Annoyed to no end.....

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SirRial

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Ok, So important stats on my comp...

Athlon XP 2800+
Evercool Monster Cooler D9TB
Asus A7N8X deluxe
Maxtor 60gig 7200
1 gig corsair 400
Antec TruePower 550w
Sapphire Radeon 9600 256mb
3 case fans
front panel custom led lighting (5v line)

Here's the deal. I orig had other parts, and have constantly tried upgrading piece by piece to get certain games to run stable. I have the biggest problem with Enemy Territory.

CPU temp flucuates from 37c idle to 47c when gaming
Motherboard flucuates from 21c to 27c when gaming
Voltage:
12v line goes from 11.968 to 12.032
5v line goes from 4.892 to 4.945
3v line goes from 3.264 to 3.328
VCore goes from 1.664 to 1.712
(as per asus probe utility)

But no matter what I try, i'm guaranteed to lock up (vid freezes and audio plays 2 sec loop) where I either get a "send windows an error report" or I have to reboot. Othertimes, I'll play and it will just reboot on me.

I realize that I the only things I have not replaced/upgraded are my motherboard and cpu - but short of that....is there anything else someone suggests trying to sustain my gaming?

I'm just annoyed as hell. Feel like all my readings and settings are good, but still having problems.

Any help would be very much appreciated.

Reply to this post...don't e-mail....i have problems getting unknown e-mail addy's through my work's filter.

Thanks

Dave
 
heat issues in cpu or graphics card may be why itll shut down. did you use thermal paste when you put your new cpu heatsink on? that would probably fcuk you over running those temp
 
yeah have artec 3 or 5....don't remember which...on the cpu...gpu is as i got it with fan over the gpu itself....but had same problems with my old chaintech fx 5200....so not thinking its the card....
 
I have the same problem with the following games: CSS, HL2, Sim City 4, BF1942DC. I had a 9600pro, then upgraded to a 9800pro. I also upgraded my psu from 400w to 550w. We have a very similar setup. I have tried many things to solve the problem, its exactly as you described it. Some times I have the VPU error, and some times I dont but the game still crashes.

I have a few tests to determine what is causing the problem. I have a lot of hardware in my pc, using a lot of power, I am going to remove everything that is unnecessary and run the games. My second test is to try a nvidia card and see what happens. I am considering buying a msi 6600gt.

I feel the problem lies in the ati card. The 9800 and 9600 use the same chipset just as the 9700 and 9500 use the same chipset. I know a few people who have the 9700 and dont have that problem in many of the same games. So I am going to test a nvidia gforce 4 mx 420 and find out what happens.

I dont know why your voltages jump around, I have never compared mine to gaming and idle. Atleast they arent dropping when gaming.

I'll have to check that and report back.

I'll let you know if I find anything that will fix our problem.
 
Yeah if you havnt reformatted do it

Ok this sounds like an infinite loop usually caused by the graphics card as well. Had the same issues when i OC'ed a 9200SE too far
 
Yeah, actually had to reformat the other day. SP2 crashed on me. A friend suggested it was because of a conflict between my nforce drivers and the ati card drivers - regardless, I reformatted. Games still crash.

As far as the power changes, I really just think its a combo of my front panel lighting (running 4 Radio shack LEDs through some clear tubing down the sides of the front of my comp ....runs at 5v) and asus probe itself...although asus probe is prob one of the better resource monitors, there are even difference between my asus probe readings and my bios readings....

I have also tried the orig drivers that came with the card as well as ATI's upgrades. I have had the ATI catalyst control overdrive both on and off...no difference. And according to the Catalyst controls, the vid card temp is very low (almost at the bottom of the temp scale)...grrrr....annoying

I am prob going to try to add 3 new case fans (1 blowing in from side on vid card, 1 superglued to the bottom middle of the case, and cutting a hole and mounting 1 in the top of comp. Its just aggrevating. The fans on my power supply kick a$$ and get a ton of hot air out of there....but I just seem to think that its gotta be heat. Counter strike runs solid, all movies and videos run solid....it just seems to be certain games...

But I appreciate your replies... it's sparking thoughts....keep em coming...
 
Reformat? Way to many times. The last one was 25 days ago, before that at the end of january, then in the begining of december, then in october.

I like to wipe the drive to keep the install fresh.

So its not the solution to this problem.

I recenty installed two power supplys. The 550w antec powers everything in the case, I have a 400w antec that powers all my fans, and my fan bay controller. I thought maybe seperating out the fans the rest of the computer would have more power. I thought maybe the video card wasnt getting enough power. Having five hard drives and everything else. But i still get vpu crashes in game and on the desktop.

So my next step is testing my system with only the system hard drive and one optical drives. To find out if it is a situation of still not enough power. If so I could switch more devices over to the secondary psu.

Are the only people who have this problem using an ati card? Or is it also nvidia card? I have only heard the problem in ati.
 
yeah....I had the same freezing/looping audio problem on occasion with my nvidia fx5200 - so yes, it's more than just with ATI.....making me think now that it might be a problem with the board....which would really suck because the board was totally top of the line when I got it and I paid a lot of $$$ for it when i got it.

ANy thoughts>?
 
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