Decent system crashing on games

[zaphox]

Hi, I'd really appreciate some help with this.

My PC (specs below) crashes whilst playing most recent games (for example Rome, Oblivion, WoW, FEAR etc.) and it's driving me nuts! It freezes the entire system, requiring a hard reboot to start again. I assume it's related to the graphics card but can't take it for granted. I'm using an Asus Radeon AX800XT Platinum 256 meg card, and am using the latest drivers from ATI's website (Catalyst 6.8).

It's only games where the system crashes; videos and even high end 3D applications (like Maya with tens of thousands of polys on screen at once) run just fine. I always use the Direct X version that ships with the game, or a later one.

Full System
Abit Fatal1ty AN8 gaming MoBo
AMD Athlon 64 3200
Asus PCI-E Radeon AX800XT Platinum 256
2 gig of Corsair RAM
Scan 550W PSU
2 * Maxtor SATA 160 Gig disks
Windows XP (No service packs - can't upgrade)

Any advice would be very welcome.

[charger]

Have you made a note of the gpu/ cpu temperatures as it could freeze due to heat issues. Is your case well ventilated? Otherwise it could be something else.

[Clunk]

take the side of the case off and blow a desk fan into the case and see if it still does it. grab the latest nvidia chipset drivers. if your system is overclocked, set it back to stock and see if it still has problems. find out the correct timings for your ram and enter them in the bios manually. get windows xp updated. failing that, try a different psu.

p.s. check that there is good contact between the cpu and heatsink, and also the gpu and heatsink.

[zaphox]

ok thanks, I'll try as many of those as I can over the weekend.

How do I find out what my RAM timings should be?

Also, I've tried putting service pack 2 on XP but when I install it gives up saying my key "may not be valid" even though I'm not connected to the net at the time. Is there any way around this?!

[Clunk]

if its a legit version of xp, just ring microsoft, they will activate it for you over the phone.

sometimes the ram timings are on a sticker on the ram...something like 3-4-4-8, if not, find out what model of corsair they are and get googling

[zaphox]

I've downloaded a program called speedfan which monitors system temperatures, and found out my CPU is generally between 46°C - 50°C in Windows with a few apps running. I'm guess that means it goes a fair bit hotter than that in games so maybe this is the problem.

Is there a desirable temperature for the CPU to run at? Or rather is there a limit it shouldn't go over?

Also (sorry about all the questions!) I can't find anywhere in the BIOS to manually enter my RAM timings.. is there a usual place this is under?

[frazered]

your temps are a bit high reallly for that cpu

worthwhile having a good dust out and making sure the cpu is cooled better

games will increase the load on the cpu so it does sound like overheating there

[MSIC]

Is any part of your system overclocked? Or modified from the original in any way (ie flash unlocked pipes or anything?) Have you increased the voltage to the CPU or RAM in the BIOS?
A system that is stable in windows is not being punished in the same way that it would be in games, and moreoever some games push a graphics card in ways that other games do not.

A good place to start however is to check that your system RAM is fine - try memtest (which often comes with any modern Linux installation CD - worth having even if you dont want Linux)

As for CPU or GPU temps, Speedfan is a great program (i have it running 24/7) but there is no one correct temperature for a system - one CPU may be designed to run cooler than another, although as a very basic rule of thumb you'd want nothing to go above 50°C (but a P4 i had ran fine at 62°C). The other problem with this is that certain applications can show temperatures differently - most unhelpful!)

[Spud1]

Why can't you update windows? Is it a 100% legal/legit version? Where did you get it from?

If it's an illegal version of windows theres your first problem - it may or may not be related (who knows, its windows) but you first need to buy a legal OS. There may be ways around the problem but you won't find help for that here... Service packs are an absolute must for windowsXP - the difference in not just security but stability between a vanilla XP install and a fully patched one is huge.

Secondly it *could* be overheating, but I would try and eliminate any softawre issues first. This means doing a full format and re-install, in case it is conflicting drivers somewhere that's causing everything to crash in games...sounds the most likely cause to me.

[dodgybob]

I've been having some similar problems with gaming recently so i tested my ram and it fails memtest so i'd definitely check that out.

[zaphox]

Many thanks to everyone for your help. After a lot of faffing about it seems Clunk's suggestion of manually inputting the RAM timings has come up trumps.. just tried ROME:Total War and Oblivion and both ran without a hitch.

Bizarre that a BIOS setting can have such a major affect on the whole system, and I was considering buying new hardware

For anyone interested (and as uneducated as me!) I found a couple of useful articles regarding RAM and settings:

article 1
article 2