Power Supply or Windows Software? You decide.

Status
Not open for further replies.

BlackDogma

Solid State Member
Messages
10
So this is what's happening. If I play a game like Skyrim or GTA4, often during the loading process my computer will freeze for 2-4 seconds. 75% of the time it will continue, and I can keep playing. 25% of the time, it perma-freezes, and I have to reboot. Sometimes with Skyrim, I could use Ctrl-Alt-Del and close it. However, when I reopen it, it won't load past the intro screen.

Now here's the conditions. I've had my mobo for quite awhile, and at first I thought it might've been that, but now I'm pretty sure it's not. I switched a new Video Card and Power Supply into the computer at the same time. I also had some problems rebooting into Windows shortly after that, so now I have 2 copies of windows.

Then I considered it was the Power Supply, as my step-dad told me it was faulty before. Although I consider that could be it, it seems more like it's a software issue. Because if I'm on YouTube or something, and I cycle through videos too quickly while it's playing, my computer will completely stop everything. After I click a few times, it beeps and then freezes, and I can't move the mouse anymore.

What's your call?
 
What is your systems specs? That will give us a better idea. But, yes, the PSU is normally the culprit, not always.
 
Pretty sure everyone has run into problems of a similar nature one time or another in their past. Best way to diagnose, IMO at least, is to figure out what is not the problem first. I tend to start with testing the ram, [Memtest86] is nice and easy. Then move onto the hard drive. [HD Diagnostics] You will find a list of various hard drive diagnostic tools for the major manufacturers on this page. A list of your system specs as Mindover suggested would be quite beneficial to us as well. On a final note, you mentioned problems loading your windows partition, if you could elaborate on that it would be greatly appreciated.
- Rube​
 
CPU: AMD Phenom II BE 555 (not recognized by Mobo, had to disable DDR2 Ganging to make it work)
MOBO: MSI M2N SLI
RAM: DDR2 2x2 gig (4 gigs) Unganged
GPU: HD Radeon 6870
OS: Windows XP SP3


This problem only occurs in GTA 4 and Skyrim so far while the game is playing and backgrounds are loading. Newest version of DirectX (can only use 9), updated my GPU driver, sound card audio, mobo bios (last update was a few years ago).

I'm going to try using a different video card to see if it works then, maybe with a different PSU as well if it still fails. If it works after that, then it's probably the PSU.
 
PSU: Thermaltake Toughpower 850W 850 AP W0131RU

My motherboard has an nForce 570 SLI Chipset in it. When I used the nVidia card, no problems. Now I'm using Radeon and it glitches. Would that have an effect?

Also, the thing with Windows... it happened when I booted my comp. I had to use the Windows CD to setup my partitions again so that I could access my C drive. I don't remember what happened, but it wouldn't recognize it anymore. After I set it back up to read C drive, it had 2 Windows versions there.
 
Alright so I switched my video cards out, kept the same PSU. It still occasionally stops to load, but it never freezes. Nothing freezes anymore. So that narrows it down to either the other power socket on my PSU (since this uses one PCI-E power cable instead of 2) or the GPU.

Either the hardware or the software with the GPU, having a problem with compatibility on DirectX9 applications in Windows XP? Maybe? Or do you think the hardware itself could be a problem? I tried overclocking my GPU, as it normally runs relatively cool, and I never noticed it crashing faster or ever showing artifacts.
 
I think I've identified the problem. Because my CPU isn't being identified by the motherboard, only a single core is being used, but it's a dual-core processor. Under a lesser GPU, less information is being processed overall, and the load is easier for my CPU to handle. When I put in my Radeon, the load is higher, thus the single-core can't process all of the new information being taken in. How does that sound?

I base this on the fact that this current GPU (GeForce 8800 GTS) does display similar interruptions at the exact same times as my Radeon 6870, except it's easier to recover from. It does occasionally still freeze though, at the same areas in the game as the Radeon. The times when this happens is when many objects are being loaded in at once. Higher/Lower quality graphics settings do have an impact, but not significantly enough to suggest it's the GPU.

I've also noticed that the YouTube video error which crashes my computer eventually after repeated clicks cause beeping... can be partially replicated in Skyrim. If I click multiple times while it's loading, it beeps, but it does resume afterwards most of the time on the Geforce.

Is there any way I can get my Mobo to detect my CPU, other than a BIOS upgrade? AMD doesn't claim that this board can support this processor, but I've been running it for years without any problems, other than Ganging.
 
In BIOS, does it show that 2 cores are present? One could simply be turned off for some odd reason.

If it didn't detect the CPU, it wouldn't be running right now.

Edit: Could also be Cool N Quiet. It puts the CPU on low power if you are not using CPU intense processes.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom