All games are crashing, most used to work fine

Discussion in 'Software' started by crimethinker, Jul 17, 2005.

  1. crimethinker

    crimethinker Private E-2

    I'm using Windows XP with all updates installed, including SP2, as well as DirectX 9.0c, 3GHz processor, 1GB system memory, ATI RADEON 9800 graphics card, VIA AC'97 surround sound, and a wireless internet adapter. Pretty top-end stuff, as far as I know, but it's acting like my old 233MHz computer now, and has been for roughly 2 months. I've only owned it since March!

    Over time, my games have all started to crash after 5 minutes of play, regardless of graphical settings or of what I was doing at the time; on memorable occasions, Counter-Strike: Source has crashed before I joined a server. In addition, my computer's speed has slowed over time as well.

    I have ZoneAlarm, SpywareBlaster, McAfee ViruScan, Ad-Aware, and The Cleaner installed, plus I use the utilities frequently, so there's no problem with viruses.

    The fact that the games crash, on average, after the same length of time no matter how high or low my graphics (resolution, shader detail, full-screen or not, anti-aliasing etc.) are set, or what other programs are running (I've tried swapping out ZoneAlarm for SP2 firewall, turning off lots of unnecessary services and programs, etc.), suggests there's no problem with running out of memory; this idea is supported by the times I have run a game alongside the task manager, and seen that the game crashes do not coincide with a sudden/prolonged spike of memory, CPU or pagefile usage.

    (Every time I open the Task Manager and click the Performance tab, the kernel times spike to 100%. I don't know if this is normal, but I never noticed it before.)

    Now this is one of the most confusing parts of my problems: all my games crash with different errors, after the same amount of time. My Steam games crash either with a 'memory could not be read' error or with all my peripherals shutting down simultaneously; KOTOR1 crashes with 'This program has encountered an error and must close'; and when I installed the original Delta Force to see if it would run fine owing to it being older, I discovered it crashes with a 'breakpoint exception' error.

    Now, when I'm not running games, my computer never crashes, no matter how many programs I have running; however, it does run much slower than it used to.

    All this is suggesting to me either a hardware/software incompatibility since I installed new drivers for my graphics card, or I didn't install the drivers properly, or there's some setting of Windows XP that's been fiddled with when it shouldn't have been. (I admit I got pissed off and started changing random settings to see if it would alleviate the problem, quite probably exacerbating the problem. Before I started changing settings, all my games but Steam games were running perfectly, and it was because of that that I started messing with things. It would be great if someone knew how to restore Windows XP to all the default settings, as I've no idea what settings I've changed.)

    Of course, don't take my word for what's wrong, those are just my best guesses. What I was really looking for when I started this post was precise instructions on how to troubleshoot this problem.

    Please help, I'm now so annoyed with my computer I can barely approach the problem with a clear head, and it's been much too long since I've played a game of CS:S that lasted long enough to get some good kills, or since I've played Half-Life 2.
     
  2. SlaveLabor

    SlaveLabor Private E-2

    Have you tried different cards instead of yours. My friend was running a similar system to yours except a Raedon 9250 Pro card and it did the same thing. Turns out the card had slightly died (Still ran and came up in Windows Hardware but didn't run to it's full capacity)
     
  3. Destructo

    Destructo Corporal

    So the system is brand new? Could be a bunch of things. Open it up and see if your heatsinc on the cpu is clogged and if so blow it out w/some air. Your vid card might have gone bad as slavelabor said, if you can borrow someones try theirs out. Could be your ram too. try only 512 (assumming you have 512x2). If one works and the other doesnt then bingo. It could also be a cable. replace you harddrive cable w/one you know that works.


    Just a few thoughts to get you going

    Have fun!
     
  4. Jerkyking

    Jerkyking Sergeant Major

    Other than CPU or Video card issues discussed above...

    How many Hard Drives do you have? Are you games loaded separately than our other program files? If so could be a problem there.

    Sounds like you have a nice system.
     
  5. crimethinker

    crimethinker Private E-2

    After much playing around with my system and computer games, I've isolated an important fact: if the computer hasn't used much recently, it'll run for a long time with no errors. Just yesterday I played several hours of CS:S and HL2 with a few pauses, error-free; this morning I try to play, and VPU Recover resets my graphics card twice before coming up against a non-recoverable error, in the space of about half an hour. Such things have happened before in the past.

    Now, this narrows things down, and now it seems that:

    -I have an overheating problem, most likely with the graphics card, or:
    -I have some other sort of periodic/sporadic problem that only causes a computer crash during strenuous usage.

    I've already been told to try swapping out graphics cards, and I will. While I do that, I'd like to ask: Does anyone know of any periodic or sporadic problems that would cause these symptoms, that have little to do with overheating? Some strange virus, perhaps? Also, would the overheating of any components besides the graphics card cause these symptoms?
     
  6. dukedren

    dukedren Private E-2

    im not a big expert, but i think i know why is the system running slower: when i installed 2 anti-virus programs (F-prot and kaspersky antivirus)
    i had to reinstall the system because it didnt move. same thing with many anti-spyware programs... try to leave only 1 anti-virus and 1 anti-spyware program.(not sure about it but u can try) :)
     
  7. Rikky

    Rikky Wile E. Coyote - One of a kind

    I feel your pain,SERIOUSLY ;) any component can cause sporadic problems,it makes mistakes in its computation until one of those mistakes is too much for the system handle.

