Computer freezes/crashes when running games.

[smitty260]

Computer freezes/crashes when running games.

Hello.
I am currently having a little technical issue with my computer when I run games.
My computer specs are attached or you can go to http://220.245.216.180/computer.html to see.
It is a bit different with different games.

Soldier Front: Can do 1/2 a game up to 2 game until it freezes.
Left 4 Dead: Get 1-10 seconds into the game and then freezes.
S.U.N.: Choose character and then 5-20 seconds later it freezes.
A.V.A.: Rarely ever freezes. Once or twice so far.
Runescape: Anywhere between loading and just after login it freezes.
Godwars Online: Freezes at server select screen.

My computer can run other applications but not games.
I installed Norton 360 as my AV. I scanned the whole system, enable firewall and auto-protect but it still does it.
I repaired all system registry files.

Can anyone please give me any ideas on how to fix?

Kind regards,
-Smitty.

[kaninelupus]

OK - a few things am noting in your HW config that already puts you behind the eight-ball, performance wise:

• You may have 4GB RAM installed, but a 32-bit Windows install is only capable of using around 3.3 max - thus the " 3328 Megabytes Usable Installed Memory" notation
• No listed GPU (Vid Card)
• No info provided for RPM of hard-drives (or write speed), both of which are important considerations on a gaming box.

From a software side, do you have the right DirectX versions installed and up-to-date?

Also, although am not familiar with those particular games, but do know that already quite a few more recent game releases are simply not fully compatible with XP, and never will be, especially now as Win7 is far more optimised for usage as a gaming system.

[smitty260]

OK - a few things am noting in your HW config that already puts you behind the eight-ball, performance wise:

• You may have 4GB RAM installed, but a 32-bit Windows install is only capable of using around 3.3 max - thus the " 3328 Megabytes Usable Installed Memory" notation
• No listed GPU (Vid Card)
• No info provided for RPM of hard-drives (or write speed), both of which are important considerations on a gaming box.

From a software side, do you have the right DirectX versions installed and up-to-date?

Also, although am not familiar with those particular games, but do know that already quite a few more recent game releases are simply not fully compatible with XP, and never will be, especially now as Win7 is far more optimised for usage as a gaming system.

Here are some responses to your list of things.

• Hehe I knew that. I used to have Windows 64 Bit but I went back to XP because it was better in my opinion.
• Actually, there is. If you read cloesly it says:
  NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT
• This is my info of my hard drives from the website:

  820.17 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
  491.87 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space

  HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GH20NS10 [CD-ROM drive]

  WDC WD3200JS-00PDB0 [Hard drive] (320.07 GB) -- drive 1, SMART Status: Healthy
  WDC WD5000AAKS-65YGA0 [Hard drive] (500.11 GB) -- drive 0, SMART Status: Healthy

  There are no writing speeds of my drives though.[/B][/I]

From a software side, do you have the right DirectX versions installed and up-to-date?
- I have DirectX 10 installed which is the latest version.

And last but not least, all the games except for A.V.A. worked on my old computer which had Windows XP SP2. It couldn't run A.V.A. until I got a better graphics card thus why I got a whole new computer.

Please reply.
Kind regards,
-Smitty.

[kaninelupus]

Which Win x64 by the way? Remember XP x64 was 1st-gen move to the x64 environ, where have made the move to x64 in Win7 very smoothly.... anyhow.

The fact that things are crashing under high loads does suggest one of two likely factors - hardware or drivers. Now finally managed to source specs for your drives (took a while, but lopped the last sequence in the drive names provided), and both, being Caviar Blue's, should be more than up to the task. Vid-card also should be up to handling things (although you may still not be able to use max-resolution on high-resource games even still). I would however recommend checking that you have the latest display drivers, as updates often tweak both performance and stability.

Other component to consider is your RAM. Faulty RAM can cause all sorts of freezing and crashes. In the case where you have two sticks, it may be that is only shutting down when system is trying to use more memory than faulty RAM is capable of handling.

Easiest way to test, is shut-down Windows, remove one stick of RAM and reboot, and run problematic games. If issues re-occurs, try again with other stick. If RAM is functioning as it should, high loads should only induce sluggishness, not a complete freeze or crash.

Also consider that not all RAM is created equal. If you are using PC as a gaming system, you're best off investing in gaming-class RAM... G.Skill and Kingstone's HyperX series present the best options in this realm.

[smitty260]

Which Win x64 by the way? Remember XP x64 was 1st-gen move to the x64 environ, where have made the move to x64 in Win7 very smoothly.... anyhow.

The fact that things are crashing under high loads does suggest one of two likely factors - hardware or drivers. Now finally managed to source specs for your drives (took a while, but lopped the last sequence in the drive names provided), and both, being Caviar Blue's, should be more than up to the task. Vid-card also should be up to handling things (although you may still not be able to use max-resolution on high-resource games even still). I would however recommend checking that you have the latest display drivers, as updates often tweak both performance and stability.

