troubles with the pc

Bartacus · December 8, 2007

Don't know how to start with this post, but there is always a small chance someone already had this trouble.

System:
I have an AMD 64 3000+ on a nforce3 250 agp motherboard with 2GB RAM. Graphic Card is a Geforce 7800 GS and my sound card is the SB platium live 5.1.
OS: WinXP SP2

Problem:
When I start up a game (Gothic 3, The Witcher, LotR BfME II, ...), it crashes during loading of either the game itself (this means before any logo comes up) or during the load and save while playing the game. The crash is that I hear the sound of what can best be described as someone scrathching with his nails on a board. The system itself doesn't respond to anything but the power button.

What I tried so far:
New install of Win XP -> Doesn't change a thing.
Used the mother boards soundcard (realtek), but that didn't have any effect either.

Is it a HW problem? Is it a BIOS problem? Is it a patch from M$? I just don't know. Does any of you know what is causing this?

dteowner · December 8, 2007

That scratching sound coming from the speakers, the HDD, the DVD drive, or elsewhere?

Bartacus · December 9, 2007

The speakers. Btw, today even if I don't have the sound system on or play a game, the pc crashes. Perhaps a virus? I will scan my disks again, though I think a virus is not the cause of this. Old hardware might be, but which one -> HD is a sata I bought two years ago.(I reinstalled the windos os on this one. Before it was on my old 40GB HD from 2001.) DVD ROM is from 2001 too, but the writer is from 2005. The problem occurs on that last one too, so ... .

VPeric · December 9, 2007

Well, sound cards (or anything else sound-related) isn't supposed to cause computer crashes. On the other hand, viruses don't usually mess with sound either, so it's probably not a virus. So, I'd have to say the most likely cause is the hard disk (if your BIOS screwed up, you wouldn't be able to even boot).

So, backup any important stuff you've got - if you can - and take the comp to someone to check it out.

MasterLich · December 9, 2007

Well, without further analysis, I'd say it's the nForce3 motherboard. Mine just died a while ago, it seems to age poorly with random problems and then die one day

What I've seen on the Net when trying to find solutions is that other users report problems with PC's with the chipset as well. But no solutions, usually, see for example this: http://forums.techguy.org/hardware/532135-crashing-games-issue.html

You didn't mention how many watts does your power supply deliver, sometimes you just run on the limit having upgraded other components. My gf runs 7800 GS on an A64/3500+/2GB system with only 300 W; it runs but I think that is just barely enough. Power supply problems causing crashing is really rare, though.

Prime Junta · December 9, 2007

This is a bit of a long shot, but it may be worth a try: move your sound card to another PCI slot. Some SB Live 5.1 cards are known to behave badly in some slots. A few years back, I happened to have one; I had similar problems and they went away this way.

The technical reason has something to do with the way hardware interrupts are handed out to the different PCI slots. They're not created equal.

If you haven't updated your BIOS already, do that too.

Remus · December 10, 2007

disconnect peripherals (network cards, on board sound, optical drives, etc) & left bare minimum hardwares (monitor, hard disk, & m/board) then see what happen...

Bartacus · December 10, 2007

VPeric said:
Well, sound cards (or anything else sound-related) isn't supposed to cause computer crashes. On the other hand, viruses don't usually mess with sound either, so it's probably not a virus. So, I'd have to say the most likely cause is the hard disk (if your BIOS screwed up, you wouldn't be able to even boot).

So, backup any important stuff you've got - if you can - and take the comp to someone to check it out.

I thought that too, but when I reinstalled Win XP on my other harddisk, things didn't change. (I have an old IDE of 40GB and a more recent SATA of 160GB -> Before the reinstall, it worked as a striping raid.)

MasterLich said:
You didn't mention how many watts does your power supply deliver, sometimes you just run on the limit having upgraded other components. My gf runs 7800 GS on an A64/3500+/2GB system with only 300 W; it runs but I think that is just barely enough. Power supply problems causing crashing is really rare, though.

I think (not absolutely sure) that it's either 300W or 350W. Is there a way to find out true software or is this sth that can only be found out by opening the case?

Prime Junta said:
This is a bit of a long shot, but it may be worth a try: move your sound card to another PCI slot. Some SB Live 5.1 cards are known to behave badly in some slots. A few years back, I happened to have one; I had similar problems and they went away this way.

