Games freeze after booting up for a few seconds

[kabir2]

I've been out of the technical world for about a year and a half now, but for some reason I agreed to build my friend a new computer. Anyways, after a lot of difficulty, the computer worked, or so I thought it did. Its an 64-bit 3400+ with a Soltek SL-K8AN2E-GR NFORCE3 250 RT and an ATI X800SE.

Everything works fine except for when he tries to play games. Okay, so what happens is games boot, most games he's able to start them up and maybe get to play for like 3 minutes. half life 2 doesnt even let him start to play, it frezes on the first options screen. Madden lasts like 5 minutes before freezing. But coutner strike can be played for a long time. So, I'm wondering what's going on cause I can't figure it out. We tried a higher wattage power supply and that didn't fix it. The games are booting off the hard drive, and there was no problem with the temperature of the processor. So, I have no clue what's going on there. Any advice would be appreciated.

Okay, also, he just told me that it freezes when he's burning DVDs to his hard drive sometimes. So i'm thinking the ram settings are wrong in bios. Its Patriot DDR PC3200 Ram.

 

[MisterChief]

Believe it or not, the HL-2 freezing is actually expected (happened to me the first three times, but when I restarted, it never happened again.) The problem I have with answering these questions is "if I'm not there, I can't really help." But I can try.

Are you sure you installed everything correctly? If your not sure, maybe you should bring the computer to a pro. Next, supply us with more info. What kind of RAM does he have? What OS? ETC.

 

[kabir2]

Everything is installed correctly. The parts haven't changed much in the past year and a half or so. Regardless, I'm positive everything was installed properly. I'm thinking that the ram settings in bios are screwed up. Anyways, what would be the proper settings in bios for PC3200 Ram?

 

[MisterChief]

That would depend; do you have some random, generic brand, or a name brand, such as Corsair? The timings for each set is different, but most BIOS's auto detect the RAM timings. The RAM should be running at 400 mhz. Is that AMD64 socket-754 or 939?

 

[kabir2]

Its a 754 pin. And the ram is patriot ram that was on sale at outpost in late december. Definately not the best quality, but it should still work. I use generic ram in my system for the past 2 years. I just really think the ram settings are off. I really don't think there are any other issues. Thanks for the quick replies though. I appreciate the help.