Problem--Deus Ex:IW shuts off my system!

[Leo728]

Hey everyone,

First off let me get the system specs out of the way (btw -it's a Sony Vaio PCV-RXA842):

AMD athlon xp 2400+
ASUS A7N266VX (nforce)
512 mb PC2100 DDR
80 gb Harddrive
ATI RADEON 9800 pro 128mb
Windows XP home

O.K. here's the problem-
When I play DX:IW everything starts out fine and dandy. However after a while of play time, the game crashes--more accurately, the whole system shuts off! This only happens when the game reaches a loading screen-- it never happens during actual gameplay. It also varies as to what loading part it crashes on--sometimes it crashes at the very first loading screen, and sometimes at the fifth or seventh load). I recently upgraded my vid card from a geforce 4 ti 4200 128mb. That card, while admittedly would crash the game once in a while (I blame these random crashes on the game itself), would never make my system's power fail. Now with the 9800 pro my pc shuts off everytime I play this game! My guess is it's the PSU! However, I came here to see what all of you think the problem is (no use buying a new PSU if it turns out that isn't the problem). So any insightful feedback on this would be greatly appreciated.

OH YEAH!! I almost forgot to mention that this ONLY happens with Deus EX: Invisible War. I can play other games such as Call of Duty, Max Payne 2, Need For Speed:UG, Battlefield 1942 and the like for as long as I like and this never happens--It ONLY does it with DX:IW.

Thankyou in advance! :t

[Bigjakkstaffa]

Try downloading the patch and seering if that helps.

To be honest though DX2 appears to be horrendously buggy and its probably something your gonna have to wait for a fix for.

Thankfully us Europeans probably wont have any bother like this when we get DX2 in February, thanks for beta-testing it for us guys ;)

--Jakk:t

[Leo728]

Thanks for the reply Jakk!

I downloaded the v1.1 patch as soon as it came out from the Ion Storm forums--Still no dice!

I now know what the problem is though(or atleast pretty sure). It's not the power supply, thankfully. I'm 90% sure it's the system's temps being too high. This morning I woke up to a chilly overcast day and decided to give DX:IW a go as soon as the pc finished booting up(it had been left off the whole night). I was very surprised to be able to actually play over an hour's worth of the game before it proceeded with the crashing and the off-ing of my pc. I then realized that all attempts to playing Deus EX prior to this one happended only after the pc had been on for many hours. I quickly powered up my pc after the shutdown and checked what temperatures I was getting in BIOS. It read that my mobo temps were around 40C and my CPU temps were 75C.
Now I'm no expert on what is a good temperature for a pc--but, isn't the CPU running a bit too hot there?! What do you guys think? Any programs or software I can download to keep my CPU running cooler? Or any fans or heatsinks you would recommend?
This definitely looks like if it's a heat problem---and maybe a small problem with the game itself seeing as how I can run all other games fine.

Too anyone that can help me out here, I thank you and may the gods smile down on you :p :t

[Bigjakkstaffa]

As a temporary solution and to make sure before spending any money, try removing your side panel and lean a household fan itno the box blowing cool ait in and see if the crashign stops for good.

Also while your on check the CPU HSF is installed securely, the right way around and that the fan is plugged into the correct header and not obstructed or blocked

--Jakk:t

[Rabbitrunner51]

Please feel free to reply to my Thread I wrote recently ( today),
At least that tells me that my problem with it isn't a lone wolf...

[Leo728]

O.K. it seems I have fixed the problem...by under-clocking the radeon 9800 pro. All I did was install powerstrip and adjusted the clock settings as low as they'd go and --presto! That solved the crashing/shutdowns during the game. The game still runs great too (still a lot better then with my old ti 4200). I was pretty sure It was my temps that were making my system crash but after taking the side panel off and moving the pc to a more wide-open area (thanks for the advice Jakk, the vaio runs considerably cooler now --about 10C less--) I realized that the game continued to turn off the power! It was only after I under-clocked the card that the game ran stable. This leads me to believe once again that it IS a PSU problem. Also, I found out recently that Sony put a meager 290Watt power supply into this Vaio so that just further reinforces my theory...(sigh). Anyway, enough of my unitelligable babbling, the problem this thread described has been solved, any other problems seem to lean toward that of my PC's hardware, which (provided I don't figure it out myself) I'll leave for another thread on another forum here at sysopt.

Thanks for your helpful advice Jakk!:t

[Bigjakkstaffa]

What version fo the catalyst drivers are you running? If its cat 3.8/3.9/2.10 i woudl suggest downgrading to 3.7 as there are a lot of reports of heat issues being introduced with the newer driver releases

--Jakk:t

[Leo728]

Jakk your a genius!

In hopes of solving this problem I certainly tried a lot of different drivers --began with the catalyst 3.9s, then 3.8s, 3.10s and then tried the catalyst based omega 3.9 drivers. None of those provided any type of relief to the problem. Then I read your post and realized that I had yet to give the 3.7s a try. To be honest though, I seriously doubted they (the 3.7 drivers) would hail a victory where so many others had failed. But I had nothing to lose so I said "what the heck" and proceeded with the download. It turns out that the 3.7s offer a perfect solution to my problem! I have yet to witness my pc shutdown during the game (just finished playing for about two hours straight --zero shutoffs--) and I no longer have to under-clock the graphics card to enjoy this great game without interuptions. Again Jakk, thanks for taking the time to explain the importance of "troubleshooting" to a noob like me. I mean, the fix was so simple but I probably wouldn't have figured it out without your help. Thanks again mate!

Your biggest fan:p :r Leo

[Bigjakkstaffa]

No worries mate, glad to hear its sorted

--Jakk:t