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Thread ID: 88796	2008-04-09 11:29:00	Video encoding and game playing issues	ryangeezer (13598)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
657338	2008-04-09 11:29:00	Greetings. I come to you with a problem that has ailed me on and off for some time now. My bane is two fold, in that it affects both PC gaming and video encoding. I bought a custom PC some two years ago now and at the time it was a decent spec - Pentium 4 3.4Ghz, 2Gb RAM, twin 128Mb graphics cards, and so on. The first annoyance is the random crashing of some PC games. Over this period I have successfully nstalled and played Sims 2, Black and White, Dreamfall..... And yet, some games, eg Jack Keane, Runaway 2 are simply incapable of running for long before my PC hangs. My second problem occurs when trying to encode video, say converting avi to wmv. Again, at a random point my PC hangs. I have used Nero and Winavi successfully at times in the past and despite installing and uninstalling codecs packs, various software, latest video drivers, I seem to be unable to pinpoint the problem. I am running twin Nvidia Geforce 6600 LEs on a Gigabyte GA-8N-SLI Pro motherboard. PLEASE HELP! Ryan	ryangeezer (13598)
657339	2008-04-09 11:44:00	If youre using XP, right mouse on my computer / advanced tab. Click on startup and recovery / settings. Untick automatically restart. When and if it crashes again, see if a bsod screen appears. (Does the game crash, or does windows crash as well)? If it does, tell us WHAT the STOP error is (if its a STOP error), and the name of the driver / file that appears on this screen (if there's a name of a file or driver). Have you scanned for malware / viruses etc recently?? Does it crash at any other time (besides what u posted). Is it fine like when you're using a browser, sending / getting email etc, normal windows stuff? You have to be careful WHAT codecs you get and WHERE you download them from. As some contain trojans. Got the name of a few of these codec packs you've installed ? PS: You can (If you use XP), go to control panel / admin tools / event viewer. On the left select either application or system. Highlight one / both of these. Go thru the list on the right, and look for any X's, !'s or bugcheck entries. See if u can see any entries at about the time it crashes, double click o it. Whats it say? Double click on it, click under the down arrow, right mouse in here and select paste	Speedy Gonzales (78)
657340	2008-04-09 21:58:00	G I bought a custom PC some two years ago now and at the time it was a decent spec - Pentium 4 3.4Ghz, 2Gb RAM, twin twin Nvidia Geforce 6600 LEs I would never call those cards decent, not for gaming. Not even 2 years ago.	pctek (84)
657341	2008-04-09 23:26:00	I'd try a memtest - both gaming and video encoding are RAM / CPU intensive but encoding doesn't usually use the graphics cards for anything. It's possible the problem occurs when RAM usage passes a certain point. That said SLI configurations can have stability issues and not all games work well with them - I think there is a way to disable SLI while playing some games. You could take one card out temporarily to see if it improves things. Myself I've always stuck with a single video card, and upgraded when it becomes too slow. Progression to date is Vodoo, Vodoo 2, TNT2, Geforce 4 Ti4200, 6600GT, 7600GT, 8800GTS (and an FX 5200 for a couple days - total rubbish). Research will tell you the most popular " bang for buck " card at the time, usually a much better solution than 2 budget cards in SLI. Currently it's the 512MB 8800GT (total overkill for your system though). IMHO a good match for your system would be something like a 7600GT or 7800GS	dugimodo (138)
657342	2008-04-10 07:26:00	Your CPU or GPU is possibly overheating, try running some benchmarking in a window while keeping open some motherboard monitoring tools (EVEREST Ultimate has a free Trial period) and see how hot your Motherboard / CPU and Graphics Card get. If either gets over 60-ish degrees (65 maybe? 70 even on some systems) it'll quite possibly just restart or hang, in order to prevent itself from *completely* cooking. I would guess its your CPU because its also affected by encoding, which is a CPU-only task generally for 99% of the population, so you could always just try that.. set 3-4 large files to encode a few times over and watch your CPU temp rise and eventually hang the PC. Then you know you need to possibly replace the heatsink / fan, and get some decent thermal paste too :) Hope this helps, and welcome to PF1 Cheers Chill.	Chilling_Silence (9)
657343	2008-04-10 07:44:00	you call 70 hot??? my GPU goes up to 85 degrees sometimes! But only when its a dx 10 game. When its idle its 60 degrees. My CPU never goes beyond 49 degrees	SPARTAN 860 (2618)
657344	2008-04-10 10:25:00	Haha, no matter which way you dice it 85 is HOT. It was a ballpark figure, my old P4 Laptop died as soon as it hit 61 degrees, my EeePC on the other hand has gone to 65 and still been fine. All Im saying is its worth monitoring for this new PF1'er ;)	Chilling_Silence (9)
657345	2008-04-20 00:06:00	Hi all. Apologies for not posting a reply sooner. Just wanted to say a big thanks for all your posts. It was really great to get so many suggestions so quickly and you all sounded like a bunch of really knowledgeable guys. My video encoding seems to be working for now. I uninstalled all codecs packs and am just using WINAVI and it's codec pack, which is fine. Installed the Everest software and monitored my machine while encoding. The temperatures went up, but no more than 57 for the CPU and 68 for the GPUs. I also did a memory test and no problems there. As for the gaming issue, I think I'm going to take dugimodo's advice and upgrade my two cards for a single more powerful card. Thanks again for your help and advice and I'm sure I'll be back soon	ryangeezer (13598)
657346	2008-04-21 07:46:00	I'd try a memtest - both gaming and video encoding are RAM / CPU intensive but encoding doesn't usually use the graphics cards for anything. It's possible the problem occurs when RAM usage passes a certain point. That said SLI configurations can have stability issues and not all games work well with them - I think there is a way to disable SLI while playing some games. You could take one card out temporarily to see if it improves things. Myself I've always stuck with a single video card, and upgraded when it becomes too slow. Progression to date is Vodoo, Vodoo 2, TNT2, Geforce 4 Ti4200, 6600GT, 7600GT, 8800GTS (and an FX 5200 for a couple days - total rubbish). Research will tell you the most popular " bang for buck " card at the time, usually a much better solution than 2 budget cards in SLI. Currently it's the 512MB 8800GT (total overkill for your system though). IMHO a good match for your system would be something like a 7600GT or 7800GS Hey there. In reference to dugimodo's suggestion of a 7800gs card, from what I can see it's an AGP card. How do I know if my motherboard (GA-8N-SLI Pro) is AGP compatible?	ryangeezer (13598)
657347	2008-04-21 08:33:00	Hey there. In reference to dugimodo's suggestion of a 7800gs card, from what I can see it's an AGP card. How do I know if my motherboard (GA-8N-SLI Pro) is AGP compatible? 1. Have a look in your motherboard manual. 2. Take the side cover off your computer case and see if AGP or Pcie is wrtten on the motherboard next to were the graphics card slot is. 3. Download pcmark 06 it will tell you what your system specs are and you can benchmark your computer and see were its at compared to other computers and help you decide what to buy for an upgrade/new pc. I think if you have two graphic cards in SLI then you would have a pcie system. A 8800GT 512mb would rock your socks off!!!:clap:banana:thumbs: Check out www.pricespy.co.nz for prices on computer parts.	memphis (2869)
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