hosting arenas crashes to blue screen

[N1kPaz]

well....it seems i am the ONLY person who has this problem. If I were a paranoid fella I would think . . . oh nevermind . . . something like this was bound to happen eventually.

[Aurelius]

What is the error message on the blue screen?

[N1kPaz]

Well... i was able to host for quite some time yesterday. I left the machine on all night and upon wakening was greeted by the now infamous "blue screen of death" Normally I get a message saying that irq_less_than_or_equal and then it gives the name of the video card driver. This time, it said my video driver had entered an endless loop.

Ive tried using only microsoft signed drivers, ive tried the detonator drivers (several versions and even the beta's) and I even pulled this video card out (nvidia vanta clone) and used the onboard 810 video card. I still have the problem with the onboard video. Thing is...I dont even have to be playing aces for it to happen, i can be out on the desktop doing other things and it can still occur. (aces is running in background then)

I never had this dag blasted trouble until I switched to windows XP pro.

The thing that blows my mind is that the trouble occurs almost immediately when I use the Mindanao terrain. All I have to do with it is alt-tab to the desktop and then upon returning to aces I get a blue screen of death. If I just let it sit and run with mindanao as the selected terrain, and I dont alt-tab, it still occurs in less that 5 minutes with that terrain. The only success I have is with the very small terrains which have what I think are the default textures.

I wish I could explain this better. Here is what I am running:

Celeron 633 (emachine junk with a cognac motherboard)
128 mb ram
nvidia vanta video card (16mb)
windows xp pro

prolly not much help, but i figured i would include it anyway.

thanks.

[N1kPaz]

is there anybody out there???????

[N1kPaz]

Aurelius please help me...if you can. I realize you have limited info to go on, but even a few educated guesses would be helpful.

thanks

zap aka rob

[N1kPaz]

HELP!!!!!

[N1kPaz]

I will keep trying different stuff.

[Roscoroo]

I think that youve got them stumped Zappers, The only thing I can think of  is its because your running XP ...with 128mb of ram .
and for some reason it may be fulling up your machine , causing your imfamous Blue Screem of death !

I get  the boot to the desk top now and them but i dont ever get the blue screen .and the now famous "Crash or get killed while on VC and my sound card locks Death " Alias "VC Death"

you know ive givin ya lots of ideas but im getting stumped here .

 finally beat your head on desk idea ... try to shut down all the extra things that XP has running (its firewall/anti v/what ever esle u dont need thingy's )  
And check your video drivers to beshure there currect and up to date.
adding another 128 or 256 ram chip wouldnt hurt either.
or perhaps something is failing /trying to fail in your pc (are you getting any weird beep codes when it reboots ???
And i know that youve done the reload of the game....

last resort get rid of XP go back to 98se .

i have played  on my pent 3, 511 w 128 ram GF2   win XP
i never host with it.... 56k connect
but ive never had this problem .

Well my grey matter is all dried up .... here is my last idea...

[Aurelius]

sorry about the delay..

 Try and set your video settings in windows to a lower setting. 16 bit at 640x480 and set the video settings in Aces high the exact same way.  Do take out all other running programs that are in your system tray. Do you have other devices installed in the computer? You may try moving your video card to another slot.

[steely07]

Do start/run/msconfig and goto the startup tab and disable "nvidia driver helper",lemme know how ya go Zap

[Roscoroo]

i think this is getting down to the fact that "win XP " is giving ur pc a headache , and it just isnt supporting ur video card / combination correctly ... like it does to alot of machines .

(Zappers if you need a custom burn of 98...give me a yell )

[N1kPaz]

tried switching to 640x480 16bit same problem. tried with all available resolutions same problem. even 32bit color depth.

tried your suggestion steely....same problem....

I think i am going to take my AK and blast this PC into bits. I know it wont solve the problem, but it will force me into buying another computer.

[N1kPaz]

i dont really have an AK...but I feel cool when I say I do...