23 replies to this topic

[Temper]

Hey guys!

I came across this forum while browsing around and figured it would be a perfect place to ask..

I have been having a lot of crashes lately while gaming, and I've gone through all of my drivers
and updated them, tried tweaking my vid card this way and that, and nothing seems to really
help. So I am starting to think that maybe my current install of OS has something to do with it.
Anyway, I am currently running WinXP 32bit, but I have a 64bit processor. Is XP64 better
for performance in games with my hardware profile? Or should I stick with 32bit?
I tried Vista64 for a few days before it sputtered and died and I had to reformat and go back to
XP.

System specs are:

CPU: AMD Athlon™ 64 FX-62 Dual Core Processor, 2.8GHz
Mobo: Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe
Ram: 2x Corsaire XMS2 PC6400 1gb sticks
Video: NVIDIA GeForce 7950 GX2
HDs: 2x 250 GB SATA + 1x 750GB SATA

If anyone needs any other info please ask, I am getting really sick of crashing every time I get
into a good game. It's very frustrating .

Pre-thanks for any help and/or info. Cheers!

[m.oreilly]

what type of optical drive(s) do you have (sata/ata)? psu? the crashes could be caused by any number of things. xp x64bit is also based on the server '03 core, so it is a fair bit more secure, and handles memory differently. i believe it is much more stable than 32bit xp (i have used it since the early beta days), so you might want to give it a try. what error messages, if any, do you get at the time of the crashes?

[David_Heavey]

To follow on from Mo's questions, what games crash? All or just a select few? List the ones that crash.

Quote

Is XP64 better for performance in games with my hardware profile?

Short answer .. no. Unless of course the game runs in 64bit but only a select few do. However, if you have a copy of x64 handy I would hole heartedly recommend you giving it a try. It's friggin awesome.

[Temper]

Hey guys, yeah I just installed x64 to give it a whirl..

To answer your questions the crashes are all very uniform and happen in pretty much every game I try save a very select few. In the past I've been able to improve stability by reducing graphics quality, but sometimes even that doesn't do it. The crashes are usually either a straight crash to desktop with a "Send or do not send error?" box, or a reboot. The reboot itself is a little troubling because most of the time it causes my bios to start up weird or have its settings reset, and I have to reboot several times before the damn thing decides to actually boot properly.
As for the games being played, ummm.. most recently NFS Pro Street, sometimes in Supreme Commander, World in Conflict, Bioshock. Pretty much anything that seems to be shader and physics rich causes a crash.

My HDs are Western Digital Caviar 250 GB, 7200 RPM x2, and 1 Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 750GB 7200rpm.
CD/DVD are 1 NEC ND-3550A Dual Layer DVDRW, and 1 crappy Lite-On SHD-16P1S DVDrom.

PSU is a Thermaltake Toughpower 700W.

Anyway, hope that helps a bit more. I'm going to start reinstalling apps on this here x64 xp install to see how things run.

Thanks again

Edited by Temper, 23 November 2007 - 01:20 AM.

[m.oreilly]

good luck i'd try just the basic app installs and then try a game or two to check things out. the bios thing sounds weird. are your gpu and cpu/mem @ stock settings in their respective bios? has the bios/windows clock fluctuated at all? it could even be a heat issue...keep us posted, i'd like to know what's going on. can you post a screenie of your startup items?

[chriso_86]

You might want to try running memtest, cause your memory could be going bad which could explain why it only crashes in games which is when you are using all of your memory.

[Temper]

scaramonga, on Nov 22 2007, 09:47 PM, said:

Shocking! Your not giving the darned thing a chance!

Oh man, that WAS its chance. It was running clean and fine until I decided to install Nero and poof, out of nowhere PC won't boot. So I just went back to safe ol xp.

Bleh.. I just reinstalled NFS Pro Street and I'm still getting a reboot crash, seems less harsh this time though.

And yeah I'm gonna check out a memchecker, that might be a problem. A while ago I switched both dimms to different slots on my Mobo and that sort of helped.

This has been going on for so long and so frequently that I really don't even know where the problem is occuring =\. It doesn't seem to be a heat or power issue because I've monitored both and didn't notice anything bad. I'm starting to wonder if it's just a borked piece of hardware messing with my system that I'll never know about. :\

@m.oreilly

A screenie of what? my processes on bootup? Like from task manager? And yeah everything is at stock speeds, I don't OC. I even tried UCing the gpu and memory on my vid card but that didn't do much..

Other than that one crash in NFS so far so good in x64, it's gonna be a long night

PS. gonna try flashing my bios, maybe it's that...

Edited by Temper, 23 November 2007 - 03:04 AM.

[Temper]

scaramonga, on Nov 22 2007, 10:45 PM, said:

It's a standing joke here LOL.....how I just LUV Vista
System overclocked by any chance?

Nvidia driver version?

Lol yeah I kinda figured. My buddy gave me this pep talk about him running it and his PC being fine etc so I gave it
a shot despite the fact that I -knew- it would crash and burn.. so at least I got to say "I told you so" .

All drivers for all devices are up to date. Not running any older versions or beta versions. And nothing is OCed.

MemTest showed no errors, and I tried flashing my BIOS to two newer versions but my PC would reboot right at
the WinXP splash screen after both flash updates. So I went back to oldest version :\.

Feh, well I'm running out of ideas...

Edited by Temper, 23 November 2007 - 05:35 AM.

[m.oreilly]

what controller(s) are the hdds running on? the splash screen thingy sounds like either a driver/gpu/mem or a psu issue: this drove me nuts, but my wife's rig had similar probs, and it turned out the psu was going out. daughter had a similar issue, and turned out the gpu was going south. the reason i asked re: startup, is sometimes emulation apps can reek havoc, likewise funky crap in the guise of legit stuff...

[Temper]

m.oreilly, on Nov 23 2007, 01:34 AM, said:

what controller(s) are the hdds running on? the splash screen thingy sounds like either a driver/gpu/mem or a psu issue: this drove me nuts, but my wife's rig had similar probs, and it turned out the psu was going out. daughter had a similar issue, and turned out the gpu was going south. the reason i asked re: startup, is sometimes emulation apps can reek havoc, likewise funky crap in the guise of legit stuff...

They're just on regular SATA right now, originally I wanted to RAID the two 250s but this is the first PC I've built since P3s and a lot of this stuff is new to me, so I gave up hehehe. This is a fresh format now so startup is clean.

And yeah, all of my troubleshooting has lead me to believe that it's my vid card memory or power supply, guess I'll just keep sleuthing.

Edited by Temper, 23 November 2007 - 08:00 AM.

[Temper]

Final update I think, thanks for all the help and suggestions guys.

XP 64 is running surprisingly stable and smooth, so I'm gonna stick with it. I haven't crashed once since that first time.

Hooray!

Thanks again, peace!

[m.oreilly]

well heck, i wonder what was ailing ya...? glad to hear you're stable