[Alexander Heuts]

Hello,

Since a couple of days I'm experiencing freezes and crashes. This has only happened while playing (3D) games. Sometimes the music player keeps on going in the background when the game freezes up, but shortly after everything just stops responding/acting.

Only way to reset the computer is by using the reset button. Keyboard input doesn't do anything.

The use of benchmarking utilities gave no errors or low performance. Updating drivers didn't solve the problem. Nothing has been changed in my system (hardware and software) in the past few weeks. There are no problems with my harddisks (checked that). It's not internet related (gives freezes while connected and not). I'm also running both Windows XP and Windows XP x64 on my computer. Both give the problem.

The problem seems to occur during a lot of graphical activity (which also relates to a lot of game activity). So I'm guessing it's either my graphics card or my memory which is faulty. I have no spares of either (only computer with these types of hardware here) so I cannot swap these out to test them. Any idea on how to test either? Or any ideas on what the problem might be?

Thanks in advance.

Alexander

[Advertisements]

Memtest86 is a good program to test your memory. You didn't list spec's but usualy graphics will start getting weird pixellation before locking up. Some of the newer games won't run good on the older FX5200-5500 video cards. It could also be a heat problem. One computer brought to me was locking up during games. What was happening was the cpu temp would spike once in a while hitting the bios limit of 67° causing a lockup but not a bsod crash. A zalman heatsink on the cpu and a intake case fan fixed that computer.

SRX660

[SRX660]

Memtest86 is a good program to test your memory. You didn't list spec's but usualy graphics will start getting weird pixellation before locking up. Some of the newer games won't run good on the older FX5200-5500 video cards. It could also be a heat problem. One computer brought to me was locking up during games. What was happening was the cpu temp would spike once in a while hitting the bios limit of 67° causing a lockup but not a bsod crash. A zalman heatsink on the cpu and a intake case fan fixed that computer.

SRX660

[Alexander Heuts]

I've ran memtest all night, which gave no errors (12 full passes).

Here's also a link to a full system spec: Specs.

One of the things I've noticed is that sometimes before my crash happens my graphics get glitches. Weird monochromatic lines (not fullscreen, but small lines on parts). This only happened in one game though.

The system has run for over a year now without earlier problems.

Is there any way to check whether a crash happens due to overheating?

[SRX660]

If your Mb will support it i would download speedfan and run it every time you start the computer. When your game starts pixellating shut it down and check in the taskbar for the temps speedfan is showing. This will tell you that you are probably getting spikes if the temp is runing around 60-65 when you look at it.

Some Mb don't seem to support speedfan as i have a intel 865pemy that speedfan does not read any temps.

Another thing you can look at with speedfan is the power supply voltages. If the 12 volt line is below 11.7 volts or the 5 volt line is below 4.5 volts it could also cause the problems your having. Then i would suggest buying a better power supply. Heres a good power supply website.

http://www.jonnyguru.com/

SRX660

[Alexander Heuts]

Well I'm not sure what I've done to fix the problem, but it's gone for now.
Given the issue of overheating I've cleaned out the inside of the system. Wasn't dusty or anything, yet after that every problem seemed to be gone. So it's probably been an overheating problem of the graphics card or CPU.

Thanks for the help you've given.

Alexander