Author Topic: bEAT (Read 297 times)

FOGOLD · « **on:** March 27, 2003, 03:26:11 PM »

I am now officially beat. Complete reinstall of Win XP and drivers. Only game loaded AH. No Cougar, simple Thrustmaster stick with XP drivers. Played tonight for first time. Two hard lockups in half an hour.

This has got to be a hardware problem. SO, is it RAM, mobo, CPU, Video or what!

I know its not sound. Disabled sound. Still happens. Video freezes with no corruption, I am told its unlikely to be video in that case. That kind of freeze up is a CPU/ RAM conflict somewhere.

Heater · « **Reply #1 on:** March 27, 2003, 04:56:09 PM »

FOGOLD,

What mainboard, (BIOS etc...) and what Memory (make size and which slot) I do not know if I can help you with this but will give it a shot...but I need ALL the details on the hardware and the current configuration.

FOGOLD · « **Reply #2 on:** March 27, 2003, 06:02:06 PM »

MSI K7T266 PRO2RU
1800XP
TI 500 30.82 DRIVERS
DX 8.1B
AUDIGY PLAYER
LATEST DRIVERS ALL ROUND
512 DDR ( 2 x Crucial PC2100 256 MB exactly the same ram)
COOLERMASTER ALUMINIUM CASE 2 CASE FANS
NETWORK CARD. No sharing irq's except USB controllers, which is the same as when the system worked fine.

Completely clean install of windows this week, I honestly thought that would fix it as that is the classic cure.

When machine was 3 mths old it refused to boot. Bad stick of ram. I am wondering about the slot.

Temp cpu 45o C

Machine is 16 months old

not overclocked

Pulled a stick of ram out tonight and it ran ok

put the ram back in the 3rd slot (skipped a slot). Havn't run it long enough to know. With 256meg of ram I played AH for an hour.

But I ve been here before thinking "that's it" only to lock up again the next night.

I am very close to ditching this mobo/ram/cpu combo cos this is like a living hell. I've beem troubleshooting this for months now.

Heater · « **Reply #3 on:** March 28, 2003, 05:01:59 AM »

FOGOLD,

been doing a bit of research and it's turned up a few things with lock-up, most have been related to the VIA chip set (No surprise there) but a few have been related to memory timing. the only way to locate the cause is to hook the system up to a logic unit and run the full check. Try running with a single DIMM in installed and see what happens...also check the interleave in bios for the memory. and just to make sure you have the latest VIA 4 in 1 Drivers

Hope this helps

Cheers

FOGOLD · « **Reply #4 on:** March 28, 2003, 05:54:09 AM »

Thanks for your input.

When I did the reinstall I put in the brand new 4 in 1s. Also last night I puleed the second ram bank and AH SEEMED to run OK for a good while.

Now I've put the ram bank back in the THIRD slot and I'll try that.
I had a bad RAM chip before like I said and I'm sure it came out of the second slot too. I returned it to Overclockers uk and they said it tested ok and sent me a new one anyway. It seemed ok after that. This makes me wonder about the No 2 slot, if it is faulty.

I have read that running CAS 2.5 at CAS 2 can help but that sounds daft to tighten memory timings if your having problems already. It's like saying " my computer crashes a lot, I think I'll overclock it"!

The BIOS is an AMI 6380. Doesn't support Th'bred cpu's under any circumstances unfortunately.

Oh yes, I tried disabling my Audigy, but it still locked.

At least I am certain it's not a Windows/Software problem. I don't think it ever was, cos I always run a clean setup, uninstall old drivers properly and don't load every demo that falls off a magazine!

FOGOLD · « **Reply #5 on:** March 28, 2003, 07:24:52 AM »

I am using a KVM switch. I doubt if that would cause lockup problems.