't get this problem with any other game at all - the odd drop in framerate is the worst that happens on most other games (ie Doom 3, NFSU2, Halo etc...) but I put this down to an ancient and overworked GPU.

My PC is an SN45G with these bits in it:
- Barton core XP2600
- 512Mb 400MHz RAM running at 333 as it locks the system at 400 (don't remember the brand, sorry)
- Gainward GeForce 4 ti4400
- Maxtor 120Gb 7200rpm HDD
- NEC ND1200A DVD +-RW

I've tried reseating the processor, adding Artic Silver III instead of the stock gunge, turning the system fan full on, upgrading the drivers for the GPU and chipset, upgrading the BIOS, dropping the video settings in Far Cry to the minimum, turning off antivirus, tweaking BIOS settngs... I even installed a slot fan to help remove warm air from the mobo, but this only had the effect of increasing the system temperature! Resorting to the case-off-deskfan-on method helps the system get past the initial instability, and then I can play the game reasonably well (albeit with occasional "Jerk-O-Vision") but it's hardly a solution.

I've run Sandra on the system and everything checked out fine.

I run MBM in the background perpetually, recording the temps to a log file every 30 seconds, and Far Cry doesn't send the temperatures any higher than any other game does - the normal temp under load is 50 C for the CPU and 40 C for the system. The CPU seems to run cool for a working Athlon, but the system temp seems a tad high - in fact, at idle speeds, the system temp is only fractionally less than the CPU temp.

But what I don't get is why the system invokes overheat shutdown only in Far Cry, when it gets no hotter than with any other game.

Does anyone have any ideas???? I'm hoping for a software or BIOS fix for this, so I don't have do dig out the Dremel...

[mrdata2003]

you would find that the games run a lot smoother if you had 1 gig of ram

[sparky191]

Originally Posted by mrdata2003

you would find that the games run a lot smoother if you had 1 gig of ram

Somehow I doubt that his problem here.

Maybe its not a heat problem but a driver problem just with this game. Can you underclock your GFX card and CPU and see if it runs for longer when its running cooler? Take of the case cover and direct a desktop fan at it to cool it better. I'd try a different set of drivers first though.

[leopold]

I'm running the latest nVidia drivers for both the mobo and the graphics card, so I doubt the problem is there. And I've already done the old case open with desk fan and it does help, a little.

I'll try underclocking to see if that helps. Or I may cut a hole in the case to align with the fan on the graphics card...

[sparky191]

The latest driveres aren't always the best, or troublefree. Sometimes theres a bad version.