Jump to content

Random Freezing


Nashy

Recommended Posts

This is my seventh day of trying to isolate the problem but I dont have a clue what's going on. I bought a new pc and hitman contracts and I can't even play a dvd. I'm so gutted please help

The problem:

Firstly I noticed Hitman (the game) was crashing so I started tweaking graphics options etc in the game...but I later leaned that I couldn't play a dvd either. At some random point between 20-300 seconds into the dvd, everything freezes. I can't move the cursor or ctrl + del + alt. :) and it's so annoying.

I've done the following.

1) re-installed win xp proffesional (clean install total of four times now)

2)re-installed driver for video card (readeon 9600 256ddr)

3)re-installed driver for nvidea onbaord sound

4)re-installed game

5)re-installed power dvd 5 (software I use to run dvd's)

6)updated all drivers

7)installed patch for game

now it got nasty

8)ventured into bios and tweaked apature to 256mb

9)tweaked agp 8x speed to 4x in bios

10)disable agp fastwrite in bios

11)switched off vpu recovery in ati control panel (on desktop)

12)turned off 'sticky keys' (win xp feature)

13)turned of agp write in ati control panel (on desktop)

My computer sometimes randomly restarts for no reason or freezes even on the desktop. I searched for a virus but came up with nothing. I used 'spybot', 'the cleaner', 'pc-cillin' and links on the xp website to tackle popular virus's that were not present anyway. I suspected that my processor was too hot but bios said it was nominal and it wasn't being overclocked (amd athalon xp3200+).

As a result i decided to set default bios settings and for a whole night I could play hitman. I even watched half an hour of a dvd at 4 in the morning just to test out my new baby :D but the next day my computer wouldn't turn out without showing a black screen and a slow but repetative beep from the mother board. I phoned up pc world (of whome i didn't buy the computer off might I add), and they said the beeping might have something to do with my RAM. After resetting the cmos manually by taking out the motherboard battery etc, i loaded up xp on the default bios settings again then turned off the comp and swapped my ram chipset's around (1024MB - two chipsets). That had no effect.

I've run scandisk and disk defragmentor and this hasn't solved the prob either. I've tried 3 different video cards (old ones and new ones), 3dfx voodoo4, ati radeon 9200 and the one at present (powercolor radeon 9600 256ddr) and still no luck. btw my motherboard is asus.

I know this is a long entry but I hope someone can help me out. I've voided the warrany on my computer because I've taken the sticker off the back to open the case so I can't take the computer back now :rolleyes: but I'm hoping this is a software problem or even a minor hardware problem that can be easily solved with your guidance. I'm running out of ideas as to what this could be. I'm all ears.

Reagards

Nashy

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

Looks like you posted this a whole month ago, so I hope you found a way out of your conundrum by now. if not though, your symptoms sound a lot like a problem I was having with my radeon 8500dv awhile back. Turns out my power supply wasn't getting enough power through to my video card. Some things to try: disable dual monitor display--unplug your tv output cables. Attach a power cable directly to your video card (8500dv has this option; dunno about the 9000). And/or replace your power supply.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

I really don't know how to help you here. You said that you reinstalled Windows XP Pro. Did you format your hard drive before doing that? If not, try that.

If it still continues, try reformatting your hard drive and not installing your game. If the computer works like a charm, then it is definitely your game. I find that a lot of programs that used old Windows don't work on XP (home or pro).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

agp aperture size shouldnt be more then 64MB!

run memcheck and try another HDD if its possible

and have u tried another game?

The AGP aperature size should be twice the texture ram on the vidcard (in this case, 512 or the highest that it can be made to go.)

Turns out my power supply wasn't getting enough power through to my video card.

Now I'm just guessing, but if you have an athlon XP 3200+, 2 gigs of ram (think I read that right), and a 9600 with 256 of ddr (i.e. a pro or XT, which one I don't know, 'cause I had an SE...), then you may not be getting enough power to ANY part of your system. I had a some lights and fans and stuff, but before I upgraded from 350 to 500W PS, there really wasn't enough to power my computer. So if you have less than 400W, you may just be underpowered.

Kick a** computer though, it's just so sad :) to see a hoss like that brought to its knees...so I hope you get it up and running as the beast it is.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

agp aperture size shouldnt be more then 64MB!

run memcheck and try another HDD if its possible

and have u tried another game?

The AGP aperature size should be twice the texture ram on the vidcard (in this case, 512 or the highest that it can be made to go.)

lol no where u heard this?

yey ask ATI, optimal settings r 64MB and recommend 128MB by ATI

i think its better u try to inform wuz aperture size does mean o_O

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It really depends on where you look. The ATI forums say any combination of different things from twice to half of your video ram, to half of your system ram

set it to twice the amount of your Vram. but pretty much anything higher than 64mb won't give you any more performance boost.
This is what I generally go off of, though upon further research, I discovered the following, which seems to indicate I was wrong...sorry :) .
This BIOS feature does two things. It selects the size of the AGP aperture and it determines the size of the GART (Graphics Address Relocation Table).

The aperture is a portion of the PCI memory address range that is dedicated for use as AGP memory address space while the GART is a translation table that translates AGP memory addresses into actual memory addresses which are often fragmented. The GART allows the graphics card to see the memory region available to it as a contiguous piece of memory range.

Host cycles that hit the aperture range are forwarded to the AGP bus without need for translation. The aperture size also determines the maximum amount of system memory that can be allocated to the AGP graphics card for texture storage.

Please note that the AGP aperture is merely address space, not actual physical memory in use. Although it is very common to hear people recommending that the AGP aperture size should be half the size of system memory, that is wrong!

The requirement for AGP memory space shrinks as the graphics card's local memory increases in size. This is because the graphics card will have more local memory to dedicate to texture storage. So, if you upgrade to a graphics card with more memory, you shouldn't be "deceived" into thinking that you will need even more AGP memory! On the contrary, a smaller AGP memory space will be required.

It is recommended that you keep the AGP aperture around 64MB to 128MB in size, even if your graphics card has a lot of onboard memory. This allows flexibility in the event that you actually need extra memory for texture storage. It will also keep the GART (Graphics Address Relocation Table) within a reasonable size."

of course, with 1.5 gigs of ram, who really cares if it's set at 512 anyway...lol :rolleyes:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You mentioned that you had to remove the sticker from the back and it voided the warranty. I'm assuming you have an OEM machine. Maybe you should try calling their tech support and see if they can help you. Possibly other customers have had a similar issue. If I had to take a guess, I would also agree on the power supply theory. A flaky power supply can bring a whole system down to it's knees.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...