Other component to consider is your RAM. Faulty RAM can cause all sorts of freezing and crashes. In the case where you have two sticks, it may be that is only shutting down when system is trying to use more memory than faulty RAM is capable of handling.

Easiest way to test, is shut-down Windows, remove one stick of RAM and reboot, and run problematic games. If issues re-occurs, try again with other stick. If RAM is functioning as it should, high loads should only induce sluggishness, not a complete freeze or crash.

Also consider that not all RAM is created equal. If you are using PC as a gaming system, you're best off investing in gaming-class RAM... G.Skill and Kingstone's HyperX series present the best options in this realm.

Thank you for that idea.

I took your idea into effect and removed them one by one. I tested it out on the game Left 4 Dead which lasted from 1-10 seconds before crashing. The first time when I removed one it did the same thing but then I changed them around and surprisingly it still froze but took about 1 minute 30 seconds to freeze. I tried a second time and it only lasted about 30 seconds.

RAM must have something to do with it if that made it last longer before freezing.

Now knowing that do you have any ideas further on how to fix seeing how 1 RAM plays up and 1 lasts longer?

Kind regards,
-Smitty.

P.S. I repped you. ;D

[kaninelupus]

While it does sound like neither stick of RAM is all that healthy, it looks as if there may be other issues contributing.

Have you checked to ensure you have the latest drivers for your Vid card?

Also, while RAM is playing up, you might want to bump up the size of your Page File (virtual memory) to help carry the load

[smitty260]

While it does sound like neither stick of RAM is all that healthy, it looks as if there may be other issues contributing.

Have you checked to ensure you have the latest drivers for your Vid card?

Also, while RAM is playing up, you might want to bump up the size of your Page File (virtual memory) to help carry the load

I tried my dad's RAM which is the exact same size and brand and everything. He seems to think it is a software problem and he was a computer technician for ages.

Yes. I had latest installed but I re-installed just to be sure..

I have around 570GB free of virtual memory.

[Adamsappleone]

Computer freezes/crashes when running games.

Hello.
I am currently having a little technical issue with my computer when I run games.
My computer specs are attached or you can go to http://220.245.216.180/computer.html to see.
It is a bit different with different games.

Soldier Front: Can do 1/2 a game up to 2 game until it freezes.
Left 4 Dead: Get 1-10 seconds into the game and then freezes.
S.U.N.: Choose character and then 5-20 seconds later it freezes.
A.V.A.: Rarely ever freezes. Once or twice so far.
Runescape: Anywhere between loading and just after login it freezes.
Godwars Online: Freezes at server select screen.

My computer can run other applications but not games.
I installed Norton 360 as my AV. I scanned the whole system, enable firewall and auto-protect but it still does it.
I repaired all system registry files.

Can anyone please give me any ideas on how to fix?

Kind regards,
-Smitty.

Have you thought about installing SP3?

Have you also tried disabling Norton 360 or using a different AV?

[smitty260]

Have you thought about installing SP3?

Have you also tried disabling Norton 360 or using a different AV?

Yes but you need to pay for it.

It did this before I installed Norton 360..

Kind regards,
-Smitty.

[kaninelupus]

If looking to the software option, what applications are you running on the new box which was absent from the old system?

System crashes/freezing (especially when triggered by high resource loading), while yes can occasionally be caused by software incompatibilities, is usually a hardware-related issue. BTW, when your system crashes, is it Blue Screening, or simply shutting down? If BSOD'ing, what are the error codes displayed?

@Adamsappleone
Norton, while being a resource hog, shouldn't be affecting the system in this manner. You'd be seeing problems across the board if Norton was the likely candidate.
While installing SP3 is certainly advisable, I'm also not sure this is candidate either. While one or two of the games may have been updated in a manner which creates dependencies to the SP3 upgrade, it is highly unlikely that all the problematic game have done so. While the OP can certainly try this, would be surprised if this solved all the issues.

[smitty260]

If looking to the software option, what applications are you running on the new box which was absent from the old system?

System crashes/freezing (especially when triggered by high resource loading), while yes can occasionally be caused by software incompatibilities, is usually a hardware-related issue. BTW, when your system crashes, is it Blue Screening, or simply shutting down? If BSOD'ing, what are the error codes displayed?

@Adamsappleone
Norton, while being a resource hog, shouldn't be affecting the system in this manner. You'd be seeing problems across the board if Norton was the likely candidate.
While installing SP3 is certainly advisable, I'm also not sure this is candidate either. While one or two of the games may have been updated in a manner which creates dependencies to the SP3 upgrade, it is highly unlikely that all the problematic game have done so. While the OP can certainly try this, would be surprised if this solved all the issues.

