argh! weird problem, please help....

[theMan]

i was playing need for speed most wanted yesterday, and suddenly, the screen just goes black, then the LED on the monitor goes from green to orange - no signal. i press the restart button, and everthing boots up fine, i try to go back into the game, but the same thing happens, while in the menu, before i even started playing. its done the same thing 4 times now. i have scanned for spyware/viruses, reinstalled nvidia drivers, im using 81.85 right now. i guess i can try 81.95, but, i dont really think thats the problem. i also, reinstalled my chipset drivers. im priming now, and then im gonna try memtest. i just dont know what could have happened. specs are in sig.

UPDATE:

1. no viruses (at least not according to Kaspersy)
2. no spyware, scanned with spysweeper, adaware, spybot
3. S&M stable fore 16 hours, prime stable for 12
4. memtest stable for 14 hours
5. temperatures are fine
6. problem occurs with: Need for Speed Most Wanted, FEAR, Half Life 2, Aquamark 3
7. Doesnt happen with Age of Empires 3. Why????????????????????
8. overclock is back at stock, still stable with all torture tests
9. it occurs at the same point in each game, even if i let the videos at the beginning play through, it happens at the same point.
10. it must be crashing when some process opens or initializes or something, i dont really know anything about this kind of thing

please help me...... must play games......ahhhhhh......

 

[eXx08]

Sounds like the game is causing a weird signal to shut off the video.

 

[theMan]

how? whats going on, is it a software problem?

 

[Trey22]

Have you tried running another game?

Check the game's site for patches?

 

[theMan]

ok, update: i just installed FEAR, and started a game, it was loading, but then the same thing happened. wtf is going on?

oh yeah, and the games have the latest patches, but it wasnt that patches that caused this problem. i had the patches before this started.

prime and memtest passed.

i just cant think of anything.

 

[MrMilney]

It's possible that your video card is giving up the ghost. Do you have access to another card to test the system with? I had a bad GeForce 4 a while back that would do something similar whenever I ran the aquarium screen saver or any program that pushed the card.

 

[theMan]

no, i dont have another card. the strange thing is, it doesnt seem to be a time thing. i loaded up nfsmw and instead of skipping through the videos at the beginning, i let them run through. then, i let it sit at the "click to start" screen for a while. then, i went to the menu, and 10 seconds later it crashed. always in that same place. i just dont get it.

 

[GamerExpress]

Wow that sucks, that card shouldn't have a problem. I would try to make sure that all the latest drivers for the card are installed.

 

[zagood]

Undo ALL overclocking you have on your system, video, CPU, memory timings, then try again. If you've flashed your vid card bios, flash it back to the original. If you want to find out exactly what it is, try it one piece at a time (vid card first, then memory, then CPU.)

The only time I've had that specific problem is when I've overclocked too much.

If that solves it, then you're gonna have to go back and start all your OC's from scratch.

-z

 

[theMan]

yep, i have nvidia 71.95 drivers. could it have to do with any other drivers?

 

[eXx08]

Did it work before? Is it possible you installed something just recently you bought or downloaded bad? If you havn't bought or DLoaded anything recently I would either talk to XFX and see if your warranty still covers that.

 

[theMan]

well, i just installed my new corsair VS 2 weeks ago, and it was fine up until yesterday. i download stuff all the time, so that could be it. i dont think i installed anything recently. im gonna try reinstalling chipset drivers, virus scanning again.

also, weird other thing: i tried to go to event viewer, but when i click on it, theres an error that says "something.exe has generated errors, and will be closed by Windows"

weird.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: theman
well, i just installed my new corsair VS 2 weeks ago, and it was fine up until yesterday. i download stuff all the time, so that could be it. i dont think i installed anything recently. im gonna try reinstalling chipset drivers, virus scanning again.

also, weird other thing: i tried to go to event viewer, but when i click on it, theres an error that says "something.exe has generated errors, and will be closed by Windows"

weird.

Let's see... you installed new RAM, now you're getting flaky behavior from programs and random crashes. Sounds a little suspicious to me.

Did you run memtest (set to full tests, let it run for 2-3 passes overnight)? Can you pass Prime95's torture tests for 12+ hours?

 

[theMan]

yes. i passed memtest overnight, no errors. i ran the longest S&m test twice, and primed for 8hrs. and, the problem didnt start until a while after i installed the ram. i had been playing the game non stop for 2 weeks.

 

[L00PY]

One way to rule out the RAM is to put it back the way it was before you upgraded. If not memory problems, double check your temps and kill those dust bunnies. High temps + dust have killed many a computer.

 

[theMan]

well, i already sold my old ram, so thats not an option, but it passed 14 hours of memetest, id say thats pretty solid. my temps are fine: 29c idle, 44c load on cpu, and 45c idle 65c load on VC.

 

[zagood]

Take your overclock back to stock yet?

-z

 

[theMan]

ok, overclock is back to stock, all clean drivers, scanned for everything, everything is stable. what gives?

 

[theMan]

C'MON! Somebody here has to be able to figure this out! its driving me crazy. ive never seen anything like this. i ran dxdiag tests, everything fine there. does anybody know whats going on?

 

[zagood]

"everything is stable" does that mean that you're not getting the same errors anymore?

-z

 

[theMan]

no, stable it means it passes memtest with no errors for 15+ hours, runs the highest s&m torture test overnight with no errors, runs prime95 torture all night with no errors. i am just so confused here. it seems like some sort of windows thing?

i can run age of empires 3. seems to work. at least ive got something to play...

it does the same thing after 10 seconds of aquamark 3.

is there any reason why AoE3 works, and not the other programs?

 

[pkrush]

Could be that your power supply is going bad. Pick one up at Best Buy, see if it solves the problem, if not, just return it.

 

[theMan]

yeah, that is a possibilityim considering, but, why would it run aoe3? its just as taxing on the system as the other games, isnt it? also, dont you think the system would have crashed during torture tests if the psu is bad?

 

[V00D00]

Sounds like a bad video card to me. The card is probably starting to access certain features that only games utilize and those parts are malfunctioning, causing the video to crash.

RMA it or get a new card, I bet you that'll solve your problems.

 

[theMan]

wow, this is really unfortunate. i really cant lose this computer for very long, does anybody know how long XFX rma'ing takes?

is there any programs that can test my video card? what things do fear, nfs, and aquamark use that aoe3 doesnt? is it like an error in some software thing, or in windows?