A PC nightmare

[misjudgedinall]

Hello, my computer gets errors on every game (Battlefield 1942, URT2k4, DOOM III, farcry, city of heros) They'll run AWESOME but eventually I get BSODs, illegal references to memory, program faults and crashes; SOMETHING is wrong! But no one can figure it out yet. So anyone wanna help? The computer runs totally awesome when I don't play games.... AND its not the videocard because I tried my friends Radion 9700 pro (nice card) and I get the same problems (my vid card works great in his PC; his PC specs and hardware are so similar to mine.) This is a clean install of windows XP with SP2. Completely updated drives from nvidia, soundblaster and microsoft. Newest Bios update.

SPECS

A7N8X Deluxe 2.0
AMD athlon XP 3200+
2x 512 mb ddr cosair XMS pc3200
2x 120 gig SATA
Geforce fx 5900 128mb
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS


I've upgraded it as much I thought possible. Bios, drivers, windows update you name it. I'm ready to go through even the simplest steps over again though.

[davewuk]

Uninstall video drivers and I think Nvidia has a clean utility for removing dross, use it or find a comparable program and start again fresh.

Overclocking or not...heat. Check processor cooling is up to the job, HotCPU will push it hard - I STRONGLY RE-ITERATE, make sure your cooling is up to it.

Chipset fans/heatsinks any? Make sure they are functioning well too.

Overall system heat during gaming, check temps and get the temperatures down, play with case sides removed if necessary

Next look at memory, try stressing it with the likes of prime95s test, the smallest glitch will show up here.

Disk, defrag and scandisk for problems

Anything else...oh yeah...format and re-install clean.

[The Lodge]

http://www.memtest.org/ Run that for awhile and see if it gives you any errors.

[Cyan]

Originally posted by The Lodge
http://www.memtest.org/ Run that for awhile and see if it gives you any errors.

Ditto.

[apocalypse]

I had nearly the same setup as you, except my video card was an ATI. Memtest never found any errors, however when I changed my RAM to the Crucial brand, all problems were fixed.

Another thing to try, even if Memtest does not find any errors is to increase the RAM voltage to 1.85 V, as that can help with stability issues.

Also check this site for more info: http://www.houseofhelp.com/v2/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=128

[davewuk]

One reason to try Prime95 instead of memtest. From reports, it pushes the RAM more and will pick up the slightest problem. (Ensure latest version for bug fixes with >512Mb)

RAM voltage, yeah forgot about that. If you check the specs of your mobo, there is bound to be a mention on the suitability of particular brands. Even then, there will more than likely be a word or two on stability. If you can't up the voltage, try to underclock the RAM if BIOS permits.

[Beeblequix]

More memory stuff:

enable spread spectrum if you haven't already. It's supposed to spread the voltage out a bit and help stabilize memory when instability arises.

you may also raise the CAS latency. Try 2.5 or 3 instead of 2.0.

try with just one stick of memory to see if it has to do with one bank, dual channel, wierd bios settings.

ALSO, you may be experiencing a power supply issue. You may try a 350W or greater PS as a possible solution. I was having issues a few months ago, bought a nice shiny 400W Allied from PC Club that did not fix my problem but it's possible that yours may be fixed with a new PS.

Run Adaware, Spybot Search & Destroy, and any other spyware apps.

Reinstall Direct X.

Run dxdiag. Even if it doesn't find a problem you may lower hardware acceleration on your sound and/or video.

best o' luck.

ß

[MrBurns]

Originally posted by davewuk
Overclocking or not...heat. Check processor cooling is up to the job, HotCPU will push it hard - I STRONGLY RE-ITERATE, make sure your cooling is up to it.

I know a program, which is even better at pushing the cpu to the limit: it is called Toaster II, it is the only program where I really get a straight line at 100% for the cpu useage w/ CPUCool and it made my cpu temp go 2°C higher than / any other program.

