Computer Hanging

[scitz]

Currently a Warbirds player, trial testing Aces High. AH has many appealing features, so if I can resolve this problem I'll sign up! Promise! After playing online for a while (maybe 10 minutes), the game just hangs. Have to reset. I have lots of discos.

I did have one good session after I checked Wave In on Voice, but then the problem has returned and Wave In is still checked. Tried tweaking video card, lowering it's speed; upgraded my MB bios as well as chipset drivers; tried lowering AGP speed in bios; been searching for clues to this problem, tried various display resolutions and color depths, running out of ideas.

Framerates are pretty good except when close to ground watching the trees go by. I had games lock on me when overclocking/boosting the graphics chip (the ultra shipped with an extra enhanced utility to do this) but for AH, I'm running it more conservatively than I normally do.

This is what I have: Athlon 1.2GHz Thunderbird, ASUS A7V133 MB, 512 RAM, Diamond Viper V770 Ultra video card a.k.a. Nvidia TNT2, Diamond MX300 Monster Sound II audio card, Award BIOS 1005A, Win98 SE 4.10 Build 2222 , Directx 8.1 (4.08.01.0881), Via 4in1 drivers V4.37, Diamond Viper V770 4.11.01.0402 drivers.

TIA, any suggestions would be appreciated.

[Aurelius]

Hello,
 Does this happen only in our Main Arena or do you experience the same issue in all of the arenas? Also off line, see if you get the same issue there. If you are able to run offline just fine then go to http://www.pingplotter.com and download there freeware version. Install it and do a trace to tpl.hitechcreations.com Save this as an image and send it to me. If you get the same issue off line then click on start and run. Type dxdiag and click ok. Choose to save this as a txt file and send this to me. support@hitechcreations.com
Thanks

[Lephturn]

What version of the nVidia Detonators are you using?

Go to http://www.guru3d.com and find Detonator Destroyer.  Rip out your current drivers using Det Destroyer, then put in the 7.78 Detonators.  The are the ONLY stable drivers I've found for the TnT2 cards.  Anything else and you WILL have problems.  Link for drivers is in my sig.

It's worth a shot.  If that doesn't work, you need to start stepping up through WHQL certified driver versions.

[scitz]

RE: Aurelius - The hanging also occurs offline. I've e-mailed a dxdiag.txt file to you. My discos are a result of my computer hanging and needing a reset. When it hangs everything stops, no more sounds and the view out of my cockpit stops, I can't alt-tab or ctrl-alt-del out of it.

RE: Lephturn - Took your advice and add/removed the nvidia drivers, ran detonator destroyer, uninstall, reboot selected standard vga driver, restart, installed 7.78 driver --> it still hung up.

Also tried the latest nvidia drivers, that hung too...   :-(

I can try stepping through the drivers next...

Question: the FAQ mentions problems with via chipsets, which is what I have. I did the suggested upgrades to the MB bios and chipset drivers to no avail. Are there precedents of persons with my hardware having unresolvable problems? Just wondering how much more effort I should out into this.

[scitz]

Lephturn: The version of video driver I was using was the latest release from Diamond.

"This is the Diamond Viper V700 Series Windows 9x Display Drivers

version 4.11.01.0402."

[Lephturn]

Well, the 7.78's have been rock solid in my experience.  If it still hung with those, it sounds like you have a more serious problem.

Run wininfo32 and have a look at your IRQ distribution.  Lets see if you have any sharing/conflicts going on there that might be causing a problem.

[scitz]

Thanks for sticking with me on this problem, I appreciate it. Please see the attached file.

I read somewhere that the irq to be concerned about would be the video card. Mine's on 11 pretty much all by itself, sharing it only with the "ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering" which I read was ok.

[Swoop]

Scitz,

do you have another video card you can test with?

I had big problems with an Nvidea GF2 GTS card freezing on me, except the card would freeze mainly on vertical scrolling (making web browsing a right pain).  I had no clue what was causing it until I installed Windows XP, then instead of a total lock up I'd still get the freeze but then a blue screen telling me the file that had gone into an infinate loop.......the .DLL for the graphics driver (cant remeber the exact filename off hand).   Installed latest detonator drivers and no further problems.

Also had a problem with latest card (GF4 Ti4600).  Strangest thing I've ever seen, everything worked fine except AH......and only got graphics glitches when I rolled a plane......the whole cockpit would move against the background of sky.  Again, fixed by latest detonator drivers.

Swoop

[Lephturn]

Well, your Promise ATA controller is conflicting/sharing with your Network Card, but that doesn't sound like the problem here.  Everything else looks OK.  Just for a test, you could try pulling your NIC out and playing offline... but it looks like a video card issue to me.  Have you every tried to overclock that video card?

Try opening the side of your computer, and setting up a desk fan to blow in there.  If there is a heat problem, this might identify it.

Hmmmm.

Ok, have you run everything you can on Windows Update as far as patches are concerned?

Also, try going into your BIOS and looking at your AGP settings.  If you are set for AGP 4x try 2x or even 1x.  Also try setting your AGP apature size to 128.

Let me know how you make out.  Oh, and as always, only make 1 change at a time, then test it.  Otherwise you won't know what fixed it.