Device Failure while playing Game (PC Chips)

[bka1967]

Well, I am not gamer and this is not a gamer PC.

Last weekend I installed NFS Porsche after 2-3 years on PCchips 810MLR with on board video and tried to play. A couple of times, the game froze and after Ctrl-Alt-Dlte and removing CD, I got message that WIN has recovered from a device failure..... And the desktop after that was fuzzy and really big in size. I had to pust the restart as I could not see "start."

Just wondering what could have caused this. Never got this message, when I played the same game on same PC but with WIN 98SE on it.

Is this could be foresignal that MB or something else on board will die soon! :-( NO time to build another one this time of year.

Thanks!
:r

256MB, WIn XP Pro, PCChips 810MLR with only 2 games NFS III and NFS Porsche

[Fluffy_624]

Have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling the display adapter?

[BipolarBill]

I wouldn't even think of trying to play NFS without a dedicated 3D video card.

[Peter M]

Freezes in games, on otherwise well working systems, very often are cooling failures. Check CPU temperatures, and in case of chipset integrated VGA, also check and improve the thermal attachment of the chipset heatsink.

[bka1967]

Thanks for your replies everyone!

Not a big deal. Maybe one day I will see that how good this game looks on a better system with a better or dedicated video card.

I am not a gamer anyway.

[Rob R.]

I'll warn you that adding an AGP card to an 810LMR is just another giant headache. I had the misfortune of owning two of those motherboards and tried to add GeForce2 MX200's to both of them and it never worked right. The only reason I even selected the GeForce2's was that the sticker I peeled off of the AGP slot specifically said the board was tested with those cards and found to have no problems. What a giant lie that was. It was nothing but problems. If this had not happened with two motherboards simulataneously, I might have let it slide. I have hated PCChips ever since.

I would say you're better off sticking with the onboard graphics and knowing your machine is better served as an email checking, web surfing machine than anything you could think of gaming on. Save youself the headaches and wasted time chasing odd-ball problems created by cheap hardware.

[Peter M]

The problem is not so much in the board or its design, but much more in the chipset. SiS 730S has always had an incredibly frail AGP implementation, in early chipset revisions it didn't work at all (PC-Chips didn't even bother mount an AGP slot on those), later it got better but never really good.

Also, improvements were made by fine tuning chipset stuff in BIOS - from the 2003 BIOSes forward, AGP again got somewhat better.

There is a vast list of user results with the 810L board and AGP cards over here:

http://radel.inet.net.nz/m810lmr.html

[Rob R.]

Good to know. So I should be mad at SiS more than PCChips.

[bka1967]

I don't know much about motherboards, but I have this to say.

The IT guy at my last workplace, built many computers (including mine) for people at work (my guess 20-30) and he used PCChips motherboards. My guess is that most of the people wanted a desktop not for games but web and word, excel etc.

I chose PCChips beause it had everything on board and I was going to learn from him how to build a computer. I had to replace a MB after 1-1/2 year, but the power supply died couple of weeks before it. My guess it could have done something to the MB.

Good MB for what is designed for.
PCChips MB
WINXP Pro, 256 RAM,
40 GIG HD, 200 GIG HD, using only 20 GIG :-)
CDRW, +- DVDRW, DSL Modem (Cabel Modem in Past)
serves me for what I need at present!:t

By the Way...
I cleaned the disk of NFS Porsche..It plays fine now!:D :D

[naptownman]

I think the northbridge cooked...