What could this be?

[Rick Moranis]

Just as a vague question:

If I am running a 3d app like:
America's Army
BridgeIt
JFK Reloaded
Jedi Outcast
and I hit the keyboard and it crashes, what on earth could be going on?

It used to happen frequently until I replaced my motherboard. The problem stopped. And now it's happening again. To add confusion to this, I find that it happens MOST days - but on some days, it will work perfectly. And note, that if I do not touch the keyboard on a 'bad' day, then everything works fine.

No one I have ever spoken to has the slightest clue as to what is going on. I've often speculated that it might be the video card, but the last person I spoke to reckons it is the motherboard. I am almost certain that I have installed nothing peculiar that might have caused this odd situation.

Most of all the thing that annoys me that it isn't every day that this happens. There are rare days when 3d apps will run perfectly. No combination of settings, no amount of restarting and no 'safe mode' seems to make things run normally on a 'bad' day. I simply have to go to bed and see if it's better in the morning.

I can post the technical specs of my machine (and probably find out the brand of motherboard) if anyone thinks it will help (never has before).

Could this be something mundane, like a dodgy keyboard? I really am desperate for a solution, as this has been happening on and off for 3 years and even replacing hardware hasn't offered a permanent solution.

Thanks in advance.

 

[d_source]

Maybe its overheating, too many apps open or ur cpu is running very hard and crashes b/c of that. What kind of crash is it, what happens exactly? I used to have a problem when running Word + Wordperfect at the same time. My computer would just crash after a little while of use, then it would reboot and id start working again then again it would do it. The problem was that i had a faulty power supply and therefore the system was overheating and to protect itslef from such high temps, it would crash and reboot.

 

[ShoobieRat]

Sounds like either your graphics card can't handle the video mode you have set in the game, drivers, or your directX isn't up to date.

Check those first.

 

[Rick Moranis]

Well I've tried updating DirectX before. And the crashes continue no matter what the settings are. (The video card is a Winfast A340 so it should be able to handle a fair bit of punishment anyway).

I am inclined to think that it might be overheating because of the intermittent nature of the problem. Should I try leaving the case open?

 

[sPlAtOiD]

When you put in the new motherboard did you format and reinstall your windows or whatever OS you use or just plug in the old drive.Id reformat and reinstall before i did anything else. you say 3 years so you probably did a reinstall what hardware did you replace.

 

[Rick Moranis]

Well - there's been one time I've reformatted. But actually what I've been doing more often that not is using a new drive for C every now and then (taking the old C drive and using it as another drive like D or whatever).

Originally, I got a new videocard which simply refused to work out. We took this and put it in my brothers computer and it worked fine. So then we dumped our old motherboard and stuck a new one in. Works fine - and I don't think we reformatted, so there were no software changes that I can recall.

Things were peachy for a few months. However, I hadn't installed anything new around the time of the problem resurfacing. No one seems able to figure out exactly what the problem is - so I am hoping it's something silly and small. Like maybe something is jiggled out of place, or one of my nostril hairs has been sucked up into the machinery... anything. Just as long as it isn't expensive.

 

[trey]

did u replace ur keyboard? Maybe thats a posibility

 

[Rick Moranis]

Well this is one thing I am not sure of. The keyboard has been with me for a few years, but whether or not this coincided with the machine acting up, I've no idea. And the fact remains that the keyboard was the same when the new motherboard was installed and the problem gone.

Still. Wouldn't hurt to try a new one eh?

 

[Therock]

I'd go with overheating beacuse I've had a very similar problem recently. Had my case opened and everything worked perfectly so I decided to buy another fan.

 

[Codeine]

Rick Moranis, i dont think it has anything to do with your keyboard. If a keyboard is bunk, it will simply not work. I never heard of a keyboard crashing a system. But what would help alot is if you told us what kind of computer you have. Another thing would be what are your computer specs.

Such as Video Card/Processor/RAM/Mobo. That would help alot. Without knowing what kind of system you have, it would be pretty hard to figure out what may be the problem. But im guessing its your Video Card, and RAM, maybe even your processor. Im going with out-dated hardware.