An old freezing up problem...2nd box

Gaming-Module · Post by **Gaming-Module** » Fri Jul 20, 2001 10:05 pm

This problem has been bothering me for awhile. I built a box for my mom a while ago and she seems to have taken a natural liking to Diablo 2 and most recently, Lord of Bhaal.

Anyway, the game keeps freezing on her after playing for awhile. It will just lock up for no reason, out of the blue.

This has been going on for some time, and I was kind of hoping driver updates would bury the problem over time, but that hasn't happened, despite three mobo driver updates, 4 nvidia driver updates, and the move to DX8.

So what are you suggestions for a fix? Brent most recently referred me to the latest via drivers but those only worked for a little while.

So what would you suspect first and what can I rule out right off the bat?

Should I just get another mother board?

System specs:

P3 733EB 133fsb
p3v4x mobo on the latest 4-in-1 drivers
128meg Mushkin rev2 high perf pc133
Geforce 2 MX Herc 183/183 on 12.xx drivers
15 gig western digital 7200rpm ata66
32x cdrom Asus
Sblive value

Gaming-Module · Post by **Gaming-Module** » Fri Jul 20, 2001 11:27 pm

TonyT · Post by **TonyT** » Fri Jul 20, 2001 11:32 pm

Lower the hardware acceleration.

Also, check your bios to verify that it's setup to take full advantage of your graphics card.

gmcd33 · Post by **gmcd33** » Fri Jul 20, 2001 11:36 pm

Could be a heat problem. I would check your CPU fan and such.

Gaming-Module · Post by **Gaming-Module** » Fri Jul 20, 2001 11:36 pm

Are you talking about disabling "turbo mode"?

Gaming-Module · Post by **Gaming-Module** » Fri Jul 20, 2001 11:47 pm

All fans are functional according to Asus probe.

Cpu idle temp is between 33-34 deg C

Mobo temp is 27 deg C

There is also a seperate fan mounted over the MX, sort of like a T

The height of the T representing the vid card and the top part of the T representing where the fan is, it is facing down from above the PCB.

newbie69 · Post by **newbie69** » Sat Jul 21, 2001 12:08 am

leave your bios settings to default , but change some settings that are mandatory to change in order for your computer to work.

eg. only change drives(master, slave etc.), and cpu to default speed, and time

don't overclock anything, such as ram , FSB , cpu or whatevar, and test it out again

Gaming-Module · Post by **Gaming-Module** » Sat Jul 21, 2001 12:09 am

The entire system is running stock.

Not one thing is overclocked on it.

brembo · Post by **brembo** » Sat Jul 21, 2001 12:27 am

Knock it down to the 10.08 Nvidia drivers. Dunno, might help.

Gaming-Module · Post by **Gaming-Module** » Sat Jul 21, 2001 12:35 am

It has done this from the 6.50's all the way up to the 12.xx's.

I will mess around with the agp/turbo jumpers tommorow. I dont wanna mess with the inside of the puter while drunk.

Thanx all. And please feel free to throw in any other advice.

Thank you.

terrancelam · Post by **terrancelam** » Sat Jul 21, 2001 12:54 am

Freezes during middle of game? Check your power voltage reception using the one of the hardware mods or in your bios settings. I've have lock up problems before and they mostly relate to voltage and the cpu or something in the box being under voltaged.

Gaming-Module · Post by **Gaming-Module** » Sat Jul 21, 2001 12:56 am

Wanna give me the run down on how to do that?

terrancelam · Post by **terrancelam** » Sat Jul 21, 2001 1:08 am

Not to sure on the program for the newer Asus boards, but goto their website and download their hardware monitor or something of that sort, inside you should be able to see what voltage your settings are getting, I.E what the 12v setting is recieving, so the default maybe 12v, but it might get 12.59v or 11.89v for example. Also in your bios, once again I'm not sure about the Asus boards (the only board I've had alot of experience with is this cruddy VA6 from A-bit), but in your bios, there should be an area where it should your current temp for both mobo and cpu. Make sure to see if you particular model has this feature (It should unless it's a very old board.).