    It does look like an overheating or voltage problem,the biggest culprit at the moment looks like a power supply issue,so post the specifications of the power supply "everything" that written on the side of it,most importantly the little table of voltages ;) or the motherboard has a voltage problem so again post the specs of that brand/model,do this ASAP.

    first you should eliminate software,drivers and bios,update all your software,you have the windows updates,get all the game patches,DX 9.0,update all your motherboard software,including chipset,vga andthe bios update your video card drivers,download driver cleaner pro from the download section,read the readme "use as instructed",install latest catalyst drivers

    WEll go from there. ;)
     
  8. sarjono

    sarjono Private E-2

    Crimethinker, you're not alone.
    I got those crashes recently too, about 30 minutes into 3D games like Blackhawk Down, Ghost Recon, Bridge Commander, etc. on my P4 running Windows XP SP1. I've beefed up the RAM to 768Mb, and still got those crashes (well, actually my XP just restarts instead of crashing to desktop).

    I ruled out Windows XP or a virus wreaking havoc on the system, because I keep my system clean with antivirus, antispyware, and use a firewall. But I dont rule out the possiblility of XP SP1 coming in conflict with Norton, as I once read in a forum somewhere. These crashes happen just before I upgraded my Norton stuffs.

    But here's something new: I turned off one of my twin LCD monitors, unplugged all of my USB devices (3 external HDs and a joystick) and manage to delay the crash from every half hour to more than one hour. So it does seem to be related to the total power supply as Rikky pointed out.

    FYI, I'm field testing a 12V DC ATX power supply unit from Sundaya, powered by a Sundaya 12V DC 70Ah storage system, acting as a UPS. This little combo makes my PC only consumes about 30W of electricity, and can continue working for many hours after a blackout. I remember their technician once told me the power drain of a 2.xx MHz Pentium 4 (or higher) is considerable during heavy activities and computations. Things like internal hard disk, external USB disk and cd drive spinning up at the same time as the VGA is redrawing something complex on the screen can be a big jolt on the system.

    Brownouts from the electricity company can also happen at certain hours during the day, delivering less power to your PC (making your PC restart when its activities suddenly demand more).

    Try getting a power supply that delivers something like 330W or even more (especially if you plan on adding USB peripherals to your system), and see if it keeps your games running.

    If that doesn't work, then maybe it's overheating problems after all. So, carefully clean your CPU fan also. If in doubt, you can add an extra internal fan (ideally, close to the graphics card) to cool things down even more.

    Hope you can get back to completing your missions after that. Just watch your six :)
     
  9. varchet2

    varchet2 Private E-2

    shot in the dark but check and see if theres a bios update available, that will have an impact on component fans (cpu/vid etc) and whether they will function properly.
    perhaps also look into a memory testing utility to make sure none of your ram is bad, although im guessing thats probably not it or you'd be getting more write/ memory fault errors accompanied by the blue screen of death.
     
  10. TheBoomWav

    TheBoomWav Private E-2

    Ok.. I have a very similar problem. I upgraded my Motherboard, Ram, CPU. When I run a game, it will run completly smoothly. However, it always freeze in the middle of the game. It might take 5mins then 30mins. I even played for 1h long before freezing on time. I tried running in Graphics minimum, it froze after 5mins. When I say freeze, I mean.. image freeze, no sound, no hd. I have to completly reset everytime. Here's my spec:

    A8V Deluxe -new
    AMD 64bit 3500+ -new
    2x 512mb DRR400 -new
    Radeon 9600 Pro (had it on my old build)
    Realtek enhance integrated audio -new
    300Watt Power supply
    I run WinXP SP2

    At first, I thought my drivers would be the problem. I have the last Catalyst driver. I downloaded the last VIA chipset driver and the last realtek driver. I updated them but.. still don't work. After that, I thought it could be some kind of Graphic card config error. So I went on ATI Website and putted the optimal bios settings they were saying. (Pnp OS, AGP voltage 1.6v, 128mo aperture size...) I also tried reducing AGP speed to 4x with no fastwrite and combinating write and all. But still didn'T work. I tried changing the VIA driver for microsoft AGP drivers.. but didn't work. I then thought it might be due to overheating. After a reset I checked in the bios for my temperature probe. CPU 36 celcius (93 farenheit), Motherboard 26 (79 farenheit) celcius. That's quite good. I then thought it might be my integrated sound card. So I desactivated it and putted my Sound Blaster live 5.1 in it. Updated it with last driver but still froze. Grrr.. Then someone told me it might be my 300W power supply with my 4 fans that was doing that. So I bought a new 400W one. But still freeze. I've done 2 memory test. Memtest 96 and a Prime something. Everything is fine. I clean it of spyware and defrag and all but I just formated it when I built it. I've also opened the case and putted my room fan in it.. but.. it still froze. I'm lost. Please! Help me. I hope I don't have to change my Video card. I might try to put a second powersupply for the fans. And put a 8mm fan just for my videocard. But I don't think it's the problem. If anyone have a suggestion please help me!
     
  11. Rikky

    Rikky Wile E. Coyote - One of a kind

    Guys you need to start your own threads in the hardware section,it can get really confusing trying to answer different problems in one thread ;) ,just cut and paste your problem you have described here into your problem thread,you will get much more help this way ;)
     
  12. sarjono

    sarjono Private E-2

    I wonder if certain hotfixes in Windows XP SP2 has something to do with it (e.g: come in conflict with DirectX)?
    This seems to be the only common denominator between our configurations...
    (Although my XP is SP1, I got some SP2 hotfixes installed too).
    Things were running fine before SP2, right?
     
  13. TheBoomWav

    TheBoomWav Private E-2

    I never ran this built with SP1...
     

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