Hard Lock

[Kryptone]

Whenever I play my games in anything but 800X600 my computer hard locks and i have to manually restart it. My computer is certainly capable of playing high end games and i dont think its overheating. Freinds have told me i may need to edit my bios settings but i have no idea what i should do to my bios settings. Any help would be appreciative.

[liam858]

Hi and Welcome to Virtual Dr.


Can you post back your system specs please, and we'll go from there.

Include the basics, and then extra bits of info such as case fans?, graphics card cooler (if not stock), graphics card interface (AGP/PCI-E) etc


Liam

[Kryptone]

AMD athlon 64 3000+
2.01 ghz
512 ram
lanparty nf3 250gb motherboard
geforce 6600 gt
stock video card fan
one side case fan (bios temp= about 45 deg.)
xp pro
etc. you get the idea

[liam858]

I would check your BIOS settings for the card, is it the AGP version? check the aperture size, if it is set at 128/64, reduce it, and test to see if the crashing still occurs.


Liam

[Kryptone]

tried the lowest aperture settings (default at 128. reduced to 32). failed and crashed again. perhaps i need to change the AGP settings? PS problems occurred post september. I tried using old card drivers and also the latest. There is some dust on the video card but its running 45 deg....so it should be alright i suppose. no viruses. I think its weird that my games (world of warcraft, doom 3, counter strike source) will work fine on 800X600 (they look shiite tee though) but after changing game res to the actual screen size (1280X1024) my comp hangs between 2-45 min of gameplay (usually within 5 mins of changing the res).

[liam858]

It may be partly that the card can't handle that res, those games are classed as "high end" and 1280x1024 may push the card beyond its capabilities, do you have the settings on high on any of these games?


Liam

[Kryptone]

my computer can definitely handle the games. before september i could run doom 3 on the highest possible settings with good performance. and there is no slow down before my games freeze, they run perfectly until the actual hang takes place.

[liam858]

Do you have any background processes running that aren't needed? do you have your pagefile set to manual? if so what is it set at? Have you checked for CPU spikes when you're not in-game, from normal processes?


Liam

[Kryptone]

no background apps running. i even wiped my computer and only installed world of warcraft, and it still does this. plus i used to run all kinds of file sharing apps pre september while playing games, never posed a problem before.

[liam858]

Hmmm, what is the card temp like under heavy use? Have you checked Device Manager for conflicts? if not boot into Safe Mode and check for multiple entries etc and delete them.


Liam

[Kryptone]

I found out that is was overheating. I opened my case and blew a a small stand up fan into the case. Im not sure if its my video card or the processor (i felt the video card and it was pretty hot but what the hell do i know, im no computer expert) anyways, suggestions on quieter cooling options other than a big ass floor fan blowing into my open computer case would be nice. I already had a side mounted fan and my current cpu fan seems to be fine. Im about to take a ziplock bag of frozen peas and stuff it in there lol.

[liam858]

I'd leave the peas in the freezer for now

...and recommend an arctic cooling fan: http://www.arctic-cooling.com/vga2.php?idx=62


Liam

[lgbpop]

before september i could run doom 3 on the highest possible settings with good performance

My curiosity's up--what did you change in September? You mention this twice.

[mattyboy1214]

Also be sure you have a good PSU. A GeForce 6600 requires 350W, so a GT will require the same minimum or perhaps a little more. Most well-known PSUs run at actually 70% and cheaper off-brands run at 50%. Be sure you're getting the correct voltage too, but most of all just make sure the basics are correct.