Desperate for Lockup help and New Computer?

[guttboy]

Hi Guys,

Here is my dilemna....I have a Sony Vaio PCV-R528S Pentium 3 500 mhz machine that has recently decided to constantly lock up on Aces High.

Here is what I have done.

Reformatted.  Reinstalled all cards, RAM, etc.  I have swapped the RAM out from 128, to 256, to 384.  I have reinstalled AH Patch 7.  I have gone back to AH patch 6.  I have an Nvidia Geforce 2 MX/MX 400 with 64 meg ram on it.  I have gone with both the 23.11 newest drivers and used the original ones as well.

You name it I have done it.  I am running 93% resources and only running AH.  I have clicked the hardware accelleration down one click and still have problems.

Sometimes I lock totally and have to reboot the system via the power cord.  Other times it gets the red screen and i can still alt tab and even after a bit take off again but its effectively frozen in time.

Please help.  I am at a loss here.  I have been talking with Matthew at HTC and he is convinced its a hardware problem.  What could be wrong?  My laptop runs this fine.  This desktop ran this game tremendously until 3 weeks ago.

With that being said...I am an AH addict (ex air warrior addict) and USAF Flyer.  I really enjoy the game and thats why i got the laptop.  I am willing to give anyone a call on my dime that can help on the issue.

Also, do you have any reccommendations for a computer under 1000 or around there that I can play AH on?  I was considering a Dell....i just got a new monitor 19" so I dont need that.  I will connect via cable modem.  I am used to playing in 1024x768 with frame rates from 30 something to high 40's.  Any improvements from there would be amazing and preferred.  PLEASE HELP.

You can email me at home at shadow17th@aol.com or guttboy@aol.com.  Please help...I am desperate and really need to get back up in the air.

Thanks a million in advance.

TG12
TIGER Squadron Deputy Commander

PS  AH is the only program I am running on the machine.  No anti virus, firewall, etc right now.

[guttboy]

Hi Guys

I have attached the MSINFO32 information...

Called TG12info


Hope you can help.


Mike

TG12
TIGER Squadron Deputy Commander

Sorry just tried to zip the file but its just a bit too big for an attachment here.  Let me know and ill email it to you all.

Mike

[mrsid2]

You didn't mention anything about directx, which version did you install?

I'd try switching another memory sticks and display card. Try putting your ram sticks in the machine one by one (not two at the same time) or borrow a stick from a friend. If AH starts working, you have bad ram.

[guttboy]

I have installed the sticks one at a time and in every possible combination.  As for Direct X...I am running 8.1 and DXDIAG comes back with everything normal.

Now with that being said the computer now randomly just locks all together like what was happening in AH.

I am looking at buying a new computer now any suggestions....was looking at Dell because I own a laptop of theirs and like it.

THis will be used for almost soley gaming and I want to keep the price under 1200 bucks....any suggestions.  Was not blown away by the microplus link sent from another poster.

Also what is RAMBUS, DDR, SDR, etc for ram?

If anyone can help me get a good system that will have good frame rates 40+ consistently in 1024x768 I would be much obliged.

Thanks in advance.


TG12
TIGER Squadron Deputy Commander

[bockko]

WELLLLL..it does sound hardware related..did you run a surfscan on your hard drive? Do you have good case cooling? nyway, for best frame rate in 32 bit you need a really good video card (geforece 3, stay away from the mx cards), a fast cpu with fast bus speeds (p4, like the ddr memory or the rdram). Watch lower end computers, they tend to throw in cheap video cards or run old motherboards. here is a 1k system that looks pretty good, the company is a good company:
http://www.buyabs.com/systems/performance3new.asp

the performance 3 system with the geforce 3 vid card should kick some serious butt..you could run the cpu speed up and still be in your price range. I just got a 1.8 system [free from work hehe] and it came with the geforce 2 mx card. The thing ran fine in 16 bit mode, but in 32 bit color frame rates occasionally slowed to a noticeable degree. I just put the geforce 3 ti200 card in (visiontek) and it runs 32 bit mode fine accross the board. Well, good luck. Whatever you do, stay away from the celerons and durons...i say use intel, most stable proc's out there.

I had a friend buy from abs, their service was good, they even swapped him a new pc after he toasted the software by installing several anti virus programs, 'dueling antivirus' rofl. Anyway, the company has a great reputation, good prices.

bockk

[SKurj]

Yeah check temperatures

does it lock in any other games?

do u have another power supply you could try?

You could try going into the BIOS and increasing the voltage a TINY bit (.05 volts at a time!)

TG there are many threads about hardware suggestions, most will agree .. do not buy proprietary (Dell, sony, Compaq, HP etc etc)

For Aces High, MX cards are fine despite what bockko said.  AH doesn't use any of the new features available on the latest cards, and MX's are still fast.
a GF4 MX will save you alot of money if you only play Aces.

Personally if I was you, I would visit a local small computer shop and have them custom build you JUST a tower.  You can scavenge parts off your old system, like your monitor for example saving you even more money.

For $1200 without a monitor and including a GF4 MX vid card, you can likely buy something along the lines of an AMD XP 1800+

I run a duron right now, and have no probs with it whatsoever, but with $1200 you have no need to look at celerons or durons.
If you play first person shooters or must have the best eye candy you can obviously spend $300 or more on a video card, but for AH a $129 GF4 MX will do.

  I recommend the latest AMD processors.  I used to agree with bockko.. that was years ago.  Intel luvers are steadily becoming a minority I think +)

SKurj

[Creamo]

TEMP. That is the main cause, unless a soundcard driver/ irq conflict, although that would be prominant in other games. I remember on a old TNT2, I had to glue on a fan to the video card.

The other biggy is power supply. I had just built a mean bellybutton system, and after moving all a sudden had lockups with a audible noise.

The power cable to the MB was loose. Clipped it in the clip (no wonder they have those) goodness was achieved.

edit- Oh, and my ex-roommate at Cheap Fast Computer can build you a AH smokin machine for under $700, more like $600 I think. Course you can have anyone do it for a grand, this guy is really good on building cheap fast gaming machines.

Email him if you need advise at least.