computer freezing

[Cazz]

Hi,

I am having big problems with my computer freezing on me and I just don't know what to do to fix it. My system is a P3-800 (AMD I think), 128 mb ram, crystal cs4281 sound card (though the software that came with it was for a vibra128 - I don't know if they are similar but the driver I have installed is for the crystal), nvidia tnt2 32 meg ram, 20 gig hd, internal 56k modem and I am not sure what the motherboard is as I cannot locate the manual. I suspected it had something to do with the video card as it mostly freezes when I try and play games such as Star Trek Voyager, Deep Space Nine - The Fallen etc. I have another system here that has a tnt1 video card which I tried but it still froze on me. The only thing there is that the tnt2 has a fan on the card whereas the tnt1 does not and got rather hot when it ran for about 10 min in the p3 machine. I have tried another sound card also but still had the same problem. I bought this system a year ago and it had this problem but as they could not find out why they changed over the motherboard just in case. The problem ceased but started up again a couple of months ago. If I just cruise the interent it rarely freezes but in games it is guaranteed to freeze within 15 min usually less. I had win Me installed but a couple of days ago put win98se back to see if this was the cause - it wasn't. It occurred to me that when I had the problem a year ago I was using my sisters 17" monitor and then I had to go back to a 14". A couple of months back my sister lent me the same 17" and that was around the time the problem started up again. Tonight I removed the 17" and went back to the 14" hoping that would be it but it is still freezing. If someone could help me with this I would be eternally grateful as I am at the hair tearing out stage

Thank you for listening,

Regards
Cazz

 

[seby]

Try new chipset drivers & check for overheating at the cpu etc. Try running the system without any extra cards like modem sound etc. and see if it goes away.
Just try to narrow it down to a few components.
I once had someone that didnt remove the protective plastic tape from over the heatsink compound before installing it, he wondered why it overheated!

 

[seby]

Does it lock up in safe mode?

 

[cdogg]

The problem has nothing to do with your "external" monitor. Buy additional fans for the inside of your case. You should also follow seby's suggestion and remove all peripherals and PCI cards from the system, except the video card. If that doesn't resolve the problem temporarily, then it's probably a power supply, memory, or overheating problem. I suggest finding a better way to cool the system down first, then proceed to check the rest if that doesn't help.


~cdogg

 

[ceh4702]

Playing games at higher resolutions can make the video card overheat or have memory problems. ME is full of problems. I have it at home and it is nothing but trouble. ME often has problems whith memory leaks, often it shuts down and then cant start back up. One thing I found is that if ME crashes, boot it up, and then reboot it, to reset the memory properly. When the video card causes it to crash it doesnt boot up right on the first try. When I didn't do this it chashed sooner. This is indicative of a memory problem caused by the operating system. I found additional problems when I added a 19 inch monitor. You might try setting the card to a lower refresh rate, or to an optimal setting instead of the hardware default. Never set it higher.

I was told by my Professor at school that if you have ME it is time to upgrade to the first update pack of XP, which was just released. Microsoft should have to refund everyones money that purchase Microsoft ME! If you do not like my post feel free to point out your opinion or my errors.

 

[Cazz]

Thank you all for your swift response I will try all the above suggestions and let you know how I go.
Thanks again
Cazz