The technical reason has something to do with the way hardware interrupts are handed out to the different PCI slots. They're not created equal.

If you haven't updated your BIOS already, do that too.

The BIOS was recentely updated, but it seems that this doesn't change it neither. I'll try the sound card thingie.

Remus said:
disconnect peripherals (network cards, on board sound, optical drives, etc) & left bare minimum hardwares (monitor, hard disk, & m/board) then see what happen...

I will try this after the sound card option of PJ.

crpgnut · December 10, 2007

Another thing you could try is turning down hardware acceleration on the soundcard inside DirectX and see if it makes any difference. You can get to this by going to Start/Run and typing dxdiag and press okay/enter. Go to the sound tab and turn down acceleration a click or two and then boot up a game. HTH

lanux128 · December 11, 2007

Bart, have you tried updating your graphics card driver? and also check out Creative's web-site, this might be a documented problem..

Lucky Day · December 11, 2007

The sound card may be a coincidence. It may be picking up something else like a surge or crashing in the middle while playing the sound.

nVidia drivers have been suspect lately I've heard so consider a roll back. Also, check out that EUsing registry cleaner in the Free Software thread.

When was the last time this worked? Have you considered rolling back windows.

(Meanwhile my computer is completely dead. Vista refused to load itself on it and XP loaded but it turns out not on the Boot partition of my SATA drive. After playing around with it for a few days the thing won't even turn on, probably telling me the power supply ate my first hard drive, then possibly my motherboard then my second hard drive)

dteowner · December 11, 2007

It's been a bad year for hardware at the Watch...

Cm · December 11, 2007

I read a few months ago that some driver updates released were corrupted at nividia, so if you are reinstalling some you downloaded more then say a few weeks ago, I suggest going back and redoing the download of them.

Bartacus · December 14, 2007

I tried much of the above, except for one: I'll try to install a game without needing the DVD-ROM. The reason why I think it still could be them two (DVD writer and DVD ROM) is because I used a cleaning DVD and got slightly better results. When i's only this that I need to change, I can waite with the big upgrade till the next PB game or another gothic comes out.

edit: tried out some demo's and I haven't got any problem so far. I should try to install the troubling games and play them from HD instead of DVD. Any idea how to do this with for example 'the witcher'.

VPeric · December 14, 2007

The Witcher is a pain: you'll need to emulate a SCSI drive, and you need DT Pro for that; there's a mini-image on Gamecopyworld, in any case.

Bartacus · December 14, 2007

Perhaps another game? -> Gothic 3?

VPeric · December 14, 2007

Ah, just get the latest patch, it removes protection!

In general, though, if you want to run a game off your HD, you should either head over to gamecopyworld to see if they've got a handy mini image for you, or, failing that, you should make an image yourself (Nero can do this, for example).

Bartacus · December 17, 2007

I give up on this pc: Now it reboots just before the login screen.

I have transfered the RAM to my other pc (Intel pentium 4 3.4GHz). The graphics card doesn't match the power of the 7800GS, but the 6610 (PCIe) does the trick too. Finally this pc is used for gaming too -> I have Ubuntu 7.10, Windows XP pro and last Windows 2003 with Exchange 2003 and SQL 2000. The only thing that is really annoying is the awfull sound quality.
Still this means that I'm gonna wait a bit longer to get a new pc. Don't know if I should buy another speakerset for that one. The DTT 3500 from creative is a bit dated, but on the other hand it still gives me a good quality sound. I suppose I can wait till I get a new pc to see if I can get it connected.

Bartacus · December 25, 2007

I found out the problem -> It's not the Ram itself, but the slots on the mobo weren't all good -> slot and emptied and I can use the pc again. The PC is now equiped with MB RAM so it can't be used for playing games anymore.

Prime Junta · December 25, 2007

It could be that the contacts have dirtied or oxidized.

Try blowing the RAM slots out with compressed air (hold the can upright so you don't spray any propellant on it), then install and remove the RAM sticks a few times to rub off any oxidization, and finally wipe the contacts on the RAM sticks with purified alcohol.

And do try a different brand of RAM -- memory incompatibilities are sometimes annoyingly subtle.

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