Gaming-Module · Post by **Gaming-Module** » Sat Jul 21, 2001 1:08 am

I can do that with the Asus Probe I mentioned up top!!!1

What should I be looking for?

[edited to say: Did you read the entire thread Terran? My specs are up top.]

terrancelam · Post by **terrancelam** » Sat Jul 21, 2001 1:14 am

Like I said, you should be looking for the Voltage settings and the actual input of voltage. What is the set core voltage for your cpu? There should be an option to see how much voltage your CPU is getting.

Gaming-Module · Post by **Gaming-Module** » Sat Jul 21, 2001 1:21 am

There is a constantly changing table with six voltage values represented by lines on the table.

The top value is fluctuating between 12 and 12.22.

I am assuming that this is the cpu volt.

I will restart and look at the bios.

Arent there a certain set of buttons to press at boot to get into a certain mode in which I can look at bios info and change settings?

terrancelam · Post by **terrancelam** » Sat Jul 21, 2001 1:31 am

hmm not to familiar with the Asus bios, but if it's using the Award type bios, then you shouldn't have to press anything special. And yes it should be always changing, but you should check your Vcore(I guess I wasn't specific enough last time) in your bios. I think PIII 733 run at 1.7v right?

Gaming-Module · Post by **Gaming-Module** » Sat Jul 21, 2001 1:36 am

It says vcore is 1.68

Gaming-Module · Post by **Gaming-Module** » Sat Jul 21, 2001 1:45 am

Terran, if you're reading this - I am going to bed.

Perhaps we can tackle this tommorow. Thank you for the help, I really appreciate it. In the mean time I will be wracking my brain in my sleep.

Good night, cya in the morning.

terrancelam · Post by **terrancelam** » Sat Jul 21, 2001 2:04 am

Ahhh night *Nods*, here my last reply for the night as well, I can't seem to find the average vcore for the PIII 733mhz at the moment, but I do know that 1.68 might be a small but nagging problem non the less. Check to see if your Vcore is set at 1.7v or 1.65 or 1.6. If it's 1.7v, then set your vcore to 1.75v and test to see if the system runs stable. If it's at 1.65v, then set it to 1.7v, that should give it the enough juice. I personally hate dealing with the vcore, but it's sometimes necessary to get the most performance out of the machine. I know that with my old AMD K6-2 500 cpu, the Vcore was set at 2.2v, while the CPU said for it to be set at 2. 22 or something of that sort and so it kept crashing because of the 0.02v undervoltaging. What complete nonsense! Oh well, but I know in the freaky world of computers, this all makes sense. Well hopes this help you out, a good night and/or morning to ya macho.

Gaming-Module · Post by **Gaming-Module** » Sat Jul 21, 2001 11:20 am

*yawn!* Good mornin peeps.

Well terran, I'm gonna break out the documentation on my mobo and processor and see what I can do. I'm also gonna turn agp down to 2x, but I'll save that for after I mess with the vcore.

Heres to hopin something finally gives.

terrancelam · Post by **terrancelam** » Sat Jul 21, 2001 4:39 pm

Good luck with the box and btw, it's Terrance.

Gaming-Module · Post by **Gaming-Module** » Sun Jul 22, 2001 1:14 am

Terrance, I have an update.

I finally, after so many months, hooked box #2 up to my own monitor and speaks. Well, I played Diablo extensively for 4-5 hours straight without a crash, played UT for 20 and messed with the Alone in the Dark demo.

I have now come to the conclusion that there is nothing wrong with this box whatsoever.

The question now is, what else could be causing this?

My brother in law said that his buddy had a similar situation which was caused by an older monitor. And it just so happens that this computer regularly uses a 5-6 year old compaq monitor.

Also of note, should be the fact that one of the pins on the end of the monitor cord that go into the computer is pushed in. Perhaps this could cause problems?

Or I was think that maybe even the old Compaq speakers or even the powerstrip it is on.

Any thoughts on this?

I plan on testing it for a few more days at my own desk to make doubly sure that it is in fact stable as far as the internal components go.