None that I know of other than the drivers..
Well so far..
It has froze.. Waited.. Unfroze but the picture was messed up.
It has froze.. BSOD.. Force restart.
It has froze.. Waited.. Restarted itself.

Those are all the occurences so far.
I did not see the error code on BSOD, sorry.

Kind regards,
-Smitty.

[caperjack]

Hello, type this into run to open event viewer ,go to system it should show error ,it should give the bsod error numbers ,
type into run eventvwr.msc

[smitty260]

Hello, type this into run to open event viewer ,go to system it should show error ,it should give the bsod error numbers ,
type into run eventvwr.msc

I did not know which error was the right one so I just took a picture of them all.
I attached them to this post. Tell me what you think.

Kind regards,
-Smitty.

[caperjack]

I did not know which error was the right one so I just took a picture of them all.
I attached them to this post. Tell me what you think.

Kind regards,
-Smitty.

49th one from the top ,LOL

[caperjack]

actually your quess is as good as mine ,
Anyone else !

[smitty260]

actually your quess is as good as mine ,
Anyone else !

Aha.
Hopefully someone will be able to identify the correct one..

Kind regards,
-Smitty.

[caperjack]

Aha.
Hopefully someone will be able to identify the correct one..

Kind regards,
-Smitty.

double click on a few and see what info they give you ,only way to identify them is to open them

[kaninelupus]

Use the time stamp as your guide - is difficult for us to guide you on this one as we don't know the exact time you last blue-screened.

As a tip, try pushing system to BSOD and look for an error code with a format similar to this:

0x00007f

Might be a different error code in your case, but this is the sort of thing to look for, and will be mighty helpful in pinning down the likely source of your problems. The BSOD should last long enough to write it down - even better, if you have a camera, take a photo of the entire screen and attach here, so we can pick out the relevant data. Also, directly after recovery and reboot from BSOD, open up event viewer and go to through the newest entries for any details provided.

[caperjack]

to make sure computer doesn't reboot on bsod ,right clcik on mycomputer go properties/advanced /startup and recovery/system settings , and uncheck automatic restart

[smitty260]

Uhm.. I went back to Event Viewer and went down to 10/2/2009 because that is the only one with category (102) and it says this in the description:

Error code 100000ea, parameter1 88ec1b28, parameter2 8a4b85e0, parameter3 bacfbcbc, parameter4 00000001.

Kind regards,
-Smitty.

[kaninelupus]

Well, to put that in perspective, simply relying on an error category is not always the most precise method, as some initial failures can cause cascading failures.... thus the suggestion to deliberately push for a BSOD.

That being said, the "100000ea" error code does shine a light in the general direction of the cause... your Vid Card. The three most likely causes for the problem are as follows:

• Issues with device driver
• Insufficient power supply, leaving card under-powered
• A cooked card

More info on the error can be found here

Ironically, after an hour hunting after info, almost all complainants for this particular error were on Windows XP! Speaking from someone who's been using both Vista and Win7, both from pre-release builds (and as one who frequently pushes system to the max), both Windows builds have an advantage in this area. In XP, a Vid Card failure almost always crashes the entire system... in the more recent Windows platforms, the OS almost ALWAYS recovers with little more than a restart to the Explorer process.

[smitty260]

Well, to put that in perspective, simply relying on an error category is not always the most precise method, as some initial failures can cause cascading failures.... thus the suggestion to deliberately push for a BSOD.

That being said, the "100000ea" error code does shine a light in the general direction of the cause... your Vid Card. The three most likely causes for the problem are as follows:

• Issues with device driver
• Insufficient power supply, leaving card under-powered
• A cooked card

More info on the error can be found here

Ironically, after an hour hunting after info, almost all complainants for this particular error were on Windows XP! Speaking from someone who's been using both Vista and Win7, both from pre-release builds (and as one who frequently pushes system to the max), both Windows builds have an advantage in this area. In XP, a Vid Card failure almost always crashes the entire system... in the more recent Windows platforms, the OS almost ALWAYS recovers with little more than a restart to the Explorer process.

Yeah I think it has something to do with the card itself, not the software.
I will eventually find a different graphics card and try it in this computer and then install the drivers and see if it does the same thing and if it doesn't then we obviously know something is wrong with the card.

Kind regards,
-Smitty.

[smitty260]

Ok. I got the problem fixed.
It was the graphics card.. Faulty or something..

I bought a NVIDIA 9500 GT 1GB RAM. I am happy with it.'

PROBLEM SOLVED!
Thanks guys.

Kind regards,
-Smitty.

[kaninelupus]

Glad to hear mate. Just remember to mark thread as solved to prevent others from jumping on :)