Strange Crashes

Hello, before I post my problem I would like to say that I have tried to search the internet and the dell forums for a solution; however, I cannot find someone with a problem that is similiar to mine.

My PC is a Dell 8400 series 3.4 ghz Pentium 4
256 Mb Nvidia Geforce 6800 GTO
1 Gig RAM
Soundblaster Audigy ZS Soundcard
Dell 1905fp Flatscreen Monitor

This problem started awhile back, I would say at least a year ago. At first I had trouble with my monitor not coming on when I booted up the Pc. The light on the monitor would just stay orange instead of turning green. After turning the PC on and off a few times it would eventually turn on. This was annoying enough, but not too long after this started a new problem appeared. While playing any kind of games (specfically Hellgate London currently) my PC will randomly crash. This crash consists of a horrible nails on chalkboard like screech coupled with massive color distortions on the screen and a constant loop of whatever audio happened to playing at the time.

At first I thought that it could be some issue that could be fixed with a reformat. After a reformat only the monitor problem would stick around for awhile, but then the random crashes would occur.
Secondly, I thought it could be overheating with the video card. So i now have the case open with a house fan blowing on it.
I have tried resetting the video card, and I looked at the power supply and couldn't see anything wrong (not that that really means much).
I have used multiple versions of updated nvidia drivers and updated the drivers on my soundcard.

I am just not sure what to do at this point. About 3 months back I gave up on (what we lovingly call the "the beast") after I attempted to reformat again and it actually crashed during the reformat (which is strange because it almost NEVER crashes during anything but games). Lately my friends have been playing Hellgate London and I got the idea that maybe I was do for a Christmas miracle and tried to boot the Beast up for a reformat. To my suprise it worked! The monitor problem was still there but the weird crash was not happening during games. After about a day the crashes started happening again, but they would only happen like once every 8 hours or so (again only during games). In reality thought it wasn't that big of a hinderance so I have just been dealing with it. After 2 days of that it now crashes once, i would say, every half hour during Hellgate.

- Things to note
1. I put all of the settings on medium for Hellgate London.
2. It even crashes during Warcraft 3 which requires very little of this video cards power.
3. Crashes seem to be random.. meaning they don't seem to happen during any intense loading or rendering or anything like that. Just seems to completely random.
4. The crashes and the monitor problem seem to be related. After crashes it can sometimes take an entire night (sleeping it off) to be able to get the monitor to turn back on when the computer boots.
5. Computer did not crash during a 3d benchmark 2005 test.
6. Inside of the computer seems to be very cool (temperature wise)
7. I do not have another video card to use to test on this one.
8. This most recent time around the screen would go completely black (the monitor wasn't shutting off) untill I installed the newest video drivers. (This was on the desktop not in a game. it was like my visuals would go in and out in and out until I downloaded the newest drivers.)

It would mean a lot to me (considering I cannot afford the loan for a new pc right now) if anyone was able to help. Thank you.

Edit** Forgot to mention that after crashes and during multiple reboots, my video card drivers will uninstall sometimes (not everytime)

 

Hi mate, welcome to forums.

• First things first - have you checked all drivers are up to date? Esp. graphics drivers?
• Checked your game has the latest patches etc for running?
• Tried another PSU?
• Reset CMOS/Checked BIOS settings are ok?

These are common things that must be done first when determining a problem.
Try each of these (if you can't try another PSU it's not the end of the world!) and post back

 

What interface devices are you using -keyboard, mouse, joystick whatever? and how are they connected?

 

To the first reply

1. Yes I have used many different updated drivers. Currently the most updated for my video card and my soundcard. Have all the windows updates, I believe the most updated BIOS, and I checked for any updates concerning my Monitor.

2. Definitiley- It is no
t a problem specific to just one or two games though. Happens with any game I decide to play. Yes though for the current game it is patched correctly

3. This one might be difficult due to my PC being a Dell. The power supply set up is not user friendly.

4. I just checked the BIOS settings... Many were not set to the factory default for some reason.. odd... I changed the ones back that seemed relevant to the problem. As for the CMOS thing.. is this the battery on the motherboard? If so do I just have to take it out and put it back in, or are there other steps involved? I have not had time yet tonight to sit down and play a game to see if the BIOS settings fixed it. Although I am not hopeful.



In regards to reply 2

My keyboard is a the dell keyboard that I have had since day one. The mouse I am currently using is a cheapo logitech lazer mouse that I bought a awhile back.Both of these plug into the normal color coded spots on the back. The speakers are stock and I purchased a cheap logitech microphone which plugs into the sound card. Cannot think of anything else at the moment.



I looked around using 6800 GT Crashes as my search string instead of GTO (found out gto is basically the same thing, just DELLS version of the GT). A guy was having a problem with his GT crashing. He figured out that the directx9.C installation that windows sp2 was installing was causing the crashes for him. After he uninstalled that version and installed another one the crashes stopped. However he had a lot more problems arise later on. This sound right to anyone?

 

Whilst looking at what caused similar problems to others you should use this as a guide only as computer configurations, particularly Dell, vary enormously.

Dell often ship with a USB keyboard and mouse. This can lead to conflicts problems if the the user then adds other USB stuff such as a game console.

In your case I think you mean you have the mini Din plug connections. If this is the case then go into the BIOS (F2 at boot) and disable the USB keyboard support.

Problematic Direct X is definitely a possibility. Type DXdiag into the run box and post the text file output.

 

Update: I updated directx c to the newest version and I changed some of the BIOS settings back to factory default (ones that seemed relevant). I logged onto hellgate last night and crashed after about 3 hours (which wasn't that bad). This morning it crashed while booting up (strange???) but now its working fine (havn't loaded a game yet.) I am going to look up my mother boards manual and reset the CMOS and I am going to do the USB keyboard thing that the above poster suggested. I am also going to find a program to see if my vid card came overclocked, and if so I am going to turn it down. I will post another update when I see how this all works out.



I am determined to see this through, not only for myself, but for the ton of people I have now found (on other forums) who have had the same problem but could not find answers. Thank you so much for the help and ideas so far =)

 

Resetting CMOS - Take out the battery for a minute.

 

An old trick, not much needed with modern graphics cards but you could turn down the harware acceleration.

right click on the desktop>properties>settings>advanced
lower the acceleration slider and see what happens. Try 85%

 

Update. I looked up my motherboards manual and saw the jumpers I needed to switch out to reset the CMOS. When I got in the case I could not find those jumpers. I got extremely frustrated trying to pop the battery out also so I gave that up for now. I reseated the ram (which seemed kind of loose) reseated the sound card, fixed a pin on the mother board that seemed to be bent a little, and now have a fan giving more airflow to the power supply.
The monitor problem was still there but I was able to play hellgate all day without a crash. I am not very hopeful that the problem is fixed yet though;however, I can't rule out anything I did yet because it hasn't crashed yet =)

 

So it eventually crashed, but only after a LONG session of almost constantly being used. I turned it off and left a fan on inside of it. Today it has been running fine. I am begginning to think that it might be a problem with the PSU overheating. This would explain why there are pre-driver crashes and why it runs longer with a fan on the PSU. It would also explain why it has trouble rebooting and crashes much sooner after a crash as opposed to it running fine for awhile after being turned off for a good amount of time. Is this a fair assumption to make or am I missing something?

 

If the power supply has been overheating, there is likely an internal component on its last legs. Most psus do not have internal thermal cutouts like processors do.