Gaming-Module · Post by **Gaming-Module** » Sun Jul 22, 2001 12:16 pm

So does anyone have any thoughts, ideas, or delusions as to what is causing my problems???

Gaming-Module · Post by **Gaming-Module** » Sun Jul 22, 2001 1:49 pm

terrancelam · Post by **terrancelam** » Sun Jul 22, 2001 7:18 pm

It shouldn't be affecting the box that badly macho, but if you try hooking it up to your monitor and it works, it just could be that your mom's spefic monitor has something wrong with it. Have you tried using her monitor?

Gaming-Module · Post by **Gaming-Module** » Sun Jul 22, 2001 7:42 pm

Update. It froze on my monitor too.

ARRRRRGGGGHHHHHh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dammit!

Storm90 · Post by **Storm90** » Sun Jul 22, 2001 11:05 pm

A bad Memory chip will cause the proublem you are haveing. My son started haveing a proublem Like this when he played his games . It turn Out one of his memory sticks were bad. I replaced and he has had no problems sense then.

Gaming-Module · Post by **Gaming-Module** » Sun Jul 22, 2001 11:35 pm

Could moving the memory to another dimm do anything?

I am getting another stick of the exact same RAM. I could just return this ram if the new stuff works. Just send it back in it's place or something.

Doesn't Mushkin come with at least a year long warranty though? We havent even had this ram for a year and the problem has been around for a long time...

Brent · Post by **Brent** » Tue Jul 24, 2001 7:47 pm

Format and Reinstall

really, i'm willing to bet it's just a software problem, but not certain

but use format and re-install as a last resort

you've tried everthing else i could think of in this thread, i'm thoughtless, what wattage is your power supply? is at at least 250 watt? maybe a new psu would help, who knows.....

Gaming-Module · Post by **Gaming-Module** » Tue Jul 24, 2001 8:07 pm

It is a 250psu.

I am going to get a new case for this setup.

Any reasonably priced, good performing boards available?

Gaming-Module · Post by **Gaming-Module** » Tue Jul 24, 2001 8:40 pm

Just froze on me again. This time I noticed something I hadnt before.

My chars footsteps kept repeating like a loob on a track. A CD track.

Sound like a cdrom problem now?

terrancelam · Post by **terrancelam** » Tue Jul 24, 2001 11:43 pm

Any deep gashes or scratches on the cd? If you want, you can pick up a CD Doctor(It scraps off a layer of the cd's reading edge) for about $25CAD.

Gaming-Module · Post by **Gaming-Module** » Wed Jul 25, 2001 3:04 pm

The cd is mint.

terrancelam · Post by **terrancelam** » Wed Jul 25, 2001 4:44 pm

Have you tried plugging in your cd/dvd drive in her box? doing a little testing?

Gaming-Module · Post by **Gaming-Module** » Thu Jul 26, 2001 12:15 pm

I will today.

I am just a little reluctant as I dont wanna mess my own stuff up, since my box is stable as a rock.

Gaming-Module · Post by **Gaming-Module** » Thu Jul 26, 2001 10:44 pm

Dropped in my dvd from my own box.

The damn game still froze, and so does Drakan.

Well, the memory and cddrive are ruled out.

And so are updated drivers.

Gonna see what I can do about a vid card swap tommorow.

I wonder...could the hard drive be a culprit?

terrancelam · Post by **terrancelam** » Thu Jul 26, 2001 11:42 pm

If you are willing to, why don't you format and try a fresh install?

Gaming-Module · Post by **Gaming-Module** » Thu Jul 26, 2001 11:52 pm

Will probably end up doing this this weekend.

I will try and reinstall the os alone first though.

I would like to try the other vid card and do some more searching through the mobo manual before going to this extreme though.

I will update when I try some new stuff.

terrancelam · Post by **terrancelam** » Fri Jul 27, 2001 12:18 am

Alright, tell me how it goes and if you encounter anything else. FYI, this is what I heard, but I think that the vcore of most cpus are allow a .03-.05 varience from the actually vcore default.