The best program i know for testing overall system stability is prime95. you can download it form www.mersenne.org. it crashed after 6 minutes when i ran my ram w/ cl2.5 instead of cl2, although none of the 3 memtesting programs i tried (memtest86, goldmemory, docmem) found an error.

for pure memory testing i would recommend running goldmemory in addition to memtest86. i alwys used these 2 programs and sometimes goldmemory finds an error whioich memtest86 doesnt find and sometimes the other way round. you can download goldmemory from www.goldmemory.cz.

edit: w/ the memory testing programs you should make a full test, which takes about 4-8 hours for 1024MB, depending on the program (memtest: 8 hours, goldmemory: 6 hours, docmem: 4 hours). when you use memtest86, you can also loop test 5 for at least 4 hours in addition to the full test, because this test stresses the memory very much.

prime95 should run at least 6 hours, 24 hours are better (once it found an error after over 12 hours when I tested my oced system).

for toaster II and hotcpu tester 1 hour is enough.

[misjudgedinall]

Thank you very much, all of these programs (though I have not decided which programs to try yet as I am not at home) will be a great way to test and even tweak my computer. I'm not looking for performance boost as much as stability. These are also programs to put in my arsenal for future reference.

I have tried lowering my AGP speed, and my hardware acceleration. My powersupply is 420 watts. I bet it might have something to do with the memory EVEN THOUGH asus has my memory in its list. Acctually I had GEIL ram in my motherboard but I replaced it with cosair because GEIL didn't support dual channel and was not supported with my motherboard. I don't think I had problems with the GEIL memory however I didn't play any games.

Again thank you and I'll tell you how it went after I get back home and try these programs!

[MrBurns]

just leave your a<gp at 66mhz. agp 8x is fast enough at 66mhz, i have seen benchmarks, where they oced the agp, and they didnt find any performance increase. but these benchmarks were on gf4 ti cards, so maybe it is different on faster cards (but you can benchmark it yourself).

dual channel works w/ every memory. the only difference when you use dual channel memory is,, that you have wo identical sticks that were tested together. but you can also buy two normal sticks if they are identical and you will get the same result.

[Someone Stupid]

Increasing the AGP bus speed even on the faster cards R3x and NV3x show no increase in speed - even with an uppage in voltage. I've heard of cards dieing from it though. So I'd leave AGP at 66 MHz period.

[MrBurns]

Originally posted by Someone Stupid
I've heard of cards dieing from it though.

i also heard of this. some cards already die, when youb ranb them a few weeks @ about 70mhz.

[misjudgedinall]

I'm sure that it isn't oced right now, but I had oced it at 80mhz for a little while. Like you said there was such little performance boost that I quickly set it back to default (66 mhz I dunno) But I'd know if anything was wrong with my card.....cuz it wouldn't work, right?

well I ran prime95 and I got an error. Of course I have no idea what it means so there must be a place to find out. This is what it says:

FATAL ERROR rounding was 0.47, expected less than .4
hardware failure dectected, consult stresstest.txt (which just tells me about the program and that it is probably my memory, but what with my memory?)

[The Lodge]

Did you run memtest? What is your ram voltage set at?

[davewuk]

Was that running the latest Prime95? The error is probably meaningless in the greater picture just that during calculations the expected answer was not returned. This could be down to a dodgy stick so if you have more than one, try each seperately. I suggest you drop in here http://www.mersenneforum.org/index.php? and post to the hardware section for possible solutions. The main being...

...upping the voltage or underclocking it from within the BIOS as suggested previously, changing timing

You could just bite the bullet and relegate the RAM to a non strenuous position in another rig and pick up some new stuff. If it is new (within warranty), then RMA it too, worth a try if you can prove the results

Oh, and there is always the possibilty of PSU, mobo or CPU.
PSU; poor output stability
CPU; raise core voltage
Mobo; anything goes, stability again I guess

A thread on the forum suggests BIOS update http://www.mersenneforum.org/showthread.php?t=777&highlight=a7n8x see bartok's answer several posts down.

[MrBurns]

If the system is overclocked, the first thing I would do ould be clocking it back to default. also set your memory timings to "optimal" or "by SPD" in the BIOS.