Tbird Game Crash Problems

[Mossy]

I just purchased a Tbird 1.1ghz machine about a month ago, just recently I've began playing more games then just Quake 3 and Counter Strike. The system was running rock solid stable on my MSI K7T Pro 2A board other then 2-3 crashs in CS for unknown reasons. Come to find out, the more games i tried, the more obvious the problem was. I installed Project IGI one night, I had 3 crashs in about 15 mins of play, and Diablo 2 is prolly a crash about every 15-30 minutes into playing. To define the crash, its a total lockup/freeze, I cannot alt-tab out or ctrl-alt-del, have to resort to a hardboot. I got some info from a friend who had the same problem, he said he changed his ram FSB to 100mhz instead of 133 and set ram CAS latency differently. So I went into bios to notice that my settings were 133mhz (which is fine) and set to CL3, where as I was using Crucial CL2 pc133 7.5ns ram. I changed both to AUTO, loaded up Diablo 2 and played for 3-4 hours no problems. Just today without rebooting or anything, loaded up D2 and got a crash in 15 minutes. I'm getting very disgusted with these lockups, and have heard abotu others with similiar problems. If anybody has any advice on what this could be, or if this was a problem for them, it'd be very appricated to suggestions or how to on how you've fixed yours from crashing. Thank you

- Mossy

 

[Slikkster]

I'd try running your games at CAS-2 with the PC case removed. If no crashes, I'd seriously consider getting some better cooling in there. The Orbs are good, but it might be a hot case, nonetheless. You shouldn't have to run 133mhz normal bus speed ram lower to compensate for other issues.

Run "dxdiag.exe" to make sure you have no DirectX issues. If ya do, reinstall DirectX. And get the latest video drivers, etc. You know the drill, I'm sure.

 

[qiu]

try to lower your AGP aperture size in bios, disable AGP texturing with dxdiag.exe, lower the AGP speed from 4x to 2x or increase VIO... that's about all that I can think of... (besides installing the latest Via drivers (found @ www.viahardware.com)

 

[TuOni]

I agree with slikk

 

[Mossy]

I first noticed bad flickering in Diablo 2, once i moved the CAS latency down frm 3 to 2, those went away. Regarding your alls suggestions, I currently have both the latency and bus to detect AUTO i think thats the safest way to go. Also, my aperture is currently 64 so that might be an idea, regarding the temps of the cpu and case, I typically average 113 degree cpu temperator and about 89 degree case temperature, didn't think that was too out of the norm. I installed a Sunon high output just to pump some of that hot air out in the back of the case, also have a custom mounted 40mm sunon on my kt133 chipset a blue orb on the video card, a super orb on the processor and the orginal front case fan. I have thought about cooling being an issue too, or power supply, yet the power supply was included in a AMD approved enlight 7237 and is 300W. Plus, this problem only occurs during gameing and not just anywhere out of the blue. I'm truly set on it being either a ram setting issue or a agp setting in bios as mentioned, I will try playing with that stuff some as well. Regarding drivers, I'm installed the v4.04 AGP Driver from the VIA 4 in 1 driver newest release. And I have no directX probs. I'll try messing with the aperture some. You all recommend me leaving the latency and bus speeds at AUTO? or set them to 133mhz and CL2? Thanks

- Mossy

 

[BuckNaked]

Mossy,
Are you using one stick of 256 Meg RAM or 2 sticks of 128? I had a similar problem with 2 sticks of 128 meg RAM (Crucial PC133 CAS2). I had just received a 2nd stick from Crucial to add to a stick I had ordered last year, and immediately started having crashes in CS, 3DMark 2000, and couldn't install Win2K on a second partition, to make a dual boot system. I started removing components from my system and didn't have any luck until I removed the new stick of RAM. After removing it, all was well. Called Crucial Tech support and they suggested there might be timing issues between the 2 sticks of RAM. They had the same part number, but had gone from dual sided DIMM's with 16 memory chips, to single sided DIMM's with 8 memory chips. I wish I had tested it with just the new memory, and eliminate the possibility of it just being a defective stick, but I RMA'd it before thinking to do so.

Dave