Game freezes (long read!)

Skrizin

Solid State Member
Messages
7
So I'm not really sure what this would fall under, but I am in need of assistance.


So in early 2010 my dad passed down his computer to me (he built it - it was about 5 months old at the time). At first I put in my own video card (it was better), and every game ran perfectly. A few months later I started having some trouble with World of Warcraft. Upon inspecting it, we replaced the motherboard and everything was good. Mid 2010 my computer starts acting very unusual. During games, ANY game I played occasionally I'd have graphical errors. Sometimes my screen would go black, and then it would go back to normal. I'd get a pop up bubble something along the lines of "Your Nvidia card has crashed and repaired itself" etc etc.

So after talking with a Frys Electronic guy (who apparently didn't know ****). I replaced my video card, much to my surprise same thing was happening. I replaced the video card twice, even tried new ones over the course of the next year. No avail. Well around the end of 2011 I expanded my horizons, I play a lot more games now. The problem is out of all the games I play, only World of Warcraft works normally. Every other game is a disaster. They all freeze. So let's take League of Legends for example. I can play about 2-3 games before my computer will freeze mid-game. And that is this way with every game I play. Now I have some money, so I want to fix this problem. I can't stand not being able to play my games. I've done research, and talked with a lot of people. None of them seem to give to much advice. I've been informed it could be my Motherboard, and that's really the only thing I've been told. It can't be the video card, at this point I've gone through 5 video cards (3 different ones).

Could the motherboard be causing this? If not, do you guys have any idea? Maybe some help on how to be sure it's the motherboard?

Yes, I play every game on the lowest possible settings. Anything above lower and the game will freeze within 30 minutes of playtime.

Games it freezes during: (Portal, Diablo 2, Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, League of Legends, DoTA, The Sims) those are just some. Doesn't matter if it's games from the 90s.


Hopefully somebody can offer some feedback. I thank you all for your time.


-Skrizin
 
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Do you know what's in the computer for hardware? As much specs as possible would be helpful and also any history about what brand graphics cards you went through over this time and anything concerning graphics card driver installation. It could be just your computer's memory (RAM) as well.
 
Sure.

I'll just copy info from the "properties" panel. I don't really know what specific specs to post. I'm not to savy on basic computer things so heres some specs:

Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q9550
Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570

As for previous video cards I don't remember. I believe I have a GTX 480 before getting the 570.

Can you expand on it being the RAM?
 
First google search "speccy"
download and install that.
Run it and from the summary page just copy and paste what it says there into here.

As far as the ram goes, if it has errors because it is damaged, or if configured wrong it could cause the computer to lock up, especially when gaming.


Heat can be a problem too.
 
I don't think heat is really a problem.


Operating System
MS Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit SP1
CPU
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 @ 2.83GHz 64 °C
Yorkfield 45nm Technology
RAM
4.00 GB Dual-Channel DDR2 @ 399MHz (5-5-5-12)
Motherboard
ECS G31T-M (CPU 1) 30 °C
Graphics
Acer X203W (1680x1050@60Hz)
1279MB GeForce GTX 570 (ASUStek Computer Inc) 43 °C
Hard Drives
466GB Seagate ST3500418AS ATA Device (SATA) 38 °C
Optical Drives
SONY DVD RW DRU-720A ATA Device
Audio
NVIDIA High Definition Audio

thanks,
 
I don't think heat is really a problem.


Operating System
MS Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit SP1
CPU
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 @ 2.83GHz 64 °C
Yorkfield 45nm Technology
RAM
4.00 GB Dual-Channel DDR2 @ 399MHz (5-5-5-12)
Motherboard
ECS G31T-M (CPU 1) 30 °C
Graphics
Acer X203W (1680x1050@60Hz)
1279MB GeForce GTX 570 (ASUStek Computer Inc) 43 °C
Hard Drives
466GB Seagate ST3500418AS ATA Device (SATA) 38 °C
Optical Drives
SONY DVD RW DRU-720A ATA Device
Audio
NVIDIA High Definition Audio

thanks,


In speccy click on RAM on the left and then expand slot 1 tier under the "SPD" section and post those.

Also your CPU temp is pretty high for your system not doing anything at the moment.
 
Type DDR2
Size 2048 MBytes
Manufacturer Patriot Memory
Max Bandwidth PC2-6400 (400 MHz)
Part Number 8500EL Series
SPD Ext. EPP
EPP #0


Anything I can do about overheating? I had Starcraft launcher open at that time. Right now with no games open it's at 53 now.
 
Type DDR2
Size 2048 MBytes
Manufacturer Patriot Memory
Max Bandwidth PC2-6400 (400 MHz)
Part Number 8500EL Series
SPD Ext. EPP
EPP #0


Anything I can do about overheating? I had Starcraft launcher open at that time. Right now with no games open it's at 53 now.

OK, first off that ram can run at higher speed than your motherboard will allow. Your motherboard is running them at 800mhz, and you can't set it any higher because of your board limitations. This is common, however there is a big problem with you even using it.
As it turns out, I am surprised your system does as well as it has at all, from what I'm reading. Here's the rundown, your motherboard (ECS G31T-M) is not the greatest. The specifications for it are actually misleading as they claim "DDR2 800 up to 4gb". It's a bit of a play on words though, you can't have both 800mhz and 4gb w/ it and still have a stable system.
Most motherboard manufactures have a qualified vendor list of the ram it will support, and ECS does, however it is one of the most incomplete lists I have ever seen almost to the point of being useless, but it did clue me in on something. So I checked with Patriot Memory to see what they have listed for compatibility for your board, and its pretty clear to me that your not going to be able to use that ram in that configuration. The possibility of you removing 1 of the sticks and reducing the total amount to 1 x 2gb and still allowing the motherboard to run it at 800mhz is even unlikely. That board really isn't going to handle more than 2 sticks of 1gb running at 800mhz.

The gist of it is, the most you can do with you have currently is to only run 1 stick, and have it clocked at 667mhz, you could try both sticks at 667 and it may work I don't know.

Fixing this is likely beyond your comfort level, but if you want to give it a try here are your options...
1. you should go and download memtest86+, learn about it and use it to work through this problem. But even when it is verified I'm pretty positive you are just going to end up doing option 2 anyway. So you might just start here...

2. clock the sticks down to 667mhz and play your games to see if it fixes the problem. You'll be running a little slower but you might not crash during games. If that doesn't work, remove 1 stick and keep it at 667.

or you can

3. Buy a new motherboard, and if your dad still builds computers then it shouldn't be a problem to replace the one you got, except for the price and availability of the type of board you'll need to go with the rest of your parts :/
 
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So I'm not really sure what this would fall under, but I am in need of assistance.
Could the motherboard be causing this? If not, do you guys have any idea? Maybe some help on how to be sure it's the motherboard?
Games it freezes during: (Portal, Diablo 2, Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, League of Legends, DoTA, The Sims) those are just some. Doesn't matter if it's games from the 90s.
-Skrizin
First, change out your thermal grease for your cpu and try a better heatsink if you do game often
Next test your memory sticks, if they don't pass consider getting them replaced.
With that current ECS motherboard I feel kind of iffy about it, just a strong hunch that it maybe a problem soon.
If you really felt like it, why not start on a 450.00 core i3 build ?
The only thing you would need to do is sell that lga quadcore itself and that should be no problem with its current value price online.
 
Thank you both for the replies.


We read both of them, first thing we are trying to do is set the RAM speed (probably not the right word) down. Like suggest. I'll report back with what happens, and what I do next. Going to try these suggestions before I dump money into it.

I do honestly thank you for the help, and hope you will continue to check this thread if needed :eek:
 
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