Video Card Problem :( Games crash.

I have a AMD Athlon 1300, 704sdram, soundblaster live 5.1 card, and a Ati Radeon 9200se.
Whenever I play games that require high system requirements, after 20 minutes the game freezes and I have to manually restart my computer by pressing the restart button. I have tried different drivers and all that but the problem is still happening. With the Sims2 my computer will freeze after about 2 hours of gameplay, with Silent Hill 3 I would crash every half hour. I have an extra cooling fan in my computer and a good powersupply. Can anyone offer any advice? Thank you in advance.

 

Sounds like an overheating issue to me. It only does this while palying games? Not when running any other type of program? Has it always done this or did it just now start happening?

Is it hot where the tower is? Is it on the floor or on the top of your desk?

Maybe try removing the side cover and placing a small fan blowing into the case.

 

might also try using those air spray cans cause dust can contribute to an overheating problem

 

You have 704MB of RAM, I am guessing a 512MB, a 128MB and a 64MB RAM stick is installed.....if the crash/freeze times were consistant, I would agree along with the overheating or possibly even HD problems (which still could be: bad sectors) but since the times vary and since you have at least 3 different RAM sticks, I am leaning towards a compatibility issue between RAMs. Also even if one of that was bad (the culprit) it would cause this kind of problems. Check your RAMs to make sure each and every one of them is supported by your mobo (check mobo manufacturer's site for info). Also you could go to www.simmtester.com and d/l the free DOS utility to test your RAMs (leave each RAM alone to narrow down on the problematic one/s).
Of course it could still be the overheating problem but IMO it is your RAM.

 

I know this is something people usually try themselves but wanted to make sure:
When running games that causes the crash, do you have any other applications running in the background? If yes, close them, including the virus scanner if you got one (it is pointless to have a real-time scanner running when running locally installed games or other system resource hungry applications anyhow, especially if you ran them before and the virus scanner didn't cause any alerts).
If you need to re-install the Video Card drivers, I strongly recommend you revert back to 'standard vga' drivers first, uninstall the existing drivers reboot then install the new one to minimize the chances of having conflicts, etc.

 

I had just gotten an extra cooling fan installed in the front of the computer. The computer repair guy told me it was a bit hot and installed it for me.
The problem does only happen when I play games that require a lot of system requirements such as T&L, high ram, p3 800+ required games. I have everything shut off in the background, I don't even have anything installed, just the volume and internet connection icons in the system tray. I had used diagnose and some memory checker a month ago and it didn't find any problems

 

putting an xtra fan on a box doesnt help with cooling on the video card, you might want to move everything to a bigger case or reapply the thermal compound between your heatsink on the video card + the core itself after cleaning it throughout with alchohol pads.

 

Well, thats assuming that it is a video card problem.

You could try it with another card : that way you could see if it is just your card overheating or what.

Do you have the latest DirectX isntalled?

Is the sound card in the first PCI slot? If so, can you move it to the second?

Incidentally, that CPU is very slow in comparison with most CPU's these days, make sure you check the required specs. on those games.

Also you might want to make sure the heatsink is on the CPU properly, and you're using a good quality thermal paste (e.g. Arctic Silver), and there are no contaminents (like oily fingerprints)

 

You'd hope that the repair guy did some simple steps for the cash he racks in. Now that i think of it, my old Vaio P3 had a similar issue of rebooting when i went into higher req' stuff like this; it ended up being that the heatsink on the monster was *VERY* loose.

 

Well, if you go to a repair guy and say "My video card is overheating" they are likley to make sure your video card does not overheat, whether that fixes your problem or not.

 

It could have something to do with the sound. I hear a continued bleep when the game freezes or 10 seconds of sound while the game is frozen then the continued bleep. I believe my soundcard is located towards the bottom. Would the 1st or 2nd slot be better? I would have to move my network card somewhere else because that is on the top. When I had the extra fan installed I had a Nvidia ti300 installed that I was having problems with, turned out the card wasn't compatible with my pc, then I bought the ati radeon 9200se. So I did have a high powered video card in at the time when he fixed the heat problem. Also, all the games I am playing do support the sys requirements for all the games I play and I have the newest version of directx. I have heard that soundblasters can cause some conflicts sometimes?

 

Pamela you didn't comment on my first post regarding having multiple RAMs on your system. Have you tried having only one of the RAMs at a time and playing the same games to see if you run into the same problems (please do try this and for each and every RAM even if the smaller size RAM may cause the system to run slower a bit during the testing).

Also you mentioned the beeping, do you hear any beeping when you turn the system on? I am not too high on ATI cards but I am not going to suspect the video card just because of that. Before you spend any more money on servicing your system, try what I suggested and let us know.

You could also click on START > RUN and type dxdiag and examine the DX Diagnostic info of your system (this is a good place to look for possible conflicts as well).

 

maybe its been overlooked but what about your PSU? do you have bios screen that tells you the voltage readings and flux? maybe your PSU is giving out.

 

Didn't even think about that. You'd think I would with as many PSU's as I've been threw.


I'm wondering if you've removed each stick of RAM as suggested?

When this "crash" happens, does it just freeze on the in-game screen or does it take you back to desktop?

 

I will try taking out my ram piece by piece and seeing what happens, if that is the case I will definately be pissed because I don't want to put any more money into the machine and it would be a shame to waste the ram sticks ... then posting the results. The only time I hear the bleep sound is when the game crashes, the screen is frozen at whatever scene of the game was on my computer at the time. I do not get taken to the desktop, the whole computer is frozen with the game still there on the screen not moving a frame at all and the bleeping noise. Thank you everyone for your help by the way

 

Sounds like RAM, i had the same problem. Took out the RAM and now it works like a charm

 

I ran docmemory, from simmtester.com and everything passed. Does this mean that my ram is not the problem? Or can having the three sticks that are all working fine seperately still have conflicts with each other?

 

I hate to say it but the RAM testing programs are even though helpful not always accurate and as you suspected, they may not detect compatibility issues between different sticks. EAch stick could be good by themselves but that still wouldn't mean they would work in harmony with each other. Always make sure the RAM you are buying is compatible with your mobo and (if applicable) same type as the ones already installed.