[woodyear99]

Hi


I just put together a new gaming system last week. System seems stable so far but I am having one really annoying problem that is affecting my games. This is what happens and it occurs in both World of Warcraft and Battlefield 2. I will be playing the game like normal and at random the system will lock up with the mouse and game frozen for 10 - 20 seconds while it is stuck the sound will just stutter / repeat itself in a loop sounding very annoying. After the 10-20 seconds the game continues from where it left off. It is really annoying since I end up dying during this freeze I know that the in game settings for both isn't too high since I tried changing settings to quite a few variations and the problem still occurs while gettin 100 fps in them. Both games have the latest patches.

Specs

MSI K8n NEO4 Mobo
1 Gig Corsair Ram
300 Gig SATA MAxtor HD
256mb XFX GF 7800GT
A64 3500+
500 Watt Ultra X-connect PSU

So here is what I've tried so far.


1) Well first thing I did was reinstall windows...no difference.

2) I thought it may have been the video card drivers so I used driver cleaner and removed the latest nvidia.com drivers I had installed, tried the drivers that came with the card on cd, no difference. I then tried some optimized beta drivers from tweaksrus.com and same problem so I don't think the drivers are the problem.

3) Neither processor nor video card is overclocked.

4) I tried different benchmarks and stress programs such as Performancetest,Burnintest and Everest. The infomation I got seems right and the stress/benchmarks showed no errors in their tests. I also ran memtest and no errors...
Aren't these voltages good?

Temperatures:
Motherboard 43 °C (109 °F)
CPU 46 °C (115 °F)
Aux 35 °C (95 °F)
GPU 55 °C (131 °F)
Maxtor 6L300S0 39 °C (102 °F)

Cooling Fans:
CPU 2109 RPM
North Bridge 6027 RPM

Voltage Values:
CPU Core 1.48 V
+3.3 V 3.36 V
+5 V 5.11 V
+12 V 12.22 V
+5 V Standby 5.11 V
VBAT Battery 3.09 V

5) I tried disabling write combining under troubleshooting in the display control panel...no luck.

6) Ok so I have corsair memory with a latency of 2.5-3-3-6 went into the bios and changed it to correspond with these specs... cas, ras, row and min ras# in that order right?

7)Ok so I then tried disabling the sound in the bios but I still had the problem. I then tried removing the audio and ethernet drivers and installed a linksys pci ethernet card and a soundblaster live sound card. Installed their drivers but no change with the problem.

8) Took out one stick of ram thinking maybe it was that but I had the same problem. Made sure they were seated properly in the right slots.

So I am asking for any suggestions on other things I can try. I don't think any part is defective since I have not gotten any problems in regular windows use such as browsing the web or burning dvd's. Also the stress tests and benchmarks don't fail. I was wondering are 59 C ok temperatures for my GPU and CPU while games are running? I have also tried leaving my case open I still get the problem.

I was also wondering are there any other settings I can check in the BIOs that may help with this?

Finally the games give this problem even with nothing running in the background as I have even tried disabling most services in windows to see if this was what was causing it. Firewall and Antivirus disabled.

Sorry for the long post guys but I have been trying to figure this one out and nothing seems to be working

[Advertisements]

Last time I had this problem it was down to the graphic card itself.

The problem you face is that the card is only failing when you try to get it to do something intensive. It doesn't fail when you do something simple like web browsing.

The only thing you haven't done is replace the graphics card. That would be the best thing to do - borrow one from somewhere if you can.

Soon as I replaced my card, all the problems went away.

[Neil Jones]

Last time I had this problem it was down to the graphic card itself.

The problem you face is that the card is only failing when you try to get it to do something intensive. It doesn't fail when you do something simple like web browsing.

The only thing you haven't done is replace the graphics card. That would be the best thing to do - borrow one from somewhere if you can.

Soon as I replaced my card, all the problems went away.

[yardguard]

if those temps are at idle then you can bet that when running the games they're skyrocketing hence your problem....

Heat is always a problem with online 3d gaming. I play a lot of those games too but under normal circumstances I fair pretty well...But...If I go to a server with a lot of high pingers or a lot of added features then heat enters the picture (more work for the cpu). I usually get very choppy at first then if I remain there eventually I'll freeze..(my computer runs at 33/36 C at idle).

I've heard where some can run comfortably at 50-60 C but I find that terribly hard to believe...My experience has taught me that 50+ C is pushing it and if you're running 43/46 C at idle then you're probably at 60+ C while gaming..

You can try lowering some of the detail and other intense features of the game...this usually helps...

Food for thought....

Edited by yardguard, 10 October 2005 - 03:38 AM.

[woodyear99]

Ok these are my temperatures while playing World of Warcraft. Are they too high? What temperatures should I be aiming for?

Temperatures:
Motherboard 43 °C (109 °F)
CPU 52 °C (124 °F)
Aux 38 °C (100 °F)
GPU 54 °C (129 °F)
Maxtor 6L300S0 36 °C (97 °F)

Cooling Fans:
CPU 3125 RPM
North Bridge 5819 RPM

Voltage Values:
CPU Core 1.44 V
+3.3 V 3.38 V
+5 V 5.11 V
+12 V 12.28 V
+5 V Standby 5.14 V
VBAT Battery 3.07 V

[Neil Jones]

52 degrees on idle for a CPU is, in all honesty, a bit too high. Everything else is related to that as heat is blown around the case to the other sensors.

But having said that, some processors run hotter than others. So there may not be a lot you can do about it.

But as I said in my previous post, that may not be your issue.

[woodyear99]

Am I having an irq conflict here?

http://img423.images...e=devman4ud.jpg

properties has automatically assign and seems greyed out. How can I change the 18 IRQ?

[yardguard]

In my honest opinion I think the 52 and 54 are a bit too hot which can lead to freezing.....Can you just try to open up the side panel and let air in (maybe even use a small external fan to blow inward) and play the game to see if there's an improvement....if there is then you've found your problem...if not then as Neil said...could be a faulty graphics card...

As far as the IRQs...I know that IRQs are shared but I think it a bit odd that the ethernet card and the video card (both used in online play) are sharing the same IRQ.....Not saying it's a problem just saying it's odd since your problem is related to both pieces of hardware that share this IRQ...

Edited by yardguard, 10 October 2005 - 02:11 PM.

[woodyear99]

The case is open right now actually. I also have the air condition on at full blast.
Can you recommend a benchmarking/stress testing program that can make my video card fail if it is faulty?

[yardguard]

I use SIS Sandra but that's a commercial software..

http://www.freshdevi...g_software.html
I found this site with google...Don't know a thing about it but...there you are...