k7s5a+radeon 8500 freezes during gaming

[Trash Can Man]

I'm betting that it'll be a far fetch for anyone to help me on this issue but it's hope. Since I switched my system from 98 to 2k it's been having an issue with the only game that utilizes a 3d accelerator I really play on my system, CS and I play it rarely these days (was once a Jedi master of CS till it ruined my life). Whenever I run cs, tfc, hl, the system will totally freeze after a few minutes of playing. This only happened after I switched to win2k. I switched from open gl, to d3d, to just "software," no fixes. It totally freezes the computer up and the only way out is to hit reset. So I just uninstalled hl and havent played anything for a while, but just the other day I finally decided to get doom3. It arrived yesterday and what do you know, same problem. I updated my video card drivers to no avail. (Also note all 3d settings are at the lowest for max performance, no acentropic filtering, etc.) All drivers are up-to-date, Direct-x is up-to-date, v9.0C, my system is an k7s5a, 512mb ram, radeon 8500le 128mb AGP. Has anyone ever experienced similar problems with this board and/or vid card under 2k or any other version of windows?

[Peter M]

That'll be power supply or heat problems, usually.

[Vitalka]

Do you have all service packs for Win2K?

[Trash Can Man]

Yes I do have the 2k service packs. Heat and power wouldnt explain why it would run fine under 98 and not 2k though.

[CrazyCrusher]

By chance are you using an Onboard sound or do you have a PCI Sound card? if you have try new drivers on your sound card along with updated drivers if you have onboard. I have seen some problems with win2k and some times a driver update on the sound card helps.

[Peter M]

Originally posted by Trash Can Man
Yes I do have the 2k service packs. Heat and power wouldnt explain why it would run fine under 98 and not 2k though.

Yes it does. Windows 98 doesn't transition the processor into powersave states, and thus presents a much more steady load to the power supply unit. Windows NT/2K/XP as well as Linux do that, producing big jumps in power draw. The PSU has to cope, and if it doesn't, you'll get dips in the voltages that will throw something off the rails.

[Trash Can Man]

Good point. When I get home today I'll disconnect all extra drives I have from the psu and see if there's a difference. If that dosen't work Ill will also jack up the resolution of doom 3 to max settings. If something is overheating the system should crash much more quickly at top resolution.

[Peter M]

With older boards like the K7S5A, it's not normally the 12V line that's critical, but rather the 5V and 3.3V lines. Unplugging the drives does little for those.

[Trash Can Man]

Thanks for the advice guys. It turned out it was my radeon 8500LE that was overheating. I ran the game with the case open and had no crashes period.